The drag performer “Gottmik” is a woman who identifies as a “trans man” and underwent masculinizing medical treatment, later rising to fame as a competitor on the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race. (In simpler terms, she is a woman trying to look like a man who theatrically performs as a woman. Try to keep up.) Gottmik returned to television for the RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars series, and in a recent episode, she strutted down the runway topless. Prosthetic arms, with fake hands holding knives, wrapped around her chest, which had been branded with red rhinestones that formed bloody incision marks where she once had breasts. In one of her actual hands, Gottmik held a see-through plastic bag with fake blood and two ball-like masses representing severed breasts. The competitor wrote on social media, “This look represents the pain and suffering I went through while all at the s[a]me time experiencing complete trans queer liberation in a way that I hope everyone seeing this will feel one day.”
The outfit glamorized self-harm by turning double-mastectomy scars into a fashion statement; her breasts have been reduced to mere accessories removed for drama, style, and a new identity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, progressives applauded Gottmik for heroic “bravery.” People flooded the performer’s social-media posts with approving comments. One user wrote, “For the longest time i felt discouraged to continue drag and present feminine but watching you has inspired me to go forward with my transition and pick up drag again.” Another wrote, “As a pre surgery trans guy i literally teared up when this look came out. you are so inspiring and give me SO much hope to further achieving gender euphoria some day.” Even the Human Rights Campaign offered its endorsement, writing, “Forever obsessed with this.”
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