"I'm still not sure where I fit on the spectrum, for now I just say trans femme."
Mikelle StreetNow it's Willow Pill's time.
Season 14 of RuPaul's Drag Race has the most known trans performer of any season in the show's history. Now, after initially opening up about her gender journey in last week's episode of Untucked, frontrunner Willow Pill is being slightly more definitive.
"I want to address some of the things I said in Untucked last week when I talked about my gender identity," Pill wrote to Twitter. In the episode, the performer said she was uncertain about her gender and that the relationship is complicated because of the impact her condition has on her body. "Its taken me a long time to come to terms with my transness because so much space has been taken up by my illness. My condition has caused me so much physical and emotional pain that my body became something I always wanted out of."
Earlier in the season, Willow told the world that she had been diagnosed with cystinosis, a disease that can cause issues with various vital bodily functions including her muscles.
"During quarantine, I started to explore my feelings about my illness and unpacked a lot of medical PTSD and self-hatred," she wrote. "But only in the last year have I really started to realize that I'm not happy with my gender identity either. Much of that is due to be ign on Drag Race and feeling euphoria being Willow for the first time since quarantine and being around a bunch of queer and trans friends on set."
From the season's early days Kerri Colby and Kornbread had both let those in the Werk Room know they were trans. As episodes passed others like Jasmine Kennedie and Bosco opened up about their genders as well.
"I'm still not sure where I fit on the spectrum, for now I just say trans femme, but I also don't have to know now."
Pill continued on, revealing that in November (after filming the season) she had surgery to make her face more feminine, this is commonly known as female feminisation surgery or FFS.
"Transitioning with a chronic illness is not simple," she continued. "Any further medicalization of my body scares me because of my medical PTSD. I'm currently discussing a very low dose of hormones with my doctor and will have to take things very slow because I"m on a variety of intense medications. It may be that it's not for me because my health comes first but I want to try."
Willow ended the note by saying they go by Willow both in and out of drag and use she and they pronouns.
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