Minima Gesté, drag queen, talks about the influence of the show “RuPaul’s Drag Race”

Long awaited by fans of the American version, the show “RuPaul’s Drag Race France” is broadcast on france·tv slash from Saturday June 25, the day of the LGBTI+ pride march in Paris. This is the French adaptation of the American program launched in 2009 by RuPaul, and which has lasted for fourteen seasons in the United States. Popularized around the world by Netflix, it has put a spotlight on the drag queen scene. And seduces a wide audience, both with its sewing, make-up or playback challenges, which must crown the best drag queen, as with its messages of inclusion and tolerance.

In France, there was “a before and after” the arrival of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, confides to franceinfo Minima Gesté, a performer who performs in particular during lotto evenings or blind tests. “When I started, in 2015, we were a lot in small gay bars, in the Marais district of Paris, very community places”she says. “In 2022, we feel there is an expansion to other places that previously would not have welcomed us.” One of its headquarters is now a restaurant in the Bercy business district, where both heterosexual and LGBT+ families and couples meet: “Sometimes women come to see me at the end to ask me for makeup advice.”

Originally from Toulouse, Minima Gesté is also very committed. Like her elders who, before her, advanced the rights of LGBT + people from the 1960s across the Atlantic. “For me, being drag has brought me acceptance and release.details the one who, once without her heels, becomes Arthur, an engineer by profession. “My character is what my undercover self dare not be. Drag is ‘fun’, and I love having the ‘smile’, but it’s also a reminder of important community struggles. (…) It is a voice that I manage to carry better in Minima.