Creature Feature: Chelsea Siren, Enchantress of the Stage

Reaching the point of exposure found onstage at a drag show, with little to no clothes to hide behind, requires a significant amount of confidence. It’s difficult to be comfortable with oneself. It’s even harder to get onstage and tell a story with a message that will stick and encourage change. But the kind of change that Siren hopes to inspire with her performances and her art is to embrace your own kind of weird.

Miss Siren is known for her ideas on body positivity and women empowerment, and her performances are real-life advertisements for those personal values. “It’s something that I always want to show: female empowerment and female strength,” she says. “I think it’s lacking a lot in the world, especially amongst career women. I want everyone to be less body-conscious when they come to my show and love themselves for who they are.” Surprisingly enough, bio queens have some of the toughest times making a name for themselves in the drag community. There are many participants and show-goers who reject the idea of female-assigned-at-birth drag queens. Just recently, Supermodel of the World RuPaul tweeted in response to a fan questioning when we’ll see a bio queen on the show: “That show already exists. It’s called #MissUniverse.” It’s a tough gig being a bio queen, but someone’s got to represent. “I feel like it’s always weird, being a female doing drag,” says Siren. “I mean, some people hate it and some people love it, and that’s not just Salt Lake. But I don’t feel like drag is just about a man in a dress. Drag is about expressing yourself.”

I believe that drag is a lot of things to a lot of different people, but I so appreciate what Siren does with her art. When asked how she responds to common criticism about her drag, the answer is simple: Do it better. “You just go up on that stage and you show them everything you got and you don’t care what they think,” says Siren “and I feel like that’s part of why I wear so little clothes, because I want everyone to get open to the idea of getting comfortable with who they are and how they look.” It takes a thick skin to deal with it at times but luckily for us, Siren has just the right amount of thick skin for the job.

Come admire the beautiful body of art that is Chelsea Siren on May 19 at Metro Bar and again on June 2 at the annual Bad Kids Pageant.