Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme share holiday joy of forming a ‘chosen family’

The celebrated drag artists are set to kick off an international tour on Tuesday, sending a message that the holiday season is a celebration open to all.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, legislation targeting LGBTQ+ rights has more than doubled since last year, with more than 500 bills restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people introduced to state legislatures so far in 2023. But while anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is growing, queer communities and their allies are coming together in resistance.

And for more than a century, one form of resistance is drag.

Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme are two drag artists and activists who became household names after joining the fifth and sixth seasons of the popular reality TV show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” But long before that, they were working together in the Pacific Northwest. Monsoon started performing at 15 in her hometown of Portland, while BenDeLaCreme, who also goes by DeLa, started her career in Chicago, before making her way to Seattle in the mid-2000s.

Now, the duo is hitting the road for an international holiday tour, called “The Jinkx & Dela Holiday Show,” starting Tuesday, including four shows in Seattle from Dec. 21-24, and one show in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 27.

They joined OPB’s “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori to talk about queer joy, drag as resistance and the idea of “chosen family.”