Ilona Verley

In 2020, Ilona Verley became the first Indigenous Two-Spirit queen to appear in the globally beloved Drag Race franchise. Verley competed in the first season of Canada’s Drag Race, a spin-off of the seminal RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which drag queens are judged on their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent in their attempt to be the next drag superstar. Having previously auditioned for the 11th and 12th seasons of the US version of Drag Race, Verley was selected to participate when the competition came to her home nation of Canada and ultimately finished in 6th place.

Verley is Nlaka’pamux, a people of the Interior Salish language group in southern British Columbia. The term ‘Two-Spirit’ refers to Indigenous North Americans who define themselves as embodying both male and female spirits. In a 2020 interview in Vogue, Verley said she ‘[…] realized being on Canada’s Drag Race [was] more of a place where I was going to be able to talk about being Indigenous’ and that ‘being on the show helped me connect with my inner self that I was always trying to ignore’. Verley describes herself as nonbinary and gender fluid, but with the caveat that she may choose to redefine her identity in the future.

In October 2020, Verley performed at the opening gala of the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, the world’s largest festival of its kind held annually in Toronto. November of that year saw her named in Out magazine’s yearly list of 100 influential LGBTQ personalities. Verley keeps up with her fans on Instagram, where she boasts over 110,000 followers.