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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

After They Testified: The Drag King Who Loves Performing for Kids

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Deep in the heart of Texas, they performed in drag, for kids and enthusiastic crowds. But as state legislation moved to ban drag performances, they stopped lip syncing and spoke for themself—and the queer people who depend on them at their day job.  


This is the second installment in What Next’s Pride Month series. “After They Testified” is about the Americans who’ve shown up in the last year to speak out against anti-queer legislation, how it felt to do so, and what came next.


Guest: Jay Thomas, AKA Bobby Pudrido, an Austin, Texas-based drag king and care coordinator. 


If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.


This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy’s and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The first time Jay Thomas performed in drag was just a few months back.

0:12.8

Jay lives in Austin, Texas.

0:14.7

There was this audition to be part of a local drag troupe.

0:18.5

And Jay just kind of went for it.

0:20.3

My friend told me about it and I applied the day before, like at 11, 59 pm right before

0:29.4

it was due.

0:30.6

So I only thought about it for about two weeks.

0:34.9

So it was kind of almost a lark.

0:37.3

Yeah, it was.

0:38.3

Yeah, yeah, I would say so.

0:42.3

Jay is a drag king.

0:47.8

Performs as Bobby Poudrido, which is a slide reference to this Mexican American crooner named

0:53.6

Bobby Palito.

0:55.3

The kind of singer you might hear at family cookouts.

0:58.4

I just knew him from music videos and his CD covers, which he always looked really cool

1:06.3

to me.

1:11.9

He has really cool outfits.

1:14.5

Like he has a denim and denim look.

1:17.8

Sometimes he'll wear like he always wears the button up shirts that are tucked into the

1:21.6

tight wrangler pants.

1:25.2

And every time I would see him posing, it was always him leaning against a wall or looking

1:32.6

casually into the air into nothingness.

...

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