A self-declared “drag queen” guest of the White House allegedly raped or attempted to rape multiple young men, according to an investigation by Rolling Stone magazine.
Darius Jeremy (“DJ”) Pierce, who presents himself as “Shangela,” is a big hit in the business of “drag” where men portray themselves as exaggerations of stereotyped femininity.
He is “one of the most visible queer people in pop culture,” the magazine reported.
Rolling Stone explained the allegations:
But behind the curtain — in hotel rooms and apartments — four people allege to Rolling Stone that Darius Jeremy (“DJ”) Pierce, the man behind the famous drag persona, either sexually assaulted them or attempted to have sex with them when they were too inebriated to consent. A fifth person claims Pierce attempted anal penetration in a bathroom closet despite rejecting his advances.The allegations against the 43-year-old Pierce mirror elements laid out in a recently settled civil lawsuit against the drag star by a former colleague. (Neither Drag Race nor RuPaul are implicated in any of Rolling Stone‘s findings.) According to court documents, Pierce was accused of raping a production assistant from We’re Here — a television show bringing one-night-only drag shows to small communities across the U.S. — after purchasing several drinks for them.
“Her Penis”
RoyLee Soliz claimed Piere assaulted him when he was 20 years old:
“I just remember trying to sleep and closing my mouth when she (Shangela) tried to put her penis in my mouth,” Soliz claimed. “I really didn’t have any strength to tell her to stop or that I didn’t want to have sex with her.… She had gotten me so drunk that I couldn’t say no, and I was in no way mentally OK enough to feel strong or demand her to stop what she was doing.”
Via his lawyers, Pierce denies the allegations:
In a legal letter to Rolling Stone, Pierce, through his lawyer Andrew Brettler, called the allegations “false and unsupported by any evidence or reliable witness testimony,” claiming that there were “significant problems with purported accusers’ accounts.” Brettler asserted that Pierce “adamantly denies ever engaging in nonconsensual sex.”
People who work as drag queens can be straight or gay, regardless of the public female display.
Shangela at the 26th Costume Designers Guild Awards held at Neuehouse Hollywood on February 21, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)
But there is a close association between drag queens and the political campaign for transgenderism. For example, Pierce has promoted “drag queen story hour” events for children, where adults promote the claim that people’s gender is more important than their physical sex, such as whether or not they have a penis.
Fewer than 2 percent of Americans claim to be transgender.
Rolling Stone wrote:
Queer culture embraced the drag star’s compassionate branding. A headline-grabbing performance for GLAAD, sold-out touring productions, and top billing at Pride events cemented her [his] status as one of the most visible queer people in pop culture, projecting her [him] into historically nonrepresentative spaces. She [he] appeared in the film A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, and the television series Dancing With the Stars, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance red-carpet movie premiere, and received a White House invitation for the [2022] signing of the Respect for Marriage Act.
Pierce has crowned himself as a leader of the “LGBTQ+ fabulosity.”
Research shows that very few older male “transgender women” undergo genital surgery and that most remain heterosexual — although with an intense sexual desire to be viewed as women. That desire is described as autogynephilia, or “AGP.”
A separate category of younger men labels themselves as “sissies,” partly because they have sex with men while pretending to be women.