RuPaul's Drag Race announces Season 14 cast that includes its first-ever straight male contestant

Variety

VH1 unveiled the 14 queens who will be vying for the $100,000 grand prize starting on Jan. 7, including Maddy Morphosis, the first-ever heterosexual, cisgender male contestant. As Variety's Adam B. Vary notes, "bringing a straight man into the Drag Race workroom ...marks the first time someone who does not identify as LGBTQ has participated on the show that has been celebrated for bringing queer identities into the mainstream." Vary points out that in recent years, "the Drag Race franchise has expanded its vision of what defines a drag queen," including RuPaul’s Drag Race UK recently having the franchise's first-ever cisgender woman, Victoria Scone, who identifies as a lesbian. Last year, Drag Race featured its first trans male contestant, Gottmik, who identifies as pansexual. In an interview with EW, Maddy Morphosis says her place in the drag community is one she feels "privileged" to have, and gave her a sense of belonging during her formative years of feeling "different" and "enamored" by viewing the world through a feminine perspective versus assimilating into the heteronormative culture that pervaded the rural town she grew up in. "I started to question myself. Who was I? I wasn't into things that were traditionally masculine. Am I trans? Does that mean I'm gay?" she says of life before Maddy. Maddy adds that she was addicted to the confidence drag gave her. "I learned I can take a lot of those aspects and apply it to my daily life," she says. "As far as the gender stuff, I learned that all the things related to gender are arbitrary. I identify as a cisgender straight man, but I'm gender non-conforming in my presentation. I can go out, do drag, put on makeup and heels, but it doesn't alter who I am as a person or shape who or what I am."