Drag Race UK winner Ginger Johnson: ‘The world is burning down… why not tap dance on the table?’

When it comes to Pride, the “stakes are higher this year”, Ginger Johnson, the season five winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, explains.

The drag star speaks to the Big Issue shortly after the recent Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, and despite her enthusing about the joy and “silliness” of drag, it’s impossible to ignore the huge amount of strain the LGBTQ+ community is currently under.

“I do think [Pride] is going to be charged this year. If you want to find the political side of Pride, you will find it every year, because there are people, boots on the ground, working hard to make that happen,” Johnson says.

“I trust that my community is going to stand up and make some noise about that when the time comes.”

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Johnson adds that everyone, from “young people” to “people who were very [politically] active when they were younger and now have settled into a quieter life” should be getting involved in standing up for the LGBTQ+ community, explaining: “As someone who would much rather be at home in bed with their cats than out and about, when the call is out there, you’ve got to answer it.”

And from standing up for the trans community, to raising awareness of HIV advocacy, Ginger Johnson is very much answering the call.

The drag legend is gearing up to host the National AIDS Trust’s flagship event Drag Raise on 3 July, and she’s keen to highlight the fact that HIV is an ongoing issue affecting thousands in the UK each year, and that the work that the charity does on HIV advocacy is “frankly, essential”. 

“Visibility saves lives,” she explains, speaking on the National AIDS Trust’s work. “It can be a very isolating experience being an LGBTQ+ person, and knowing that there are organisations out there that have got your back is so important.

“They work to defend the rights of everyone living with, affected by, or at risk of HIV – and I’ve got news for you, that’s all of us. They’re also working towards the goal of ending new transmissions by 2030, and they’re doing really well at it. The work they do is completely essential.”

The drag icon adds that HIV is “not a problem that has gone away, and we can be in danger of forgetting that”, but that organisations like the National AIDS Trust continues to do “amazing things” for people affected by HIV.

“They actually took the NHS to court in 2016 to ensure that PrEP was available for free on the NHS. And PrEP is obviously a huge, huge tool in the work of the National AIDS Trust… they just do amazing things,” she adds.

Ginger Johnson will be hosting this year’s “incredibly special” Drag Raise event, which last year raised more than £18,000 for the National AIDS Trust, and will be joined by a lineup of drag artists, alongside a MAC beauty bar, silent auction and luxury raffle.

“It’s an incredibly glamorous evening, and it’s rooted in the long history of drag and HIV activism,” Johnson explains.

“We’ve got an amazing lineup. I’m going to be there. Tayce is going to be there, who’s one of my absolute favourite performers and one of my favourite people. I hardly ever get to see her these days, because we’re both just all over the world!

“We’ve got Sue Pertrouper, we also have drag king HÄNS OFF, who’s an absolute scream, and DJ MYNXIE will be there as well, so it’s a really fabulous night of performances.”

Ginger Johnson tells the Big Issue that performing at these events is not just about entertaining people and providing much-needed joy for the LGBTQ+ community, it’s also about using your “loud microphone” to call for equality.

“The reason drag is so important is because we are the most visible people in the room. We are great at attracting attention to ourselves, it is our job. You don’t become a drag performer unless you are a show-off to the core,” Johnson laughs. “Drag is a loud microphone in a very loud world, and we need that, the community needs that. It needs people that can rally people around, it needs people that can attract attention to us and the things that we need to talk about to make our world a better place for us.

“That’s what’s so important, and that’s why we have to protect drag.”

Johnson adds that “anybody who is visibly queer” is facing a difficult time at the moment, and that “the stories that are being written about LGBTQ+ people at the minute tread the same old miserable tracks that they have been doing for the past 50 years.”

“The cycle comes back round again and again, and bad-natured people out there that want attention and want to whip people up to get behind the cause… and we are constantly the victim of that, because we are visible and we are amazing, and queer people do brilliant things, and we are strong as a community, and that’s threatening to other people.”

She underlines, however, that drag is just as much about a feeling of fun and freedom as it is about protest, explaining that she was inspired by the pantomime dames she watched as a child.

“They had the best outfits, they got the biggest laughs, they got the biggest round of applause at the end of the show… That feeling of silliness comes from embracing the anarchy that we are finding ourselves in. I think queer people have already always been really good at that, and that’s where I think a lot of drag comes from. It’s about looking around and thinking, ‘God, the house is burning down. Why not tap dance on the table?'”

We’re ‘so much stronger’ standing together

Ginger Johnson tells the Big Issue that during an “incredibly difficult time for the LGBTQ+ community”, Pride is more needed than ever, and that the LGBTQ+ community is “so much stronger” together.

“More than ever, all of us, everyone that comes under that [LGBTQ+] umbrella, we need to be standing together, because we’re so much stronger that way,” she explains. “Anything that divides our community only makes us weaker.

“Pride is an incredibly important thing to me. It was in finding Pride and the Pride movement, that’s when I was able to accept myself as a queer person and really start to live my life,” she explains.

She underlines that despite the challenges facing drag performers and the wider LGBTQ+ community, one of the highlights of winning Drag Race has been finding her audience, and her upcoming performance at Drag Raise is no exception.

“The major highlight of Drag Race has been that, having left now, and I’ve been out on the road, and I’ve been touring for the last two years, and it’s been so fun meeting all of the weirdos that identify with me as a weirdo,” she laughs.

“I’m amazed how many of them there are, because for years, I did drag and no one was really paying attention, I was screaming into the dark, and I started to wonder whether there was ever an audience for what I was doing.

“To find that there are people out there that want to come and see me do it is amazing, unbelievable.”

Buy your tickets to the National AIDS Trust’s Drag Raise 2025 event here. 

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