'Drag Race' Star Madame LaQueer Comes Out as Trans, Announces New Name

"RuPaul's Drag Race" star Madame LaQueer announced that she is transgender, and not only that, she's retiring her old drag name and adopting a new one.

Now to be known as Madame Cassandra Uzumaki LaQueer – or Cassie, when not performing – the drag icon made her announcement in her Instagram Stories on Jan. 22.

She opened up to Entertainment Weekly after that, telling the site that coming out publicly is "something I've been pondering for myself for years," and now that she's done it, she's "ecstatic" about her choice.

"It's now or never," LaQueer declared. "I think this serves for me to be a voice for those that have persuaded themselves into not pursuing their truths and let time take over."

"It's never too late to come out and live your true experience and be yourself and be authentic," LaQueer went on to add. "There's nothing like feeling loved in your own skin."

"Madame – who hails from Puerto Rico, and is also the drag mother of 'Drag Race' Season 5 contestant Lineysha Sparx – says she first realized she was trans in 2006 while performing on the pageant circuit, but regularly allowed her 'inner saboteur to reel' her back from living authentically," EW reported.

"I kind of talked myself out of it," LaQueer recalled, going on to disclose "that she endured a '12-year long depression' over the inner conflict, and admits that she felt like 'giving up' at certain points along the journey," EW relayed.

The performer revealed that she had "an emotional conversation... with fellow 'Drag Race' contestant Jade Jolie – who previously came out as trans in October 2023 – while traveling to a performance around three weeks ago," EW added.

"I felt like, 'Okay, this is how I need to regain control of my life,' because even as a boy, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I still see the woman in there, but, no, she can't come out, it's too late," LaQueer explained.

"The climax of the story is just coincidentally having to carpool with Jade Jolie to a gig we had together, and we had hours to talk. It came out in the conversation, and she knew everything I was going to say. She clocked it quickly, and it just made sense. Like, girl, it's now or never."

Another fellow "Drag Race" star LaQueer mentioned – and nearly confided in – was "Kylie Sonique Love," EW detailed, "who made her mark on the competition by being the first queen to come out as trans during filming, at a Season 4 premiere party in 2012."

But, LaQueer, admitted, she wasn't ready at the time to come out, even to another drag star. "I was giving her a little bit of a backstory, and she thought I was coming out as trans to her," LaQueer recalled of her conversation with Sonique Love. "She was like, 'Oh my God, there are resources, you can live your truth!' and I was like, 'No that's not it,' and I brushed it off and moved on, because I wasn't ready to face that, but she clocked it!"

LaQueer "joins other RuGirls who have come out as trans over the last year, including the aforementioned Jade, Season 6 and 'All Stars 2' competitor Adore Delano, and Season 9 and 'All Stars 4' queen Farrah Moan," EW noted.