RIDLEY XCX
introductions
(Ruby) Oh, it's perfect. The location actually says Henrietta Hudson. Look at that! Not the church.

Okay, so just to start off placing you. Could you give me your name in drag, out of drag, and the pronouns that you want to be referred to in both of those instances?
(Ridley) Yes, so my drag name is Ridley XCX. I just hit like a year and a half.

So there's a chance that changes at some point. I did pick that name before Brat Summer. And then over the course of Rocky Horror, I actually was like, I kind of really like being called Ridley.

(Ruby) Yeah.
(Ridley) So I like that name out of drag. But you'll probably find me in materials under Tori Jewell. And I'm rocking with they/them these days. 

(Ruby) For both you and your drag? 
(Ridley) Yeah, yeah, can’t go wrong.

(Ruby)  Where do you place Ridley in terms of like, thing, king, queen, other? 
(Ridley) Yeah, I don't know. Like, thing, I think is a good coverall. Because I do like drag queen numbers as well. When Poor Things came out, I was like, I got to do something… like I love that. And then Gone Girl – she's got that monologue that I really love.

But it's definitely harder to feel like what I'm doing… like what makes it drag? You know what I'm saying? I get some of that internal insecurity. Like if I'm doing a queen number, what exactly makes it a drag? You know what I mean? 

And one of the feelings I had in drag for the first couple times was feeling like I liked feeling like I was a boy dressed up as a girl, which had started some like questions about gender and helped me realize that I think like femininity and womanhood is something I felt was a skill, makeup, act, as opposed to a part of my identity. So it's a lengthy answer to your question.

(Ruby) Yeah. And where would you say you fall in the gender and sexuality spectrum?
(Ridley) Yeah. You got me at an interesting time. I, I just applied to this like trans-masc cabaret. I'm about five months in on like a low dose of T. I hope you can hear it in my voice. Maybe it's a little deeper than we first met. 

(Ruby) Congrats!
(Ridley) Thank you. But it's like… I feel like I got plenty of acne on my chest. I don't have any facial hair yet. So I'm feeling in this weird kind of like limbo… And then so I don't know. I just feel like I'm not in a place like to confidently claim an identity. Although I would never hold somebody else to that standard.

Like, and why am I putting a third party, like the cisgendered idea of like, what does a “man” look like into my own self identification? So I'm feeling like in limbo. But when I see trans men, I feel very connected to that.

And I'm like… top surgery is something I'd be very interested in. So for now, I feel comfortable with just like non-binary. But I feel like if I started to look in the mirror and see someone who I perceived as more masculine, like, you know, endless discussion about passability, and like, does that have a place?

Whatever, it's like internalized shit. 

That's like, I feel like I can't claim trans man until I like, I don't know, I feel like I get the external results for it. And then in terms of sexuality, I identify as bi.

And I have a lot of insecurity with that as well, because I am dating a man. And I feel like I spent a lot of time on Twitter, probably too much time on Twitter… So it's got me convinced that that just is irrelevant, or like, I don't know, some somehow doesn't count or something.

So which I get, I get arguments from both sides. But it's just something I kind of keep quiet about, because it's like, I don't know, I don't know, it feels like less, which it's, I don't know, anytime I see, like a different friend who has that same identity, identity by when if you're dating a cishet man, and you call him partner, I don't know, maybe I'm in the wrong for that. But it feels obfuscating.

And I'm like, you just gotta… you know what I mean? Own it. And I don't know.