Funny Girls
Blackpool's best-known drag cabaret, staging big themed revues in a restored 1939 art deco cinema two minutes from Blackpool North.
Bio queens, faux queens and AFAB queens
Women who perform as drag queens: the names, why many dislike "faux", Drag Race UK's first and more.
A bio queen is a woman, usually a cisgender woman or someone assigned female at birth, who performs as a high-camp, ultra-glamorous drag queen: the lashes, the padding, the wigs, the lot.
The names
- Bio queen, hyper queen and AFAB queen (assigned female at birth) are all used.
- Faux queen was common in the 1990s and 2000s, but many performers now reject it, because "faux" suggests they're not real queens.
- Many simply call themselves drag queens, and that's usually the safest word to use.
A short history
- San Francisco ran a "faux queen" pageant from 1996 to 2005, and in 2003 the performer Fauxnique became the first woman to win a major drag pageant.
- In 2021, Victoria Scone competed on series 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, the first cisgender woman to take part in any Drag Race series anywhere.
Why women do drag
For many bio queens drag is about the same things it's about for anyone: glamour, comedy, sending up gender, and the thrill of the stage. Doing femininity "too much" on purpose is a way of showing how much of it is performance in the first place.
Blackpool
Women have always been a huge part of Blackpool's drag audiences, from Vesta Tilley's mill-girl fans to today's hen parties at Funny Girls, and the town's drag stages are open to them as performers too. Line-ups change constantly; we haven't found a performer currently billed in Blackpool as a bio queen. If you are one, please tell us.
Garlands
A camp, free-entry drag pub near Blackpool North where resident queens are on from mid-afternoon every single day.
The Flying Handbag
A big, purpose-built LGBTQ+ bar and club on Queen Street, open from noon every day with drag hosts, karaoke, food and a sun terrace.
The best chances to see women in drag are visiting tours, Pride line-ups and alternative cabaret. See drag shows in Blackpool and what's on.
Getting started
Rainbow Creative Hub
A new arts club for LGBT+ people on the Fylde coast, held at a creative studio in St Annes.
Lancashire LGBT Women and Non-Binary Group
A free monthly online group from the county LGBTQ+ charity for lesbian, bi, trans and queer women and femme non-binary people.
More
Sources
Drag and performance: more pages
Drag performersQueens, kings, dames, trans showgirls, faux queens and alternative drag, and where to see them.Drag queensThe Funny Girls company, Garlands residents, Drag Race stars, the legends and where to see them.Panto damesThe 2026 Grand Theatre panto, forty years of Grand dames, Danny La Rue and how dames relate to drag.Trans drag queens and showgirlsTrans women in drag and cabaret: the showgirl tradition, what it means and Blackpool's welcoming stages.Drag kingsFrom Vesta Tilley to the UK's first drag king bar in 2015, and where to watch for kings now.Alternative drag and drag monstersHorror, art and gender-defying drag: what it is, Mr Blackpool, Halloween shows and where to look.Every identityThe full list, the long acronyms and UK law.