‘Drag saved me’ says Kyran Thrax on finding confidence after being groomed

“It sounds so cliché,” says performer Kyran Peet, “but drag has saved me.”

Kyran – who uses they/them pronouns – proudly performed their first show as drag persona Kyran Thrax in 2019, surrounded by friends at an open mic night in Vauxhall, London.

But, as the drag artist explains, the Kyran Thrax persona was not born that night: “This part of me, I feel, has been with me since everything happened when I was 13.”

As a teenager, Kyran fondly remembers going to school wearing platform shoes, black eyeliner and backcombed purple hair with “the most orange foundation,” which they say felt like an early expression of their drag persona.

Kyran, 26, is now proud of being confident and uplifting others through drag, but says “it did start as a defence mechanism, because it was a way for me to try and survive”.

At the age of 13, Kyran had just come out as gay and had started talking to a 23-year-old man, who claimed to be a teenager, after meeting on social media.

“I convinced myself I was ready to have a romantic relationship, which is just ridiculous,” Kyran says, adding that the pair met up and had a seven month-long emotional and sexual relationship.

“It was horrible,” Kyran adds, “I gave this man everything, all of my childhood.”