‘Future Legends.’ Despite So-Called ‘Drag Ban,’ Texas’ Queer Showcases Are Launching Pads for Performers.

In Austin, a city with an abundance of drag shows, one monthly showcase offers a unique platform — and launch pad — for emerging talent. 

“You get to see future legends get their start, and other people just flourish and find their niche.” 

That’s how “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams,” or BTBD, was described by co-host and regular performer Reyah Sunshine at this month’s event on May 2. BTBD takes place on the first Saturday of every month at Oilcan Harry’s, Austin’s oldest gay bar, and is hosted and created by one of Austin’s most well-known drag artists. 

Brigitte Bandit became famous for her advocacy and activism, including testifying against state bills that have attempted to ban drag — and then she joined a lawsuit against one such law. However, that so-called “drag ban,” which was reinstated in November by a U.S. Court of Appeals decision, is very narrowly defined. 

Thus, there’s room for events like “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” to continue.

Rather than simply bask in her renown, Bandit uses her growing profile — including more than 82,000 followers on Instagram alone — to shine a light on up and coming drag artists. Bandit always chooses a regular, such as Sunshine, to co-host. At May’s show, there were about 30 performers, ranging from drag queens to kings and nonbinary drag ‘creatures,’ with diverse looks that included ghoulish goblins with fang-filled snouts, impeccably coiffed femme fatales, and studly cowboys in sparkly boots and fringe.  

During a phone interview before May’s show, Bandit explained that “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” began in October 2022 as a non-competitive place for new drag performers to appear before an audience. Since then, there have been more than forty monthly BTBD showcases, with guest hosts taking over when Bandit is unavailable or on vacation. 

Other open mics geared toward new performers are typically judged, with the winner receiving a small cash prize, but Bandit believed this intimidates newcomers to the stage. Instead of prizes, for “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” Bandit hires a professional photographer, who takes both portraits and performance photos of each performer. 

“Everyone walks away with something,” Bandit explained. 

Those portraits help artists get booked at other shows. In addition, since performers aren’t trying to win a prize, the show is open to a wider variety of styles and moods 

That’s how “HOT LOAD & THE GLAMCÖCKS” was born, first taking the stage at the November 2024 show. The infamous quartet of transmasculine drag kings perform with cardboard instruments and mimic a heavy metal hair-band, even to the point of staging fake drunken brawls with their audience. 

It’s that exact kind of creativity and weirdness — and gender diversity — that Bandit aims to cultivate. 

“I think Austin has a lot more gender diversity than you would find in other drag scenes,” she said, “and I do have to credit BTBD for a lot.”

Being in the audience at Oilcan Harry’s for “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” feels more raw and intimate than other drag shows, where there’s a sharper divide between performers and viewers. At a typical drag show, for example, it’s easier to feel like a tourist or an outsider looking in. 

But on Saturday, the performers crowded around, along with their friends and even family members, cheering each other on. As dollars flew, the sound system’s loud bass pulsed in my belly, and drag artists and audience members wandered together onto the bar’s open roofed back patio to pass joints with each other. It was easy to feel like part of a community instead of just a spectator. 

“It’s a really awesome, supportive environment, and that’s what I love the most about it,” Sunshine said. For her performance that night, she wore a bedazzled band-leader’s uniform and danced with a baton and prop instruments. 

“Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” highlights the personality and unique style of each drag performer, encouraging them to bring out their most outrageous looks. Hot Lunch, leader of the previously mentioned “drag band” HOT LOÄD & The GLAMCÖCKS, said he presents himself as an “80s-inspired sleazy man meets kind of a mime.” At the most recent BTBD, he dressed in a shiny jumpsuit, wrap-around shades, blacklight reactive lightning bolt earrings and a massive pornstar mustache, and he danced like a randy janitor while holding a broom to “Night Work” by the Scissor Sisters. 

He told The Barbed Wire that his fellow band members met through BTBD, and they’ve continued to perform together at other venues, most recently at Austin’s fantasy-themed Tiny Minotaur Pub for an event called “Drag Me To The Tavern,” hosted by Sir Beau Elliot, a former BTBD cohost. 

“I found a lot of community and trans people (through BTBD) and drag has brought a lot of joy into my life,” Hot Lunch told The Barbed Wire earlier this month. 

Bandit told us that many other alumni of the event have also gone on to start their own drag revues. Karabiner now hosts an all-lesbian drag show called Futch Fetish and Munster Mash hosts Shock Therapy.

In the almost four years since “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” began, other similar events have sprung up around the state, showcasing their community’s best new drag artists. 

That Saturday, Lucile De Monic, who was wearing vampire fangs, a blood red dress, dark corset, and beautifully contoured white face makeup, told us that she frequently performs at “Baby Bats,” a monthly all-ages drag open mic in San Marcos with a gothic and alternative theme. 

“I love an open stage,” De Monic said. “Baby bats is, especially if you’re in the goth community, one of the most welcoming and friendly and embracing (spaces) … it feels like a big hug, but instead of arms with bat wings.”

Another space for emerging talent is San Antonio’s “Draguate School,” led by drag king Ewan Danger. Styled as a series of “semesters,” Draguate School pairs each new performer up with a more seasoned artist, who works with the newcomer to create four performances, culminating in the “senior showcase” which is performed as a duet between mentor and student. Similar to BTBD, the newbies walk away with top-quality photos that they can use to promote themselves to future venues. 

“I’ve seen a lot of performers get attention because they were in Draguate School,” Danger told The Barbed Wire. “Draguates” who now appear more frequently around the scene include Necrosis, Leo Vixen Darlng Danger, Skarlet, and Morte Lumina Danger, who also performed on Saturday. After Draguate School, he added, they “actually start to get bookings and get more traction in the scene.”

On Saturday, he was dressed in sparkly Western finery, including a black fringed jacket with “Danger” bedazzled in silver on the back. However, his playful demeanor turned serious when I asked him about the so-called drag ban. 

“It is affecting a lot of my trans brothers and sisters, because they feel nervous going out,” Danger told us. 

The law, which bans “sexually-oriented performances” around minors, and was intended to suppress drag performances in the state, is still pending future court hearings. In the meantime, it remains in effect, though the federal appeals court went to some lengths to specify that most forms of drag performance are still protected free speech and therefore exempt from the law, including wearing prosthetic body parts and dancing or twerking. 

Despite the exemptions, the law has increased the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for trans performers, Danger said. 

“Friends of mine say ‘I don’t feel comfortable performing here because of the drag ban, and because I’m trans,” he added. “That’s one of the most upsetting parts of it, because the drag world, its foundation, its roots are in the trans community. Trans women of color are the literal cornerstone of the entire drag scene that we have today. And to watch them feel so uncomfortable in a scene that was literally built on their backs breaks my fucking heart.”

Bandit told The Barbed Wire she appreciates that “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams” gives her an opportunity to clear up misconceptions about the law. 

“I’m really glad that I’m able to talk about the drag ban on stage every single month, educate these newer performers on their rights and make sure that they still feel empowered, especially with all the misinformation surrounding it,” Bandit said in our interview. “I think that BTBD is a really great space for me to … let them know, ‘Hey, you are still well within your rights to go do drag. And in fact, you should probably do it more now.’”

Despite the ban, drag continues to thrive in Austin and around the state, and Bandit ensures first-time performers get priority when it comes to making each month’s roster. Readers of the Austin Chronicle voted BTBD as the best drag showcase in their annual poll, an impressive achievement for a city often boasting multiple drag events per day. She also recently spun off a separate, competitive event called “The Titty Tournament,” with $150 in cash for each week’s winners.

Still, Bandit adores how her monthly, noncompetitive showcase brings out unique performances that might not have a home anywhere else, from the ribald to the vulnerable: “You’re gonna see somebody shaking their ass for three minutes, and then the next one’s gonna be pouring their heart out.”

Reyah Sunshine, who had never hosted a drag event before this month’s showcase, told us she hopes everyone walks away from the event feeling empowered to try new things. 
“If you even have an urge about wanting to try drag yourself, don’t let that turn into a permanent ‘what if’ for the rest of your life,” she told The Barbed Wire. “Even if it’s one night only, do it, find somebody or find the YouTube tutorials, throw yourself in a glam and just have a time, because that’s what we’ve been doing for almost four years.”