Pretoria - The first drag queen in Tshwane politics, Blue de Leblu, DA PR councillor Anru Meyer, 26, uses his alter-ego to tackle issues and spread a positive message in a satirical and comedic way that informs and entertains.
Meyer has already done the unthinkable – he attended a council meeting as a drag queen last year in Heritage Month (September).
And he said he got to learn how much people had moved on from conservative and non-inclusive beliefs.
“I wondered if some members of council would accuse me of making a mockery of the House, but it was as if the councillors did not even see me,” he said. “They were so not bothered. They did not care. They were focused on the important work of the day. The council meeting was just as typical with debates and noises as they argued about how to improve and deliver services to the people.“
However, although he did not experience resistance, he reserved each of his personas for a different purpose because he believed there was still a fine line between entertainment and getting the job as councillor done, a duty that remains his number one priority.
Meyer said he grew up as a regular child in Pretoria North and went to Laerskool Theresapark and later Pretoria North High School. He believes he is part of the last generation of young people who will find difficulty coming out as members of the LGBTQ+ community because the world is evolving.
He said he had 20 siblings because his divorced parents remarried other people “who already had other children and they later had other children together”.
Meyer enrolled twice to obtain tertiary qualifications at Unisa but could not finish owing to difficulties that were out of his hands. First he enrolled for Internal Auditing in 2015 and discontinued in 2017.
He enrolled again and this time for a law degree in 2018. At the time, difficulties getting books delivered by the university, getting hold of lecturers and the system having challenges made it hard for him to enjoy the experience.
It did not help that he already did not feel a connection to the career path.
“I realised that I will never be in a position where I will have time to practise law.
“I think it is a day-to-day, same kind of an office day. You get different cases, yes, but there is no new challenge all the time or a new thing that just happened all of a sudden and you have to deal with, or it affects millions of people.”
Fast-forward to today, Meyer is much happier with the choice he made to work for the people. He said the first thing he did every morning was to figure out whose electricity was not restored and what could be done to assist them, for instance.
Meyer has been a drag queen since 2020 and uses his alter-ego to inform people about important issues and politics in a way that is not serious. They are mostly entertained and only then realise that they have just been an audience to a performance about real issues that affect society.
He basically adds a bit of his own spice to understanding about a drag queen.
The dictionary defines a drag queen as a person, heterosexual or homosexual, who is a performer, who adopts a flamboyant or parodic feminine persona, with glamorous and exaggerated costumes and make-up.
“Even in modern times it does not necessarily mean it is a man who does drag. Drag has a long history within the world, more especially in the gay community. Drag queens are usually the forefront in most things, most vocal as well. Drag queens are entertainers and they also form part of the performing arts, as well as lately, doing modelling,” he explained.
For Meyer, it started when he met a drag queen Kitana Klitoris at Beefcakes restaurant in Hazelwood. Everyone including customers, staff and management was going to dress up for Halloween in 2020 when Meyer was asked if he would be dressing up. He approached Kitana Klitoris and said he would like to be in drag for the event.
“She said no problem. Let us get you in drag. She put me in drag. She did my make-up. We did some shopping. I got a wig and boom, I arrived in drag. It went well. Then I started thinking, is this something that I want to explore a bit more?
“So I did. I explored some more and did some more. Then I started doing my own make-up. Started learning to apply my own make-up. The first ones were horrible.“
Today it takes Meyer two hours to prepare to be in drag. He said he learnt a lot of things from YouTube from trial and error, especially applying make-up, as it can be a tedious process. He believes YouTube needs to start a university because there are tutorials about almost everything.
However, once he is done, people can enjoy him doing a bit of stand-up comedy and lip-synching typical of drag shows. However, the aim is not to focus a brand around drag but sticking to politics and being a breath of fresh air.
Speaking about his alter-ego in third person, he said: “She has been on a journey as well. Finding herself, finding a way around the dos and don’ts. What can be said and what cannot be said on social media and finding out just how sensitive people are”
Meyer said when he came out to his family about being a drag queen as well, they were a bit worried and wondered if it was not going to hamper his political career and ambitions to one day become an MMC and be able to effect change from inside Tshwane House. However, he is humbled that the DA has embraced him.
He plans to push boundaries and tap into provincial and national issues as he’ll be using his alter ego as an arsenal to tap into that market of young and old people who do not wish to consume and tackle societal issues in the typical way that can be stressful and depressing.
Pretoria News