Funny Girls
Blackpool's best-known drag cabaret, staging big themed revues in a restored 1939 art deco cinema two minutes from Blackpool North.
Trans drag queens and showgirls
Trans women in drag and cabaret: the showgirl tradition, what it means and Blackpool's welcoming stages.
A trans drag queen or trans showgirl is a trans woman who performs professionally as a stylised, glamorous female character. A trans woman doing drag is a performer like any other: she isn't "pretending" to be a woman, any more than a gay man doing drag is pretending to be straight. Drag is a performance, not an identity.
A long tradition
Trans women have been part of cabaret for as long as cabaret has existed. In the 1950s and 1960s, Paris's Le Carrousel cabaret was famous for its trans showgirls, among them April Ashley, a working-class girl from Liverpool who became one of the first Britons known to have had gender-affirming surgery, in 1960. At a time when few other jobs were open to trans women, the showgirl stage offered work, community and a degree of safety.
Trans performers in drag today
Drag's best-known TV franchise was slow to include trans women, and today trans queens perform openly on stages across the UK, from pub cabaret to theatre tours. Some audiences still assume every drag queen is a gay man; the more trans, non-binary and female queens they see, the less that holds.
Blackpool
Blackpool's drag stages are among the busiest in the country, and its LGBTQ+ venues are open to trans performers and audiences alike. Line-ups change constantly; we haven't found a performer currently billed in Blackpool as a trans showgirl. If you are one, or you book them, 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.
Lu-Lu's Cabaret Lounge
A friendly, budget LGBTQ+ cabaret bar on Dickson Road with two bars side by side and about 26 en-suite rooms.
In 2015 the Kings bar on High Street, billed as the UK's first drag king venue, described itself as run by women, for women, including trans women.
Support for trans women performers
Off stage, Blackpool has strong support for trans women:
TransInclusion
A free, monthly peer-led group in Blackpool for trans women and feminine gender-diverse people.
Blackpool Renaissance trans support group
A long-running trans peer support group meeting twice a month at a Dickson Road guesthouse, open to trans people, partners and allies.
The Phoenix Clinic
A monthly NHS sexual and reproductive health clinic just for trans and gender-diverse people, held in Blackpool and Preston.
Gender Outreach drop-in, Blackpool
A free monthly lunchtime drop-in at Blackpool Central Library for people on, waiting for or considering the gender identity clinic pathway.
Watching respectfully
Don't ask a performer about her body or her transition. Enjoy the show, tip, and if you want to talk to her afterwards, talk about the performance.
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.Drag kingsFrom Vesta Tilley to the UK's first drag king bar in 2015, and where to watch for kings now.Bio queens and faux queensWomen who perform as drag queens: the names, why many dislike "faux", Drag Race UK's first and more.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.