December 23, 2022
'Drag Race' Star Eureka O'Hara Comes Out as Trans
READ TIME: 7 MIN.
"RuPaul's Drag Race" alum and "We're Here" star Eureka O'Hara is sharing some personal news: She is transgender.
Making her announcement in People magazine, Eureka said she was struggling with her gender identity for years but now says she's "blessed because I know who I am without question."
"It's been really magical and it's been probably the easiest transitional and coming out journey that I've ever been on," she said. "I hope my story teaches people that gender is a journey, and we are ever-evolving people."
People credits her moment of understanding to filming her HBO series "We're Here," which also stars "Drag Race" queens Shangela and Bob the Drag Queen. While filming the show in the spring in Florida, Eureka met two trans people, "Mandy, who transitioned later in life, and Dempsey, a young trans girl who inspired her to reexamine her identity," the magazine writes.
"Hearing the story of Mandy regretting losing all that time - and all the regret and the pain that she was going through during the time of not fully being herself - was really important to me. When I left Mandy's house that day, I started spiraling. It just had me searching my mind, 'What is happening, what is going on?' Then I just answered myself: 'I'm trans. I'm a trans woman.' It just clicked," Eureka explained. "Now I'm at 31 years old, and I'm like, 'Well I don't want to be like Mandy and finally transition at 70 to be happy. I don't want to lose 40 years - I want to spend those 40 years happy.'"
During the start of her transition, Eureka said that she had as strong support system, which included her "We're Here" sisters along with her drag mother, Jacqueline St. James. She says she has been on hormone replacement therapy for seven months, and is "taking the streps toward a physical transformation," People notes.
"I wanted to have the opportunity to tell the story with the show, because I was so impacted by Mandy. It was like I got to decide for the first time ever in my life how I came out, 'cause I never had that experience before," Eureka said. "I was always called gay before I ever even knew what gay was; when I wanted to transition before, I was told by the other people in my life and trans people that I was trans before I really understood what it was. This time it was like, I get to do it my way."
Elsewhere in the interview, Eureka opened up about the struggles she faces in the future.
"Every day, I'm becoming the woman that I strive to be - but I'm already that woman. It's just like any other female and any other person, I'm going to do what I need to do to feel even more comfortable in my skin," she said. "I want to have breast argumentation done. I want to have, potentially, facial feminization surgery. I'm not sure. I get really nervous about my face, you know what I mean? 'Cause I have such a pretty face already, so I don't want to mess anything up."
Eureka added: "I'm preparing my body and myself for surgeries in the future, too, because I do want to be the woman that I want to be. I've been losing weight and being more mindful of what I eat in my diet and have been taking care of myself health-wise, because I was told by a doctor that they wouldn't put me under at the size that I was. So that is also something that I'm working towards."
Click here to read the full People interview with Eureka, where she opens up about struggling with her identity as a child, how drag helped her brace her identity, her struggles being a woman ("It's hard being a woman -- and that's the truth!"), her upcoming projects, and more.
