Valentina has spoken out against “body shaming” comments made by Instagram users on a photo her nude gown she wore at the Creative Arts Emmys.
Some Instagrammers criticized Valentina for being too masculine for her dress, wishing that she had added more padding.
In response, Valentina wrote on Instagram:
“How dare you all be this mean. I’m crying reading these comments. I’ve read comments on my body and masculinity tonight that have really hurt me. Calling me a man. Telling me my hips don’t match my shoulders. It really f*cking hurts. I was living such an Emmys fantasy but these comments made me want to hide in a hole for something I can’t fix. I’m F*CKING human!”
Here’s the Instagram post that got the body-shaming blowback:
Here’s the tea, haters: You aren’t RuPaul or Michelle Visage — you aren’t a judge on a drag reality TV show, and red carpets aren’t the “Drag Race” runway. Catty internet culture and too much “Drag Race” have deluded you into thinking that you have the right to read any queen that sashays across your sightline, like you own their bodies or they owe you fishiness. But such reads are often little more than toxicity and shade — so can it.
Related: ‘Drag Race’ winner Sasha Velour reads Valentina for filth and the crowd loses their damn minds
It’s all the more heinous when one recalls that Valentina came out as non-binary in Jan. 2019. Valentina said, “I don’t completely feel like a man, I don’t completely feel like a woman. I feel like a goddess. I feel like I’m my own gender.” That means the haters’ comments are really just a form of body policing against an already marginalized member of the queer community. Gross.
In happier news, The Fab Five from “Queer Eye” also worked the Emmys red carpet. Grooming guy Jonathan Van Ness rocked a black dress with “peep-toe” boots. His co-stars looked fierce AF too.
Aries3dc
I don’t care enough about Valentina to care about this one way or the other. But I will say this — when a drag queen decides to go without padding in a dress like that, she has to know what’s coming. I find it hard to believe she didn’t anticipate the reads about proportions. After all, Valentina isn’t known as a gender-bending fashionista (think Billy Porter). She’s known as a drag queen. I mean, Michelle Visage would have a field day with this.