![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SDKingsClub_9-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>Drag queen Ajax, 49, performs \u201cPadam Padam\u201d for San Diego Kings Club at Gossip Grill in Hillcrest on Friday, June 13, 2025. (Photo by Brittany Cruz-Fejeran\/Special for Times of San Diego)<\/p>\nThe Kings Club has been a mainstay of San Diego\u2019s queer women\u2019s bars for 25 years, enduring as different venues opened, closed and changed. The troupe even survived a period when there were no lesbian bars in the region.<\/p>\n
In that time, the art of the performance has changed, too.<\/p>\n
In an overly simplistic sense, drag kings mirror drag queens. Where the stock image of a drag queen is a man creating the illusion of being female, historically drag kings were largely women performance artists entertaining as male impersonators.<\/p>\n
The reality is far more complex, and today\u2019s drag kings say their personas play with aggrandized masculinity and gender stereotypes through a wide array of acts \u2013 singing, lip syncing, dancing, comedy and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrag is an artistic medium in the same way that drawing, painting, dancing, singing is,\u201d said drag king Sam Paguita, 29, who does not connect their drag persona with their legal name to avoid scrutiny from potential employers. Paguita began performing online during the pandemic and is now a regular in shows each month at Gossip Grill.<\/p>\n Drag kings hold a significant place in LGBTQ+ history.<\/p>\n Storm\u00e9 DeLarverie, a male impersonator seen today as a drag king, scuffled with police during a raid of a gay bar in New York in 1969. The scuffle led to a series of spontaneous uprisings that became known as a rebellion, and the site \u2013 the Stonewall Inn \u2013 became the launching point of the modern gay rights movement.<\/p>\n Despite drag kings\u2019 history, the entertainment form is often overshadowed by the image of the drag queen. San Diego-raised RuPaul brought drag queens to the masses through a reality TV media empire. Today, drag kings say that tradition of lip syncing with exaggerated feminine gender performance both defined and limited the medium.<\/p>\n Rituals like the San Diego Kings Club show \u2013 which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in September \u2013 offer a whole different picture.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always have a good time,\u201d says Jolene Sebastian, has followed the troupe faithfully for decades. Sebastian holds a dollar in the air as the kickoff act takes the stage.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a special night for the performer, who is known both on- and off-stage as Rudy Ramrod. He is the only founding member of the Kings Club who still performs with the troupe. It\u2019s also the celebration of Ramrod\u2019s 61st birthday.<\/p>\n Ramrod emerges with a puffy goatee, lipsyncing to Disturbed\u2019s cover of the political anthem \u201cLand of Confusion.\u201d (Drag, as Ajax reminded the crowd, has always been inherently political, as choosing joy in queer performance becomes a form of resistance.)<\/p>\n Halfway through the number, Ramrod rips off a buttoned-up shirt to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with \u201cDrag is not a crime\u201d in trans flag colors. He begins to play air guitar. The crowd goes wild.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people have never seen a king before,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cI just gave them that, and that makes me really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Origins<\/p>\n The history of Kings Club starts with a frustrated performer.<\/p>\n Kelly Harper, a bartender at a now-defunct lesbian bar called the Flame had an on-stage persona named Chess Rockwell. But local drag contests favored established queens. So Harper started a Wednesday drag king contest at the Flame. Random audience members were the judges. Winners weren\u2019t allowed to re-enter, so new performers could have a chance.<\/p>\n Rockwell collected the winners of those weekly contests and formed a troupe of seven kings who performed each Friday, starting in September 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like a ritual. Everyone would show up on Friday nights to watch the drag king show,\u201d recalled Moe Girton, a former Flame bartender.<\/p>\n When the 20-year-old bar closed in 2004, the troupe moved to another women\u2019s bar and added new members after a different style of contest. The troupe continued to evolve as venues changed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been other groups that have tried. \u2026 They just don\u2019t have the staying power and the success we\u2019ve had,\u201d said Lisa Raye, who attended a Kings Club show in 2013 and met one of the performers, Ramrod. Today, they\u2019re married. She goes by Lisa Raye \u2013 her first and middle names \u2013 as an onstage persona.<\/p>\n<\/a>Sam Paguita, 29, dances as Jason Vorhees to a musical mashup of \u201cThis is Me,\u201d from both \u201cCamp Rock\u201d and \u201cThe Greatest Showman,\u201d at the Kings Club show at Gossip Grill on Friday the 13th in June. (Photo by Brittany Cruz-Fejeran\/Special for Times of San Diego) <\/p>\n<\/a>Drag king Rudy Ramrod plays air guitar to longtime Kings Club fan Jolene Sebastian on Friday, June 13, 2025 at Gossip Grill. (Photo by Brittany Cruz-Fejeran\/special for Times of San Diego) <\/p>\n<\/a>Rudy Ramrod, 61, takes tips from the audience during a performance for San Diego Kings Club at Gossip Grill in Hillcrest on Friday, June 13, 2025. Ramrod is the only founding member who still performs with Kings Club 25 years later. (Photo by Brittany Cruz-Fejeran\/Special for Times of San Diego) <\/p>\n