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It joyously chronicles Monique Jenkinson’s creation of her drag persona Fauxnique, the people and cultural practices that crash her identity into being, her journey through one of the most experimental moments in queer cultural history, and her rise through the nightlife underground to become the first cisgender woman crowned as a major pageant-winning drag queen.
Jenkinson finds authenticity through the glee of drag artifice and articulation through the immediacy of performing bodies. She pens a valentine to gay men and their culture while relaying the making of an open-minded feminist and queer ally. Faux Queen finds deep healing in irreverence and posits that it might be possible for us—queer, straight, and almost everyone on either side and in between—to come together in fabulous difference on the dance floor.
“I've read many books about drag over the years and Monique Jenkinson's Faux Queen is officially my new favorite—and I swear it's not just because I'm in it! Her life story in drag is unique and inspiring. She beautifully and thoughtfully describes an outrageous, provocative, and magical time in San Francisco's drag history that's often misunderstood in hindsight. I'm so grateful to Monique for writing this incredible chronicle of our lives!” —Peaches Christ, filmmaker and cult leader
Monique Jenkinson is an artist, choreographer, performer and writer who dwells joyously at the intersection of contemporary dance and cabaret, and considers the performance of femininity as a powerful, vulnerable and subversive act. In the guise of her drag persona Fauxnique, she made herstory as the first cis woman to win a major drag queen pageant. Her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums, for screaming fans and discerning critics. Faux Queen is her first book.