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This profile is part of Queerty’s 2021 Out For Good series, recognizing public figures who’ve had the courage to come out and make a difference in the past year, in celebration of National Coming Out Day on October 11.
Name: Laganja Estranja, 32
Bio: Laganja competed on the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2014, where she had a plethora of memorable moments, including feeling very attacked, sitting alone under a table and delivering the best entrance of all time.
Laganja has also appeared on So You Think You Can Dance and is a cannabis activist. Most recently, she returned to Drag Race as a lip-sync assassin, turning out a legendary performance to “Physical” by Dua Lipa.
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Coming Out: Laganja publicly came out as a trans woman in a June 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“There are so many other women around me who’ve inspired me to come forward today, and it’s because of their fight and their struggle that I’m able to really do this and say that I’m nervous, but I’m not scared,” she said. “I’m not going to live my life in fear anymore.”
Chosen Family: Laganja said it was important to her to come out prior to starting hormone therapy, to show people that every trans person’s journey is different.
“Glam doesn’t make you a woman; it makes you a woman to people outside, in the world…gender is performative, and what we wear is an extension of what we feel on the inside.
“That’s the real truth here: once this is out and once people know, I’m going to be more free to explore what it means to be a woman on the inside. The dressing part? I’ve got it down, but that’s not what makes you a woman.”
Laganja followed up the interview with an Instagram post. In the caption, she wrote, “I want to thank all the trans brothers and sisters that came before me who fought so that my coming out could be joyous! I am so proud to identify as TRANS and to be living my truth. Happy PRIDE, you are beautiful as you are.”
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Laganja seemed troubled during Season 6, and now seems happier and much more comfortable in her own skin. Congratulations to her on being herself.
And that lip sync against Trinity as the assassin. Damn!