The crowd was screaming and the energy was magnified as the lights went low and the first queen came out to open the night at DePaul’s Seventh Annual Drag Show collaboratively hosted by The Center for Identity Inclusion and Social Change, Act Out! and Residential Education. The room was packed as students flocked to the student center to see their favorite DePaul Queens (and Kings) on Thursday May 5 at 8 p.m.

The show has been around for seven years and was first started by students collaborating with Spectrum and Act Out! It was just recently moved from the Student Center Atrium to room 120 due to the high attendance. But there also is a long history of student shows, including the one hosted by Act Out! on April 15, which mainly hosted student performers. This year, the winner of the student show, a drag king named Justin Right, was given the chance to perform at this show as well, right alongside professional drag performers.

Katherine Weseman is an LGBTQIA services coordinator in the Center for Identity and Social Change and helped organize this event. Weseman explained that the show was a lot more than watching someone lip sync on stage.

“Drag has been an art form for many, many years. I really like about this show and the student show that was just a few weeks before this is that they’re really about celebration as well as about challenging gender norms, gender boundaries (and) what we think a man should be or a woman should be. I think that’s a really powerful thing to do through performance, so it’s whimsical and fun to watch, but also is making a diverse statement,” Weseman said.

This show gives underaged students an opportunity to see these events that normally only happen at bars that are 21-plus. They get to see these types of performances in a safe and accessible environment. But more importantly is what it does to those who go, Weseman said.

“I think when there’s this large (of a) turnout, there’s also a groundswell in terms of people talking about it,” Weseman said. “Prior to me starting (working at DePaul), something that made the news was that we’re a Catholic school that has a (public) drag show, and at that time it was in the atrium. So that’s a statement in and of itself that the school is this inclusive and open to challenging gender norms and gender boundaries through this show.”