Once a Sister, Always a Sister

In life, you’ll meet people in the strangest of places.  

Anemia Blunt and I met on a college campus a little over five years ago, much before starting drag, and to say that approaching this piece has been emotional is an understatement. I tend to remain objective, as the concept of “journalism” suggests, but when it comes to a girl like her, you can’t help but get a little sweet.  

In the truest nature of ourselves, we start the conversation off in a way best described as “rotted.” For hers and the transcript’s sake, though, when Anemia greeted me, she had never looked more opulent. “I’m in a triple stack wig…like, my makeup is literally flawless. And also, I’m in Los Angeles.”  

Tonight, Los Angeles feels a lot closer. It looks like Pittsburgh. It looks like home, much alike the one that we built, with two confused drop outs, stoned in front of the TV.  

Drag, to Anemia, was “like people when they say they’re moving to the state of Florida. I threw a dart board at the map…and it landed in the garbage can.” While of course, this is not meant to be a serious take, the spontaneity of it is. Eventually, for the both of us, what we were looking for in the universe just sort of clicked. “[It] was something that I never had the words to describe, but it was always a part of my life.” This discovery, while the answer lingers throughout, has been present in not only discussions on drag, but transness as well. Our transitions had also been interlinked, to both each other, and performance. “You’re standing on the opposite side of the room, both of you throw a knife at each other, and it’s an instant kill.”  

Of course, we were both trans, and no matter how much we joked about getting a body swap, we were both drag queens. Anemia’s interest in drag predates “our lore.” It even predates her viewership of RuPaul’s Drag Race, having met an entertainer in her hometown of Altoona. She went to school where her father taught, and this little run in created a much larger realization; “a woman…with a five o’clock shadow,” which is what they say about me, I kid.  

As most entertainers do, though, she did pick up Drag Race around seasons 8 and 9, “…And that really ignited the spark, the Indigo Spark.” Though, “…at that point, there really wasn’t much going on outside of Drag Race except online competitions.” Drag at the time was much more of a niche, and this subsection of online art naturally led her to, “insert title card here,” Lydia B. Kollins,  

Bedroom drag, especially while growing up, was much more accessible. Entertainers like Lydia were able to share themselves on a much wider scale than the local bars, but also maintained inspiration from being real, or as Anemia describes, “tangible.” After officially moving to Pittsburgh, she started to majorly focus in on the drag world as whole. “I could go into the city and meet [Lydia.] …These people could be a block away from me.” And through some unexplainable, universal force they really were. Anemia moved in practically across the street from what was the hub for the Haus of Kollins, and the journey into the scene followed.  

Anemia first started attending drag shows at what is now The Poetry Lounge but soon started toting me along with her to other venues, opening both of us up to be introduced to more of the local talent outside of The Kollins. Shortly after my twenty first birthday, we went to 5801 for a mid-season 15 viewing party, where we met Luna Skye and Calipso, and funnily enough, saw an image of ourselves. We saw what we wanted. We wanted to laugh with each other, the way we always had, but with a purpose. Our identities, our presentations, were made to reflect our dialogue. They were built for performance.  

“I never really thought about entertaining the idea of me doing drag other than in my mind. [I thought,] ‘That’s going to be me one day,” instead of being like, that could literally be me now.” She already had the skills, and her and I had been developing them for years without the understanding exactly as of to why. After being approached by Lydia, as well as longtime friend, Brooke, also known as Shelob, “I had realized what I wanted to do with my life, which was [to transition,] but I was still at that point of repressing it.” After being pushed by Brooke to “finally put on the wig,” the rest was history. “I went home, and was like, Dezz, WE can do drag.” And as fate would have it, we did. We entered the Pittsburgh drag scene on a random Tuesday in June at Ptown Bar. From then on, we continued to introduce ourselves. We performed where we could, and went to as many shows the weeks between working day jobs would allow. But where do we go from here? What do we make of all this connection? 

“You know what I’m gonna say.”  

I do.  

“One fateful day, I spent a hundred dollars on a four top table at the Hard Rock Café.”   

This sent the both of us swiftly down the sparkling spiral of your current reigning Miss Blue Moon, Joey Young. For Anemia, this resulted in, and “I need you to really emphasize this…hours and hours of rhinestoning.”  Of course, Joey was not the only person to “weaponize” this skill of hers. “If you’ve been doing drag for over a year, I have rhinestoned for you,” and while we joke about the pain in labor, the craft has formed her own personal community. “I’ve really gotten to see and work for all walks of drag…Rhinestoning is just a small little thing, but it really is such a connecting thing in the drag community…It wasn’t always.” Over 30 years ago, the only available crystals were made of glass, but once materials like resins and plastics became popularized, the drag scene “took it and fucking ran…Everything had to have a rhinestone on it.”  

However, nothing can ever shine brighter than the woman herself.   

“You can spread your name [in the scene] in ways that, sometimes, you can’t even do IN drag.” Anemia began as a production assistant for Indica’s Another Party and further cemented herself as a pillar in the scene. “They really say pay your dues…and that sets your up for how you’re going to be as an entertainer. The dues that you’re paying now…you have secured yourself.” Drag, from an entertainment perspective, cannot be reliant on performance ability alone. This industry, especially in the context of its queerness, is built on odd jobs, networking, and unwavering support. “You can’t expect to work at the caliber of other entertainers…without rounding yourself in all the varieties of it.”  

Another Party is one of the best displays of drag from all over, bringing in performers from RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as many queer entertainment icons, as I’ve discussed with Indica herself on our website in “Let Me Take a Fucking Hit,” but in Anemia’s work, these characters have become incredibly human. “It was hard at first because you have to set aside that sense of stardom…these are people who deserve respect, not just professionalism, but to be treated as human beings who are not in work mode as well. From the beginning, it was like, what do you say…to somebody who is constantly in interview mode? I realized very quickly that…if you’re going to talk to them, you better give them something interesting to talk about.” Anemia does her research, not in just the work these artists present, but in their day to day lives. Existence outside of work is precious, and for Anemia, it’s her livelihood. Almost weekly, she picks up television stars in her 2008 Prius. They sit in the passenger seat, by a dashboard riddled with eyelashes that carry years of memory. Anemia and I have had plenty of conversation in these seats, and for her guests, she hands them the mic. “Trixie Mattel said, ‘People’s favorite thing to do is talk to you…’ [but] people also like to not talk. There’s the code switching of getting to be personal with people, but then there’s also this moment of realization where you have to say that this 45 minutes from [from the airport] is probably the first break they’ve had since last week.”  

Riding with Anemia is unlike any uber, limo, or any service. It provides loving familiarity and has allowed her to break out of her own shell as well. “It was very jarring to me because for a long time in my life, I had struggled to make genuine connections, and then all of a sudden, it felt like connections were being thrust upon me.” But all of this has been deservedly so. No one supports drag the way Anemia Blunt does. “I built my reputation on picking up people’s dollars and being so obnoxiously loud that you can’t hear anybody else scream…Drag gets me so excited, [and] Pittsburgh has always been the essence of drag.”  

What propels Anemia does not lie in her talent alone, but in her passion. In some of the most vulnerable years of our lives, we had not much else besides each other. Now, we have families, with Lydia B. Kollins, Joey Young, and all of the generations that have come before us and will come after.  

We wrap up the call with laughter, the way that we always have.  

The wind blows through my hair, locking into the frame of my glasses. I’m in our old neighborhood, and for a moment, it’s almost like we had never left. When my sight returns, what is in front of me is no longer two siblings, confused and begging for a purpose, but two success stories. Two pieces of hope, light, and love.  

Anemia Blunt; once a sister, always a sister.