Isaac Maker is a recent high school graduate who has been doing drag performances since February of 2019.
Drag is a type of entertainment where people dress up and perform, commonly cross-dressing in exaggerated and stylized ways with over-the-top features and makeup. It’s often used as a celebration or experimentation with gender, pushing the boundaries on what is considered normal.
When in costume, Maker uses the name Betty Baker, which is partially a play on his grandmother's name, Betty Maker, but in reality, it was just a nice-sounding alliteration for a name that fits in with their persona.
Although Betty is female, Isaac still chooses to use he/him or they/them pronouns while out of drag. However, they do share many similarities in how they speak, act and carry themselves.
Maker has always been an artistic person. Growing up acting in theatre, having an interest in music and art, even creating outfits for their toys. To them, it seems like a natural progression gaining an interest in drag, especially with the rise in popularity of shows like RuPaul's Drag Race.
“I feel like drag being more mainstream, more people understand it. So it's a little bit easier to explain to people that you do it. But the most challenging thing, in terms of drag, is being young. In a lot of places, you have to be 19 to perform. I feel like creating those spaces for queer youth is so important and excluding queer youth from all these spaces where drag is, excludes them from this whole like other generations of amazing artists. Drag Race has been great for exposing people and queer youth to drag, but it doesn't show what it is. There is so much drag in Peterborough, but it's like, as a young person and growing up, I had no idea," Maker says.
In the drag community, there is a term called a ‘drag mother’ who is the person that puts you in drag for the very first time. Typically, they’ll continue to help you along your path, giving you advice on performing, marketing and how to carry yourself. Betty Baker’s drag mother is Sahira Q.
“I’ve really come to know her; she's a great friend, my drag mother and my mentor who I look up to. She's so important in my life. She teaches me all these things as we go along, and she's like my little guardian angel. She's been very thoughtful, and the advice that she's been able to give me is insane and what I've been able to learn from her in terms of that. I really, really admire her,” Maker says.
Sahira Q has similar thoughts about Betty.
“She is the sweetest little thing on the planet, and I'm super proud of her, and I cannot wait to see what she will do with her drag career. She has so many talents: she acts, she sings, she can dance. Like she's got literally the whole wheelhouse,” Sahira says.
Sahira is further along in their life and drag career than Betty, being 29 years old and having started back when they were 21, getting more serious within the past five.
Support and acceptance are what's needed most. Almost one-third of LGBTQ2+ Canadians are under 25 years old, which is a very vulnerable and influential time in their lives.
As a whole, the population likes to think we are becoming more accepting of the differences and challenges we all face. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Canada in 2005, which shows a progressive push, and Canada's LGBTQ2+ communities are one million strong, with four per cent of the total population aged 15 and older identifying as part of that community. However, 375 people who identified as nonbinary or transgender were murdered worldwide In 2021, making it the deadliest year in recorded history.
Having a supportive community can make a world of a difference. In 2019, Canadian police reported 263 hate crimes targeting people for their sexual orientation, a 41 per cent increase over the previous year and the highest total since 2009. Violent crimes accounted for more than half of the reported incidents.
Education and representation are some of the ways to help remove any stigma and show that differences should be accepted.