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#4Drag performers aren’t just men in dresses or women in men’s clothes. Drag connoisseurs know cross-dressing is not a prerequisite to playing with gender. Cis, trans and nonbinary entertainers can present as any gender they please in drag. Harlow Quinzel is a sissy cissy whose hyperfeminine drag persona gives her “man behind the curtain” space to celebrate and parody feminine beauty standards. It may confound some, but Quinzel was born a woman and presents in drag as a woman: She is a female female impersonator.
“I think, in my heart of hearts, I’m a little clown,” Quinzel’s creator, Gia Grant, tells WW. “Everything I do has a little bit of tongue in cheek. Nothing in life is really that serious.”
Grant was a high school theater kid from San Diego who dabbled in choir, sewing and dance. Pole dancing led to burlesque, which in turn led to drag. Harlow Quinzel began in 2017 as a dance and burlesque persona, but Grant was drawn to drag through her drag mother, Diva Dott Platinum. Patrick Buckmaster, the late nightlife personality, introduced Quinzel and Dott. The two showgirls briefly lived together with Grant’s drag sister, Chatty Catheter, in a house coined “Gurl Gardens,” where the sisters still reside.
The name Harlow Quinzel nods to Jean Harlow, the original Blonde Bombshell, and Batman villain Harley Quinn’s given name, Harleen Quinzel.
In drag, Quinzel presents as a femme fatale who has walked through a David Lynch film, slightly scary but transfixingly glamorous. Most of the costumes Quinzel derobes she’s made herself, from a provocative fly to Little Bo-Peep in a giant bow. A recent performance, for example, saw Quinzel in showgirl-sized sherbet-hue angel wings and crystal-studded bra and panties with makeup that soared over the top for a Victoria’s Secret runway. One of her performances is based on Toni Collette’s character in Hereditary, but she is also recognized for Slayyyter tribute numbers and a campy alien act that undresses glittery yet grotesque.
And while she doesn’t consider herself a “bucking queen” full of high-energy tricks, Quinzel’s performances are certainly athletic. She’s an award-winning pole dancer who knows how to hit splits and dips.
Grant has also leveraged her 20-year tenure in Portland to make space for marginalized individuals like her in the queer community, and has found drag the perfect medium to do so. She co-founded Lez Out, one of Portland’s largest lesbian dance parties, and performs at Badlands’ weekly Woman Crush Wednesdays party. She also hosts Lipgloss at CC Slaughters, a recurrent ladies’ night event that has benefited the LGBTQ+ outreach organization New Waves for Youth.
“Drag has proven to be the ultimate form of free expression for me,” Grant says. “There are certain limitations on what qualifies as burlesque, and I have felt more creative freedom in drag.”
SEE: Harlow Quinzel in WCW at Badlands, 110 NW Broadway, 503-972-7572, badlandsportland.com. 10 pm Wednesdays. Free. 21+. | Harlow Quinzel in Lipgloss at CC Slaughters, 219 NW Davis St., 503-248-9135, ccslaughterspdx.com. 9 pm Wednesday, Aug. 21. $10, $5 discount with new, unopened makeup or toiletry items. 21+.
