The Fifth Key

YOU BETTER WERK!

“When I wake up in the morning, I feel like any other insecure twenty-four-year-old girl. Then I say, ‘Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you better fucking get up and walk the walk today.’ ”

—Lady Gaga, June 2010¹

Lady Gaga understands that in order to overcome our insecurities and lack of confidence, we have to work through our fears while taking action anyway. So does RuPaul. His biggest hit song, the 1993 dance hit “Supermodel (You Better Work),” says it perfectly. (We changed the spelling of “work” in our fifth key for extra fierceness!) Just thinking you are fabulous and fierce like a drag queen or a supermodel is a start. But in order to be really confident, that fierceness needs to propel you to take action. Real confidence comes when you take that action even though you are afraid of possible risks.

Drag queens are some of the most hardworking people in show business, and they are constantly striving to keep their performances fresh. This means taking risks by trying new looks, new songs, or new dance moves every week. There’s little time to perfect these, so queens have to exude confidence when bringing new routines to the stage or else the audience can see the doubts. There is no time to ruminate over what didn’t work in the last performance. Cynthia Lee Fontaine, a Puerto Rico–born but Austin, Texas–based queen who has won many drag pageants, told me: “There’s no comfort zone for drag. The moment that you feel the most scared is that moment that you have to execute [your] plan. Because that’s the . . . best way that you can figure it out.”²

Lip-Syncing for My Life alongside Drag Superstars

“I AM EXCITED TO TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE INVITED TO PERFORM AT OUR FIRST ANNUAL AUSTIN INTERNATIONAL DRAG FESTIVAL!!!”

This was the opening to the e-mail that I (Jackie) received from Jamie Steward Bancroft, the organizer of the first ever Austin International Drag Festival, one of the biggest drag events in the world. This brand-new three-day drag festival in May 2015 in Austin, Texas, would include over two hundred performers from more than ten countries performing in venues around the city. Every type of drag performer would be featured at the festival, including bio-queens and drag kings. Headliners for the event included legends of drag such as Lady Bunny and Jackie Beat. Also performing were stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race—Adore Delano, Courtney Act, Jiggly Caliente, and Pandora Boxx—as well as Derrick Barry, the top Britney Spears impersonator in the world. Podcasters and YouTube stars focused on drag would be recording shows at the event. The event was so packed full of all things drag that some dubbed it the “SXSW of Drag” after Austin’s huge annual music, film, and web festival, SXSW. And I—well, Lady Trinity actually—had just gotten accepted to perform.

When I first heard that the festival was taking applications for performers, I was intrigued. I thought about applying, but then my inner critic started talking some smack. Most of the performers coming to the event had years and years of experience doing drag, and for the celebrity queens, it was their full-time job. I had only performed in drag twice before this. Who was I, this newbie queen, to perform alongside them? I didn’t want to embarrass myself. But on the other hand how could I pass up applying? One of the biggest drag events in the whole world was going to take place in my backyard. Was I really going to be too afraid to be part of it? I began to confront my inner critic: “What’s the worst that could happen? You probably won’t get selected anyway. You don’t have enough experience. But you’ll never know unless you try. So just fill out the freaking application already!” I finally completed the application, and a month later I was in!

At first, I felt ecstatic. I was beyond grateful and excited that someone as new to drag as myself would get the opportunity to perform along with such talented and legendary artists. Just when I’d conquered something big in this drag journey, I found myself taking on something even bigger. I kept pushing myself to take on new challenges and learn as much as possible. I wanted to take this drag experience as far as I could, because I could feel myself growing in confidence in everyday life, and I loved that. But that doesn’t mean the nerves weren’t there. Performing at the Austin International Drag Festival was not like performing in a local club. This would be doing drag before a much bigger audience (several hundred people) in a show full of the top drag performers in the world, which was damned intimidating. But I was determined not to let that fear stop me. How else would I learn and grow?

I had to get to work. Each entertainer had to perform two numbers. I decided to do my “Amazing” number and a new one set to “Vanity” by Christina Aguilera. I had to find new dancers. I had a new costume made that was a takeoff on a fierce red bodysuit that Jennifer Lopez once wore. I paired that with some kick-ass shiny red vinyl thigh-high boots, and bam! It looked hot, if I do say so myself.

Before I knew it, it was the weekend of the festival. Friday and Saturday were spent watching other queens perform in music venues around Austin. I was in awe of the legendary comedy queens Sherry Vine and Miss Coco Peru, who have been making audiences laugh for the last twenty-five years. Then Sunday night came and I was ready. My first performance was the “Amazing” number I had done before. Same costume, same choreography, swapped out one dancer for another but no biggie. Since we knew the routine already, I was confident it would go well. And it did. The lip sync was on point. We nailed the choreography. We got lots of tips from the crowd. We killed it! I was so proud of the performance.

The second performance, though, was a different story. I had decided on the “Vanity” number at the last minute, which only left time for two practices with my four dancers. I was feeling really nervous about the number, but I hoped that having that many dancers up there with me might lessen the risk and ease my worries. Safety in numbers, right?

Wrong. First, I had to follow Derrick Barry, the world-famous Britney Spears impersonator. Derrick has been performing for over ten years as Britney and most recently was doing his act five nights a week at the longest-running celebrity female impersonator revue in Vegas, called Divas Las Vegas. To say that Derrick is a professional entertainer doesn’t begin to describe him. He did two twenty-minute performances, dancing and lip-syncing to all of Britney’s hit songs. His makeup, wigs, and costumes are identical to those of Britney, and to be honest, with his sexy, skimpy costumes showing a lot of body, he looks as good she does. How was I supposed to follow that? I had interviewed Derrick for this book a year earlier, so I knew him a little. He told me that he would make sure to come out of the dressing room to watch me perform. I wanted to die.

It was time for us to go on. I stood at the bottom of a short set of steps leading up to the stage in the dark lighting of this cavernous music venue. We waited to be introduced. I thought about Derrick somewhere in the dark in the back of the club, watching me. Panic set in. “I can’t do this,” I said to myself. I could feel the sweat on my palms. I was afraid I was going to look like a neophyte or stupid compared to all of the seasoned queens who performed on the stage that night. As the music started, my heart went into overdrive. My dancers moved up the stairs onto the stage, but my feet felt like they were glued to the floor. I couldn’t move. I was a queen in the spotlight but I felt like a deer in the headlights. I was frozen in fear. What in holy hell do I do now? From nowhere, an inner voice commanded: “You get up on the stage, Jackie. You get up there RIGHT NOW. You cannot turn back. You are going to get up there and FUCKING DO THIS!”

And so I did. I triumphantly stepped up onto the stage and . . . tripped over my own two feet, lunging forward a bit. Ugh! This started a chain reaction of being off the mark of my carefully choreographed moves. I kept going, but as I moved to the front of the stage I tripped again. Then, as I tried to get out of my long outer coat, it got stuck on my arms and wouldn’t come completely off. I had to hurry, pull it off jerkily, and just throw it in the general direction of one of my dancers, who was supposed to be helping me get it off. What in the hell was happening? I felt completely thrown off balance. The next thing I knew, as I was still trying to keep the routine going, I turned and ran smack into one of my backup dancers. So, yeah, it was going as horribly as I could have imagined. For a split second I thought, “This is so terrible. I want to quit and just walk off the stage right now.” I was embarrassed and humiliated. But as I looked out into the crowd, I saw that most people in the audience were smiling back at me. I saw that some people had their hands outstretched with dollar bills in them. They were tipping me! (Good drag audiences know to tip their drag queens.) And in that moment, I thought to myself, “What Would a Drag Queen Do?”

Would she leave the stage and disappoint her audience? No! She would put a smile on her face, keep going, and finish the song. So that’s what I did.

I finished the number and got offstage as fast as I could. I wanted to run and hide somewhere in the dark corners of the club and not see or talk to anyone. But I decided to buck up and make my way back to the dressing room. On my way there, I ran into another drag performer from the show who, apparently, had just watched my disaster of a number. To my surprise, she came over to me, gave me a huge hug, and said, “Girl . . . you were fabulous!” Whether she really meant it or was just trying to make me feel better, I have no idea. Then it hit me: she was right! I was fabulous. I’d just done something that I was absolutely terrified to do. I put myself out there to get into this festival and I performed as a drag queen, with other queens I respected. Who cares if it didn’t come out perfect? Or even if it was pretty bad? So what? The important thing was that I had gone outside my comfort zone and tried something that scared me. If I could do that, I could do anything.

Still, I had to stop myself from ruminating about what I could have done differently. My inner critic started in on me, “If only we’d had more practices it would have been better.” “Stop!” I told my inner Felicia. I took a risk and accomplished something that most people wouldn’t even have tried, and I should be proud of that. And I was. And at least I looked good! I will always have this experience of having worked through my fears to accomplish something I was petrified to do. I can draw on that success to give me strength and courage whenever I’m afraid to do something. And the next time I need to muster some confidence I will think, not “What Would a Drag Queen Do?” but instead, “What Would Lady Trinity Do?”

She would lip-sync for her life. There is nothing she can’t do!

notes FROM THE STAGE

Derrick Barry on the Merits of “Just Showing Up”

One drag performer who knows the power of taking risks and trying new things is the same Derrick Barry that I mentioned earlier. Derrick first grabbed the media spotlight when he performed as Britney Spears on NBC’s reality competition show America’s Got Talent in 2008 at age twenty-four. When I interviewed him for this book in 2013, he shared with me one of the most important pieces of advice he ever received. It was from Mariah Carey’s former tour manager, Christine, who was also a producer on America’s Got Talent.

Derrick Barry

(Photo by Christopher DeVargus)

I said to Christine, “I can’t believe the opportunities I’ve had because of America’s Got Talent. Thank you.” She said, “You need to thank yourself, because you showed up. The rest just happened. You showed up.” I love that, because now anytime I’m thinking, “Should I do it, or should I not?” All I’ve got to do is show up. The rest is going to happen. It’s beyond my control, but if I don’t show up then I’m never going to know. Then I’ll never be considered for it and then . . . why wonder what if? When all you have to do is put yourself out there.³

Just. Show. Up. Three simple words that make so much sense.

Derrick has been showing up for new adventures his whole life. He began training as a gymnast at the age of five. Seven years later he moved from gymnastics to theater, starring in over twenty productions between junior high and college. At nineteen, he moved to Hollywood to pursue his dream of being an actor. On a whim, he dressed up as Britney Spears for Halloween in 2003 and saw how much attention he was getting as he walked down Santa Monica Boulevard. He told me: “I got an amazing reaction right away. We were walking . . . and people were screaming, ‘Britney! Take pictures with me.’ I just was like, ‘Wow! This is huge!’ ”⁴ Then, when he saw that Britney was going to be a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he dressed up as her and sat in the audience. Of course, Jay and Britney noticed Derrick immediately and spoke to him from the stage, and that set the course for his future fame as a Britney Spears impersonator. In June 2004, he moved to Las Vegas and became the youngest cast member in the twenty-three-year history of “An Evening at La Cage” doing his Britney impersonation. In 2008, he competed on America’s Got Talent. From there, he secured a coveted spot in the Divas Las Vegas female impersonator revue and began to tour the world performing as Britney.

Derrick continues to take risks and say yes to new opportunities. He starred as Britney in the video for Olivia Newton-John’s remake of her own song “You Have to Believe.” He had a small role in the USA Network’s series Dig. In 2016, Derrick will be featured in an episode of “Graves,” a comedy series on the cable channel EPIX, as well as the black action-comedy film War on Everyone, starring Alexander Skarsgård. As of this writing, he’s been selected to appear on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8.

When I interviewed Derrick, I just had the twinkle of an idea that I should do drag myself. I asked him for his advice: “Show up to your burlesque classes . . . show up to your lessons with your theater coach, and then you’re eventually going to have to show up for your performance. That’s it. The rest is going to happen.”⁵ He reminded me that I already knew a little about commanding a room. I am a keynote speaker after all. My first reaction was “Yeah, dude, but that’s a lot different from cavorting around a nightclub stage in a giant wig, skimpy costume, and thigh-high boots lip-syncing for my life!” But I realized that during my drag performances, I could channel those times when I had shone on stage as a keynote speaker. Thank you for helping me see that, Derrick. So the next time you hesitate to take on something outside your comfort zone, remember Derrick’s words: Just. Show. Up. The rest will take care of itself!

notes FROM EVERYDAY QUEENS

How Shelly Stewart Kronbergs Went from a Self-Effacing Southern Sorority Girl to a Risk-Loving, Brazen Broad

So far, you have been reading Jackie’s amazing stories, but we are going to switch now, and I (Shelly) am going to share my story of learning to take risks in life. And I must start by saying that I never imagined I would have a life that would be featured alongside those of drag queens and women of power!

I was raised to be a good girl in the heart of 1960s Texas—to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” to my mama and daddy and any other grown-up I encountered. I knew that children were to be seen and not heard. And I learned that being “the smart sister” took a back seat to being “the pretty sister.” The dark side of all this conditioning, though, kept me silent during years of sexual abuse that began when I was eight and lasted until I was an adult. Even though I was smart as a child and liked being smart, southern culture teaches us that smart girls become smart women, and southern men aren’t so keen on smart women. So by the time I got to college, I had learned to hide my smarts. Because if I didn’t, how in the world was I going to get that coveted southern girl degree: the MRS?

So I followed all the culturally accepted guidelines. I was sweet to everybody I met. My braces came off just before my freshman year, and the college boys started to look my way. I joined a sorority (go Alpha Xi Delta!) and a philanthropy group called Angel Flight, which was a women’s support organization (or girl groupies, as we called ourselves) for the Air Force ROTC fraternity Arnold Air Society. So far, so good. These guys were a little smarter than your average frat boy, and most of them were going to be pilots, which felt comfortable to me, as my daddy was a pilot and air-traffic controller. I almost slipped up, though, when I took an aerospace engineering elective that led to ground-school certification for a private pilot’s license. I explored the possibility of actually becoming an Air Force pilot—I was twenty-fourth on the national list the year they decided to pick twenty-two women to go to pilot training. My scores on the exam were higher than those of almost all the young men on our campus. I lost some friends when I stopped pretending I wasn’t smart, but I gained a husband who thought it was cool.

After we married, I followed him all over the world and had three lovely daughters before I turned twenty-nine. At every stage, my identity was boldly proclaimed on my military ID: D.W.—Dependent Wife, secondary citizen, adjunct life. I had a modicum of status as a pilot’s wife, as the wife of the flight commander, then as the wife of an exchange pilot to Italy (OK, that was actually really cool), but it chafed at my growing need to be my own person. To do my own work. To have an ID that was just mine. And the work I started feeling called upon to do was something really hard and completely wrong for a girl who had been raised in the Southern Baptist Church. I wanted to be a spiritual leader. So as a way to break out of the cultural confinement, I decided to go to seminary.

I worried and prayed and wrestled with the idea that I was being called to be a Lutheran pastor. My children’s dismay was just the beginning of the struggle. One day I sat them down at the kitchen table and said, “Girls, we are going to move home to Austin next summer so that I can go to school to be a pastor.” Their silence was deafening. They all seemed to recoil a bit in their chairs. Finally, one of them said, “You mean you’re going to be up in front of everyone?” The harsh reality of the spotlight that preachers’ kids are under hit them, but eventually they were able to accept it. In fact, when my oldest went to college, she told me she gained a lot of feminist credibility because she had a mom who worked in a nongender–normative job. But it cost me, too. I discovered that my large, extended family didn’t really accept a woman in this role. It turned out that their warmth didn’t quite extend beyond their beliefs. That hurt. But I did it anyway.

I juggled being a hands-on mom with an airline pilot husband who was gone half of every month while I completed four years of graduate school, with three children in three different schools. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Each child was as overscheduled as she could possibly be. I was the “Oh hell, let’s just kick up soccer mom to a whole new level” kind of woman. Each of them was in a different scout troop, played a different instrument, and performed at school. And then there were the sports—volleyball, ice-skating, swim team, lacrosse, track, synchronized swimming (confession time: no one actually played soccer, but this counts, right?)—and some of these were select teams that competed nationally. Oh, and theater, and marching band, and color guard, and editing the freaking literary magazine. I was going crazy winning the stupid “mommy wars.”

I graduated, became ordained, and served a small church on the outskirts of town. Until I couldn’t anymore. You see, being a pastor is both a deeply satisfying and terribly restricting profession. I had the privilege of providing hope and love and encouragement to a group of people who opened up their lives and hearts to me. I got to speak and lead and teach, and I was finally, finally, celebrated for being smart. I loved these parts of the job. But those robes and that role began to chafe as much as the previous roles I’d played. Because the truth is, I am just not pious enough. I curse too much. I like to wear stiletto heels and low-cut blouses, and I really needed to be able to express my sexuality without leading a congregation off the skids. I also needed to make a change in my personal life, so when my twenty-eight-year marriage ended, I resigned.

I realized that I had still been circling the periphery of my self and my life. I needed to stop being the person everyone expected me to be and simply be me. I wanted to do the work I had loved as a pastor without concealing who I was in my life. Becoming a psychotherapist could give me both. Three more years of graduate school, followed by licensing exams, and I opened my private practice. The soul searching I did during this time helped me uncover one more aspect of myself that I had to explore. I wanted to get really comfortable with my sexual side. I had to make peace with the fact that, although I was the victim of sexual abuse, I still liked sex. With the help of my own psychotherapist, I began the hard task of healing. I gathered up my courage and started to date again and, on a whim, decided to take a burlesque dancing class.

I was fifty-one years old, and it was almost as intimidating as the first time I stepped into a pulpit to preach. But this time, instead of putting on robes and stoles, I was disrobing! In front of others! I was the oldest student by far, and probably the worst dancer, but I surprised myself by not caring. Because the most important thing I learned from burlesque is that the dancer is always in charge of what happens. The dancer can flirt and express her sexual side at her own pace. She can reveal what she chooses to reveal. She makes no promises in her dance other than that she enjoys it. Burlesque is about female empowerment, so I decided to pick a stage name that both reflected my newfound sense of power and respected my past history. I settled on Betty La Belle because it’s an English spin on my favorite French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête, better known as Beauty and the Beast, and that felt like a perfect fit for me. While I have performed burlesque many times in private, I won’t do it in public and risk having one of my clients see it. That would violate the ethical standards of the counseling profession, which includes the absolute prohibition of any sexual relationship. So to strip off my clothes in front of a client even teasingly would come too close to being in that category. Not. Going. To. Happen.

I did do one somewhat public event that felt like taking a surprisingly big risk: I had a boudoir photo shoot done. I showed up at the studio with nothing more than a collection of sexy lingerie, heels, and my boyfriend’s bass guitar. The photographer and the makeup artist did a great job of helping me feel at ease, even though I knew that my current body only slightly resembled the centerfold-worthy figure I had at twenty-one. I decided that my goal wasn’t to be able to boast about my measurements or my long legs, but was to be able to claim the truth about my body: namely, that at that moment in time I was (and still am) a very sexy person. I like being that. It’s what got me to come out of the dressing room wearing that black-lace bra, stockings, stilettos, and a G-string made out of pearls, pose on the bearskin rug with that guitar between my stretched-out legs, and throw my head back and laugh. I had so much fun that they asked me to stay for another hour, and we took hundreds of pictures. I had the best ones made into a book as a reminder of how good it feels to take a risk and how much joy I feel in finally being me.

The things I experienced in the past—the suffering, the setbacks, the losses, and the struggles—no longer have the power to define me. I realized that, like these amazing drag queens, I get to define myself. And I choose to be more than just OK, more than just a survivor, more than just a “good girl.” I choose, instead, to be the most fabulous, glorious self that I can be; to embrace my strength and power, and let the light of happiness and the joy of being fully, fiercely me shine forth.

notes FROM THE COUCH

Risk Taking, Power Priming, and the Epigenetic Possibilities of Drag

Taking action is risky. Those action steps look good on paper and sound good in theory, but they sure are hard to actually do, aren’t they? Especially for women. One of the reasons is simple physiology. Men have more of the risk-supporting testosterone than women do. And women have been acculturated to allow those differences to inhibit a lot of our impulses to take risks. But we are selling ourselves short, because we do possess some testosterone, and when we use it, really interesting things happen. In 2013, a research team in the Netherlands studied the differences in risk taking between males and females in puberty to determine the effects of testosterone and brain function in each gender. Each participant was able to click on a balloon pump to inflate it. Every time they clicked, they earned money, and they could cash out anytime they decided. But if the balloon popped before they chose to stop, they lost all their money. The scientists measured the testosterone levels of the participants as they made their choices. Unsurprisingly, the boys with higher testosterone popped more balloons. But much to their surprise, the girls with higher testosterone (compared to other girls) earned more money.⁶ It turns out that there is a very high value for women to access and even increase their testosterone levels, and a compelling reason to do so.

How can you increase this hormone? Take charge of something! A team of researchers at the University of Michigan studied the effects of behavior—specifically, dominant behavior—on the levels of testosterone in men and women. They knew that the levels vary according to gender, but they discovered something else really interesting. Women’s low levels of the hormone might actually be a result of being socialized not to express dominance. The study recruited men and women participants to act as a boss who is required to fire an employee in a business setting. Each person was asked to do this twice: the first time in a typically masculine or dominant fashion; the second, in a typically feminine or nondominant manner. The results showed very little difference in testosterone levels for men, but a significant increase in the levels for women, regardless of the manner in which they performed the task. They concluded that women could raise their testosterone levels simply by exercising power.⁷ This study shows that to increase your level of testosterone, and therefore your ability to take risks, you just need to take charge of something—perhaps even take charge of what your next step, your next action, will be, and then do it.

When Pamela Barnes, former financial expert and current CEO of Engender Health, a global organization focused on women’s health around the world, was asked what advice she would give to women who are hoping to rise to leadership in the business world, she replied: “For all professionals, and especially young women, the world outside our comfort zones can be huge and scary. Until we are willing to put ourselves out there and take a risk, we will never be able to achieve success and realize our potential. It’s time to leave our comfort zone, time to go after what we’re passionate about, and time to achieve our dreams.”⁸ To leave our comfort zone and go after our dreams, even when it feels like a big risk, is exactly what taking action, what werking is!

The ability to take risks and reach goals is vital to living a satisfying life. Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, the cofounders of the Self-Determination Theory, came to the realization that “one of the main trajectories in a person’s life is to develop autonomy,” which they understand as “acting from an integrated sense of self and endorsing one’s own actions.”⁹ What they are saying is that life satisfaction is tied to the ways in which we choose what we do in life and that we like what we have chosen without needing outside approval for those choices. Self-determination is the act of choosing how our lives will go. It is the ultimate “take-charge” act that boosts testosterone and enables us to take the risks necessary to be the people we want to be.

The key, it seems, is to be willing to take a risk to do something that you love, that you care about, and that fills you with passion. The good news is that there are lots of techniques and methods that can help you do this. In addition to taking charge, another major way to increase risk taking is called “power priming.” In 2012, a team of researchers from Europe and the United States conducted a series of experiments to determine the effects of priming a job or graduate school candidate with a memory of power. The first test involved participants who were randomly assigned the task of job applicant or interviewer. The applicants were then randomly given the task of either writing down a memory of when they had power or when they didn’t have power in a situation in their lives. These letters were collected, and then the applicants filled out job applications, which were sent to interviewers who did not have access to the letters. The applicants who had written about a positive experience of having power in their lives were offered jobs at a significantly higher rate than both the control group, which did not have a writing assignment, and the group that wrote about an experience of having less power.

The researchers decided to see if this result held true in a face-to-face interview. So they gave the same writing assignment to university students who were participating in mock interviews for admission to graduate programs in the business school. They were manipulated into thinking that their writing assignment was done to assess handwriting, not to prime their brains for power. Their main task was to convince two interviewers, professors who were unaware of the power-prime assignment, to accept them into the program. These results were even more stunning: positive power priming increased the odds of being accepted by 81 percent compared to those in the control group, and 164 percent compared to those who had been negatively primed.¹⁰ This is an incredibly powerful tool. All you need to do before an interview, a speech, or any potentially high-risk or high-stress event is take a few minutes beforehand to write down a moment when you were powerful, and the odds should always be in your favor.

The payoff for “werking it” might actually be more than just a successful, satisfying life. It might actually change the genetic code for you and your potential offspring. Which just might change the world. New research around this topic is happening in the field of epigenetics. Frances Champagne, a professor of psychology at Columbia University and prominent researcher of the relationship of epigenetics and social behavior, resilience, and heritability, discusses the basics of this new field and its implications in an article she wrote for the Association for Psychological Science Observer in 2009.¹¹ Epigenetics, she says, means the influences on a gene that are “in addition to genetic.” We are learning that it isn’t just the DNA itself that gets inherited; the way that the DNA can be arranged and accessed can also be inherited. What this might mean for you is that if you make a change in the way you manage stress, if you gain self-confidence, or if you increase your tolerance for risk taking, you could pass those behaviors down to your children through your DNA. There is also the possibility that if your children are exposed to parents who are changing the way they access their ability to be confident, then this might trigger the activation of that particular trait in the child and increase the probability of confidence being inherited in your child’s future offspring. Champagne cautions that more studies are necessary to better understand this process, but she is confident that what scientists are learning about epigenetics will only support these findings. Just think, doing drag today could mean bolder children tomorrow!

notes FOR YOUR DRAG DIARY

You Better Werk!

If you haven’t already gotten the message, this chapter is about getting out of your head, taking a risk, and moving forward with some action. True confidence is when you actually go through with doing something even though you may be afraid of the risks. If you can push yourself to take small risks, that will make it easier to try even bigger things next time. Keep trying new and bigger things by building on the success of those smaller challenges. So we have a question for you: Have you been breezing through this book, reading all of the Drag Diary homework but not doing any of the exercises? (Bonus points for those who have been trying things.) If you just haven’t gotten around to doing those things, no worries. Now is your time! Did you think we would let you get away with not trying some new things, honey?

Take the 50 Days to Fierce Challenge. How many of the Drag Diary homework items can you do in fifty days from the start of reading this book? Here’s how you complete the challenge:

• Open your Drag Diary and write down the date.

• Start working your way through the list with the goal of completing all of the items in fifty days.

• For each item completed, first record how it felt to do the item in your Drag Diary. Then, on social media, post a photo or short video (less than fifteen seconds) related to the item with the hashtag #FiercelyYou and tagging me, @jackiehuba, on Twitter or Instagram.

• When your fifty days are up, tweet or post to Instagram a final celebratory message tagging @jackiehuba (again, on Twitter or Instagram) with the hashtags #FiercelyYou #FierceAtLast.

• If we find you have done all of the challenges, we will induct you into our drag family, the Haus of Fierce. All inductees will receive special Haus of Fierce recognition.

Does this list seem daunting? If so, recruit a friend to do it with you. Better yet, get a group of friends together as part of a book club and do it all together. Every time you meet, you can talk over your experience with each of the items.

You can do this. Now is your time to be fierce, fabulous, and more confident!