On Saturday night, seven drag queens performed at the Yellow Rose Drag Show hosted by Delta Lambda Phi fraternity. 

The show was hosted by Ima Moista Toweletta Beaverhausen from The Blazing Saddle in Des Moines, Iowa. It featured performances from seven queens in total, many from The Blazing Saddle.

Others came from farther away, including one performer from Burlington, Iowa, as well as another from Texas.

Each queen performed their own routine of dancing and lip syncing. The night began with a performance from the host herself. Beverhausen rose to the stage and gave a sultry lip sync performance of Get The Party Started by Shirley Bassey. She wore five wigs to create a baby pink beehive hairdo.

“I used to hate drag,” said Robin Graves, one of the drag queens. “I thought it was super weird. And then I saw [a performance] one day and I was like ‘They’re so fabulous. I want to do that,’ and I kind of did it as a joke. I was really bad, and my bra fell off. And then I was like ‘Let me try it one more time,’ and then I [thought] ‘OK maybe I’m good at this.'”

Graves has been doing drag for three and a half years. As a dancer, she sees drag as just another form of self expression.

“It’s really cool to not be yourself sometimes,” Graves said. “I think that when I’m in drag and when I’m not in drag, I am two different people. I can be whoever I want.”

Another performer, Taystee Addiction, of Burlington, Iowa, donned a platinum blonde wig alongside a pink and black bodysuit and silver knee-high boots. For one of her performances, she chose an EDM mashup of songs by Kesha.

During a Q&A segment of the show, Beaverhausen described the relationship that she and her queens have.

“It has grown into the most amazing thing,” Beaverhausen said. “We do family dinners all the time. We have a family chat where we talk about anything and everything. I don’t have the best relationship with my own personal, biological family, so it was kind of nice to grow into that little group that we now call a family.”

Between performances, Derrik Wallace and Paul Hengesteg, the president and treasurer of Delta Lambda Phi, respectively, took the stage to inform the audience of the philanthropic reason behind the show.

All of the proceeds from ticket sales, as well as tips received by the performers, were donated to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization aimed at suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ youth. 

In addition, Wallace and Hengesteg used the event to promote resources available for potential at-risk members of the LGBTQIA+ community, both on-campus and off.

By the end of the night, the show had reached their goal of more than $3,000 in donations for The Trevor Project.