Drag star Trixie Mattel packs Wisconsin Union theater

The Wisconsin native frequently performed in Madison before making it big

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Sophia Thomas first saw Trixie Mattel when she was “a little kid” living in Milwaukee, during trips to the Mayfair Mall with her mom.

“I was young when she was working at the local mall doing makeup,” Thomas says. “I remember turning to my mom and pointing as a weird little kid. I was like, ‘Mom, boy. Makeup. That’s weird.’ She was like, ‘No, it makes sense. He's selling makeup, he's doing makeup, why shouldn’t he wear the makeup?’”

Adds Thomas: “It's something that stuck with me my whole life.”

Thomas, now a UW-Madison senior studying elementary education, later realized she recognized Mattel when she was a teenager watching the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. And, as an adult, she began visiting the Milwaukee gay bar Mattel started co-owning in 2021, This Is It!

“It was just one of the only spaces for LGBTQ+ youth that was available for young people 18 and up,” says Thomas, wearing a shirt with This Is It!’s logo. “Especially for my friend group that was full of a bunch of queer youth, it was like the place to go.”

When the bar, which was the oldest continually operating gay bar in Wisconsin, closed in March, “I cried,” she adds.

Thomas was among hundreds of UW-Madison students who packed UW-Madison’s Shannon Hall Thursday evening to see Mattel, the drag superstar, entrepreneur and Wisconsin native many of them have been fervently following since middle school.

During the event, Mattel, standing well over 6 feet tall in a bright pink sequined dress — not including her flowing blonde wig — told the audience to “have the audacity” to buy into themselves.

“I just really think the younger people have, like, the magic, and they're the most important thing,” Mattel said during a free, 75-minute moderated Q&A with UW-Madison English professor Ramzi Fawaz. “I literally was a college student in Wisconsin from a small town in Wisconsin. I envisioned this the whole time…I really bought this shit before anybody else did.”

Mattel, whose real name is Brian Firkus, was born in Milwaukee in 1989 and raised in a small town in Marinette County. Soon after earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in theater at UW-Milwaukee in 2012, she started performing in Milwaukee’s drag scene, but found more acceptance elsewhere.

“When I was younger, the only cities that I could really find regular work in were Madison and Chicago. Milwaukee was a hard city for me,” Mattel said. In Madison, Mattel performed at Five Nightclub and Plan B.

And, she said, she fondly remembers breakfasts afterwards at Shamrock Bar and Grille.

Fawaz, whose scholarship focuses on queer theory, posed submitted questions from students to Mattel about her Wisconsin roots, entrepreneurship, drag and self-expression. Mattel has starred in multiple shows, released four studio albums, bought and renovated a motel, and launched a cosmetics business.

Mattel had some candid advice for students: Since you're paying for it, take your education seriously.

“I have this radical opinion that if we're here and we're paying all this money to be here, what if you fucked around and paid attention and learned shit.”

The audience responded with whoops.

The Wisconsin Union Directorate and Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at UW-Madison have been trying since 2024 to bring Mattel to UW-Madison. Annika McElduff, external communications director for the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series Committee, says the GSCC contacted WUD last year “to see if we had interest in collaborating with an event featuring Trixie Mattel,” but conversations did not pass “initial ideation.”

“This semester, the Wisconsin Union Directorate Distinguished Lecture Series Committee decided to revisit the idea, completed a speaker contract with Trixie, and then, after the event was finalized, invited the GSCC to co-present the event in acknowledgement of the team's role in the idea, one year prior,” adds McElduff.

UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas says Mattel’s $65,000 honorarium was entirely funded through the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s annual budget, which comes from the Wisconsin Union’s operating revenue and donations.

“The committee does not receive student segregated fees or tax dollars,” Lucas added.

If turnout numbers are any indication, the event was a hit — Shannon Hall hit its 1,157-person capacity.

“It’s just so cool to have people from the Midwest become super famous,” says Sadie Ostrom, a UW-Madison freshman from Minneapolis who attended with two friends. “Because we don’t get a lot of representation!"

Conservative politicians have placed increased scrutiny on drag performances in recent years. NPR reported in 2023 at least nine states had weighed enacting laws that would restrict drag performances, particularly on public property or around minors. National LGBTQ+ think tank the Movement Advancement Project reports that many enacted versions of those laws have since been deemed unconstitutional in federal court.

Fawaz steered clear of any explicitly political questions, though Mattel did mention offhandedly that “when Fox News [talks] about grooming, they’ll Google ‘drag queen.’ And I’m the first thing to come up, and they’ll use my picture.”

“And I’m like, I don’t have one kid in my phone book,” Mattel replied, to laughter from the audience. “I don’t want them at the show.”

Some students said they were appreciative of Mattel’s presence given increased political targeting of the LGBTQ+ community.

“It’s an opportunity to support somebody that represents your identities and represents the wave of people that is getting swept under the rug with a lot of politics right now,” says Warren Stern, a UW-Madison senior studying elementary education. “It's really wonderful for the university to be a place of refuge and support of a group of identities that are often not highlighted.”

[Editor's note: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Mattel's out-of-drag name, Brian Firkus.]