Drag Race star says show appearance helped her realise she was trans

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 star Amanda Tori Meating has explained how being on the show helped to affirm her trans identity.

Sometimes known as the CEO of S-E-X and sometimes known as Plane Jane‘s arch nemesis, Amanda Tori Meating appeared on the sixteenth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2024, and though she was a relatively early out, became a firm fan favourite.

Amanda came out as trans while her season of Drag Race was still airing, and has now revealed just how being on the show helped to affirm her identity as trans.

Speaking to Big Dipper and Meatball on the Sloppy Seconds podcast, Amanda said that being consistently referred to with she/ her pronouns provided her with gender euphoria that made her realise she was a woman.

“I was giving non-binary for a couple years before Drag Race,” Amanda said, before explaining: “But honestly, being on set and having people call me Amanda all the time, like ‘she/her’ing me…”

The performer added that one of her co-stars also helped her on her journey.

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“I remember Morphine [Love Dion] looked at me once when I was talking about how much I loved having nails, and she was like, ‘Oh, b*tch, you are such an egg’,” with ‘egg’ meaning someones who is trans but at least partially unaware of it.

“I was like: ‘Hm!’ And then I painted myself like an alien and they sent me home, so I was like: ‘Let’s investigate this.'”

On a serious note, Amanda said that she had thought about whether or not she was trans for “a couple of years,” stating that, “it was something that I’d been pushing to the back of my mind.”

She recalled thinking: “If [Morphine, who] known me for a matter of weeks is already picking up on this, maybe that’s something to consider!”

Amanda Tori Meating joined a number of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni to come out as trans in past months and years, including most recently, Madame LaQueerJade JolieFarrah Moan, and Adore Delano.

When she came out, the 27-year-old star told Entertainment Weekly’s Quick Drag podcast that her divorce, which happened shortly before her Drag Race appearance, was partly the result of her partner refusing to accept her “gender exploration journey”.

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