Sasha Colby was a superstar before winning RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 in 2023 but since then, she’s soared to the stratosphere, reaching levels of fame and respect that are unrivalled in her industry. She’s not only Chappell Roan’s mother, she’s the current mother of drag, period. She’s currently on a tour that will include stops in Boston, New York City and Toronto.
Canada’s Drag Race breakout The Girlfriend Experience had an unfiltered conversation with Colby over video call. Girlfriend had a vape in her hand and Colby had a blunt in hers. They spoke about Colby’s ongoing tour, the “doll convention” that brought them together, and how their bonds with other trans women are getting them through this perilous moment in history.
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The Girlfriend Experience
Sister, how are you?
Sasha Colby
I’m fantastic. How are you?
The Girlfriend Experience
I’m so good. Where are you right now?
Sasha Colby
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’re about to do a show tomorrow.
The Girlfriend Experience
You’re always on the go. Jet setting?
Sasha Colby
We’re actually on a bus this time. We’ve been on tour for almost a month and it’s a two-month tour. We’re hitting 30 cities. It’s been a lot of fun.
The Girlfriend Experience
Thirty cities, are you crazy?
Sasha Colby
We have a lot of little breaks. Gotta give the body some rest.
The Girlfriend Experience
I feel like that’s how we met though too, because like I’m such a floater. You’re a floater. I think we crossed at Three Dollar Bill.
Sasha Colby
Yeah, you were in Brooklyn. I didn’t even know you were not from Brooklyn. We were just both the two transines that were coming in and out of town. Hitting all the doll spots.
The Girlfriend Experience
Just trans-ing through the U.S.A., you know, just doing the doll thing.
Travelling is my therapy. Is it the same for you?
The Girlfriend Experience
I always loved travelling. I thought I would love to have a career that would make me travel, and lo and behold, we found it, girl.
The Girlfriend Experience
What do you love about it?
Sasha Colby
I definitely feel connected to Hawaii, where I’m from, but I never felt like a city really drew me anywhere. I’ve always just wanted to keep it moving.
The Girlfriend Experience
I love the aspect of meeting people from everywhere. I feel like I have a lot of close friends. One thing about drag I find really awesome is that, no matter where we go, you have that base.
Sasha Colby
Mm-hmm. You can call somebody.
The Girlfriend Experience
I’ve met a lot of girls like us along the way. That’s how I met you.
Sasha Colby
Our world is already really small, so we all end up knowing each other. But then to go to these different cities and actually work together does bring the community closer.
The Girlfriend Experience
You and I had similar religious upbringings. I never really felt community within the organization or the religion. But travelling brought this sense of community that I never really had before because of the commonality of being trans and that automatic sisterhood that comes when you meet other girls and other trans folk.
Sasha Colby
It’s rough out there. Let’s be nice to each other, you know?
The Girlfriend Experience
You’ve got a huge drag family. You really built a community around yourself.
Sasha Colby
I do. We come from so many different generations of drag in Hawaii. When I go home, I’ll see all my trans aunties, and they’ll have a big barbecue on the beach. And I’ll look around and it’ll be like four or five generations of Hawaiian trans women and queer people.
We live our lives together. We always come back and we always fill each other up and it’s great to have that community. And I never really had that with my assigned family or religion. It was such a false sense of community.
For me, as a queer child, that helped me figure out that this man-made religion thing is really weird. As queer people, we naturally are aware of injustices and things not adding up, especially at a young age.
The Girlfriend Experience
One hundred percent. I can read people like a book, and one thing that always bugged me was saying one thing at church then also living a double life. Now we just live in our truth.
Sasha Colby
But our sin was more on display. My queerness was more of a sin than all their sins. The picking and choosing of that was so crazy.
The Girlfriend Experience
I think it really taught us how to see falsehood in people. I can read people like a book. I can feel like you’re also very good at seeing the truth in people.
Speaking of family, I love your daughter Kerri. That’s my best friend. Is she doing any of your shows while you’re on tour?
Sasha Colby
She’s so amazing. No, she’s doing her thing. She did come to the L.A. show and we had a good time. She’s another one that is from religion, from an unsteady upbringing.
I took her to these barbecues in Hawaii and she just fell in like she was one of the Hawaiian girls. The aunties all loved her. She craves that family that we never got. She really shows up as a daughter and she really shows up as a friend. I’m sure you know, she’s reliable.
The Girlfriend Experience
I do. The religious dollies are always the ones that find each other. There’s mutual drama that comes with it, but also a mutual outlook on life because of the things that we went through.
It takes a lot of hardship to create artistry. We take things that are hard and then they blossom and we’re able to create something beautiful out of it.
Sasha Colby
I mean, that’s my whole career. Literally metabolizing heartache into art and turning it over. I have to get the last word. It’s Taylor Swift-y, you know, I’m going to make a number about you.
The Girlfriend Experience
How has the tour been?
Sasha Colby
Incredible. People are so excited to hop into this world that I created, which is like an hour and a half of wild dimension jumping. It’s all over the place, a different world in every number, a different character in every number.
The Girlfriend Experience
And you always bring girls on. How has meeting different artists from different cities been?
Sasha Colby
I love watching all the drag performers. Then being able to pick which ones I think would be amazing fits in the show is so much fun. I love getting to just even give someone that I don’t know, but I admired or saw something in, that opportunity. It really gives a confidence boost that I was given when Sasha Velour asked me to be on NightGowns or Erica Andrews gave me one of my first bookings.
The Girlfriend Experience
Do you find this tour is a lot different than your first one?
Sasha Colby
I was a lot more nervous and a lot more like hard on myself the first time around. I felt like I had to prove something. That was all gone this time.
The Girlfriend Experience
You’re such an icon. You’re such a well-known trans artist and advocate. You’re kind of a mother to all the dolls. How does it feel when you’re on tour and you walk into a room and it’s a theatre full of people screaming for you? I know a lot of trans folk come and see your shows. So it’s not just fans, but people that connect with you on a very personal level.
Sasha Colby
It really is gratifying, especially when I see all the dolls at the show. I’ve had a few parents and their kids come back from the first show. They make it a little ritual to come and watch the show. To be able to educate people that are parents of trans people, to give them a little more insight into how we think, it’s really empowering.
The Girlfriend Experience
The last time I saw you was a year ago. I think it was, like, during Drag Con weekend. We were outside of Mickey’s and you put a joint in my face. I was like, “Thanks, sister!”
Sasha Colby
It was a doll convention then.
The Girlfriend Experience
Everybody was out that night. It was fun. We don’t have that kind of dollship in Canada like you do in the States.
I feel like a few years ago there was a sweet spot where everything was kind of transitioning into normalcy before everything started kind of going backward for us a little bit. But aside from Amanda Lepore and a few others, I hadn’t really seen much trans representation or trans folk. And then there was you.
And you know me, I love good sex appeal. I love serving body, serving sex on stage, and you gave that. When I met you, it was a full-circle moment. And I was like, wow, gag, and she’s nice!
Sasha Colby
You found out that I’m just a goofball.
The Girlfriend Experience
Do you have advice to help navigate this new era that we’re in? Because we don’t know when it’s gonna end. We don’t know how it’s gonna go. But what we do know is we do have each other.
Sasha Colby
This too shall pass, much like everything else. So we’ll wait for this pendulum to swing back to some sort of normalcy. But the Gen Zers and the Gen Alphas could tell me a couple of things. They got more, I guess because of all the things that we fought for. They’re able to see injustice really easily and call things out at such a young age. Keep on doing that and make a good tribe around you. That’s the thing that’s gonna get us through this.
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