Peppermint led this year’s New York City Pride March dressed as a drum major, with a rainbow sash and uniform she designed with friend Angel Ayala. The look carried a message: “This is also America.”
As a grand marshal, the performer and advocate had a bigger stage for the work she has long done: bringing people together through entertainment while standing up for the trans community. “The joy is in the work for me,” she says. “It’s important if I’m doing entertainment that there’s a bit of advocacy involved…then it should be fun.”
That approach has taken Peppermint from RuPaul’s Drag Race to Broadway’s Head Over Heels. In college, she was told that roles were rarely written for someone who was both Black and queer. Drag gave her a place to tell stories on her own terms; Broadway later fulfilled a childhood dream.
This year, she partnered with Black- and queer-owned Moody Tea Company on Transcendence, a tea blend supporting Advocates for Trans Equality, which once helped her change her identity documents.
For Peppermint, being out means finding solidarity with others and demanding change. Her message is direct: “Gender-affirming care is health care, housing is health care, and everyone deserves it, including trans people.” @peppermint247
