RuPaul’s Drag Race star Vanessa ‘Vanjie’ Mateo broke the internet after waltzing off the stage of season 10 whispering her own name as she exited.
Since then, she has taken the world by storm having returned to Drag Race for season 11 and All Stars.
More recently, Miss Vanjie launched her own new queer dating competition/social experiment 24 Hours Of Love, which sees the performer thrown into a house with 18 male suitors for, you guessed it, 24 hours, in the hopes of finding his one true love.
But today, Miss Vanjie is taking on the role of Metro.co.uk’s very own LGBTQ+ agony aunt, and she’s here to help how to go about sharing new pronouns.
Dear Miss Vanjie, I’ve recently come to understand that I am non-binary and have now started using the pronouns they/them as well as she/her to describe myself. How do I go about telling friends and colleagues? Is there a way of subtly dropping my pronouns into a conversation without making it a conversation all about my gender?
From my own experiences, and some of my friends who have changed their pronouns, I would say be patient. Bring up the topic depending on how comfortable you are and hopefully the people they are around are understanding and are able to adapt. It shouldn’t be a problem.
I know I’m in a field that is primarily different colours of the rainbow, and different flavours of the soup, but I feel like everyone is quite open-minded. But in this scenario, it really depends on how comfortable you are in how you want to present yourself.
Be patient and understand that people sometimes make mistakes. I get scared and worried that I might say the wrong pronouns and it’s not in a malicious way – I just don’t want to offend or for the person to think I just don’t care.
It doesn’t have to be a conference call or everybody sit down scenario either. For me, I would put a little humour into it to make it light. Like nah-uh, I’m they!
Ultimately, these are your friends and the people that you work with. They’ll get it and get with it. Remember that the circle around you love you for who you are. They’re going to be able to adapt and be able to carry a conversation addressing you the right way.
Ask our LGBTQ+ celebrity agony aunts anything!
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Vanjie: 24 Hours In Love airs Thursdays exclusively on the streamer of all things drag, WOW Presents Plus. Subscribe here.
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Metro.co.uk celebrates 50 years of Pride
This year marks 50 years of Pride, so it seems only fitting that Metro.co.uk goes above and beyond in our ongoing LGBTQ+ support, through a wealth of content that not only celebrates all things Pride, but also share stories, take time to reflect and raises awareness for the community this Pride Month.
MORE: Find all of Metro.co.uk’s Pride coverage right here
And we’ve got some great names on board to help us, too. From a list of famous guest editors taking over the site for a week that includes Rob Rinder, Nicola Adams, Peter Tatchell, Kimberly Hart-Simpson, John Whaite, Anna Richardson and Dr Ranj, we’ll also have the likes Sir Ian McKellen and Drag Race stars The Vivienne, Lawrence Chaney and Tia Kofi offering their insights.
During Pride Month, which runs from 1 – 30 June, Metro.co.uk will also be supporting Kyiv Pride, a Ukrainian charity forced to work harder than ever to protect the rights of the LGBTQ+ community during times of conflict, and youth homelessness charity AKT. To find out more about their work, and what you can do to support them, click here.
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