Gia Gunn Says She Confronted RuPaul Over Trans Comments on 'All Stars'

Gia Gunn isn't holding anything back. Oh, at all.

Drag Race darlings Willam and Alaska had a candid conversation with the boom-boom Gunn in their Drag Race recap podcast, Race Chaser. During the interview, Gunn says she was ready to quit the All Stars 4 after "a heated exchange with Ru" just before Snatch Game. 

Willam asked Gunn, "Did you have a moment where you had any words with Ru about her past thoughts on having trans people on her show?"

“Well, I did,” replied Gunn. “Of course it wasn’t aired.” 

Last spring in an interview with The Guardian, RuPaul said he wouldn't allow transgender women who've begun gender-affirming transition surgeries to compete on Drag Race as well as implied that previous trans competitors on the show were still men dressing up as women because they hadn't yet physically transitioned. Gunn tweeted her disappointment in RuPaul then, "To now hear such words of segregation from an icon who has created a worldwide community of unity, makes me sad." She concluded, "If you are a fierce artist, you're a fierce artist & should be judged based on your art. NOT your gender identity!"

While RuPaul did his usual workroom walkthrough during the Snatch Game episode, the two apparently exchanged words on the touchy topic. Gunn didn't give too many specifics from the alleged confrontation, Out reports, perhaps because of the show's nondisclosure agreements. She's not at all surprised the conversation didn't air during last Friday's episode. “I very well knew that none of that was going to air because the show is not about making her look anything but great.”

Gunn went on, “I felt completely disregarded. I didn't feel acknowledged. I didn't feel wanted, to be there in the competition. And truthfully it really hurt my feelings and I had a really big breakdown in between sets and I was just like, 'If I'm getting this feeling from her and I don't feel very welcome then what the fuck am I doing here?'”

Knowing her own return to All Stars 4 as an openly trans woman could very well be the show's way of repudiating Ru's previous comments, Gunn took whatever was said in the exchange to heart.

“If we were going to bring somebody on the show to basically, y'know, clean up somebody's mess, obviously that fell on me, right? Because months before she had made a statement that was completely opposite of what they did. And I knew by being casted that I was going on there to basically show the world that this show does quote unquote support trans and that she does see trans people as drag queens. So for me to get there and for us to be on episode three, never have eye contact with her, never have any sort of acknowledgement of 'oh, you've come so far' or 'your journey has been so beautiful to watch' or anything of that sort, I just felt really hurt."

Gunn says she pushed through her desire to quit the show because she didn't want to continue the “season 6 quitters game.” Beloved Season 6 alum Adore Delano and Bendelecreme both quit during their respective All Star seasons.

“I didn’t want people to see me as a quitter or see this trans person as weak or not able to get through the competition due to whatever people were going to assume and think I was going through, knowing that this little part wasn’t going to air and that people weren’t going to know the backside. For me, the storyline wasn’t really going to make sense.”

That might also explain why she seemed particularly defeated following her lackluster Snatch Game performance. During the bottom two deliberations, Gunn tearfully mentioned how returning to Drag Race brought her back to that dark place she was in during Season 6 when she was still coming to terms with her gender identity.

Just a few weeks ago during a San Jose drag performance, Gunn told the crowd, “fuck Miss RuPaul and her ignorant-ass comments.”