A trans woman says becoming a drag artist saved her life after she was subjected to a horrendous transphobic attack at a tram stop.
Mercedes, 21, was attacked at a tram stop in Manchester city centre three years ago by three strangers. Just standing waiting for the tram, the two men and one woman came up to her, pulled her wig off, spat in her face and hit her for no apparent reason. They also called her a 'freak'.
She says the incident meant she developed crippling anxiety and depression and led her to attempt to take her own life on two occasions. She says she now has a new confidence and perspective on things after turning to the world of drag, but it’s not been an easy journey.
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A week after the first attack in 2020, Mercedes said she was attacked again by the same woman who was involved in the earlier incident.
“I was on the tram going into work and I saw the woman on her own,” Mercedes, who is from Moston, tells the M.E.N. “She clocked me and came over and poured a drink over me. This was at 8am in the morning and no one did anything to help.
“After the attack, I felt like I couldn’t leave the house or be in crowded places. I developed really bad anxiety, depression and an eating disorder and I had to suffer through all of that during lockdown.”
Mercedes said she struggled to come to terms with the incident and how it had just happened ‘at random by total strangers’. Undergoing her transition at the time, she said she was forced to put everything on hold because of how bad things got for her.
“Before the attack, I was so outgoing and I had no fear,” she explains. “I’ve always been bullied at school but it was just different - I’ve never felt that way before. I actually decided to pause my transition at one point as my anxiety and depression got too much for me. I couldn’t deal with what people expected me to do.”
But when a friend recommended she watch an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, things started to change. Having already had an interest in fashion and makeup, she decided to try drag at home.
She says it immediately gave her a new sense of strength, and allowed her to feel more confident in herself. She has since created the drag persona of Pixie Supreme and now has more than 20,000 followers on Instagram.
“I came up with the name because I wanted to reclaim some of the words that were thrown at me growing up,” Mercedes explains. “I used to be called a fairy boy so I thought that pixies were evil fairies. I came up with the Supreme because being trans is supreme to me."
Speaking about her childhood, Mercedes says she came out twice during school - once in year seven at the age of 13 and a second time, coming out as trans, in 2016 at the age of 15.
“It was hard to be out where I lived,” she explains. “It just felt like a completely different ball game back then. I went to six different schools because I was always being bullied - I would always try to fight back. I’m also of Irish and Gypsy heritage, and some of my family don’t agree with being gay or doing drag.”
But, recently, she’s found a way of accepting that what people think of her isn’t what matters. “I’ve learnt that people’s opinions are water off a duck’s back,” she says. “I have nothing to prove to anyone, no one will ever take my life away again like those people did during lockdown.
"I've realised that the only person I want to please is my mum - she is honestly my biggest fan and my best friend. She has helped me so much. She even takes all my photos on social media for me."
She says she still struggles with her anxiety but she has ‘worked hard’ to get it to a point where it has massively improved - and she’s now resumed her transition.
“Even now, I’ll still have a fear of something happening,” she says. “I lost a lot of friends during that time because I wasn’t going out and socialising, I would just make excuses to not go out because I literally couldn’t leave the house.
“Now, after two and a half years, I’m at a place where I’m finally ready to get on with my life. I do genuinely feel like I've been able to get it back because of drag. It’s a different feeling. It gives me the confidence to not care what people think.
“I know now that I’m not as vulnerable as I was back then. It’s taught me a lesson to stand my ground and not let people take advantage of me. It’s made me so much stronger even out of drag and within my transition. I feel mentally stronger than I did back then.”
She adds: “I’m in a place where I'm really comfortable with who I am. It’s taken so much hard work and effort. It changed my life in the most dramatic way.”
And she also thanks those who have followed her journey on social media. “My whole drag is based on uplifting people and bringing everyone’s truth together,” she explains. “When I opened up online, people really did love it and respond well to it.
“That’s what I needed to help me to get to the point where I am today. I love my life now. I genuinely believe that drag changed my life for the better.”
