We're Here queens don't want LGBTQ+ people to 'feel powerless' against hate

We're Here is more than just a show about drag queens, it's a battle cry, a call to all in the LGBTQ+ community that they are worth fighting for and that they should stand up to bigotry and hate.

The HBO series shows that the best way to fight is through love, that's what new hosts Sasha Velour, Jaida Essence Hall, Priyanka and Latrice Royale tell Yahoo UK that they hope to convey in the fourth season. We're Here —which returns to Sky on Sunday, 16 June— sees the queens travel to Tennessee and Oklahoma where they meet with local residents, bring joy and put on drag shows for the community.

Their presence was not welcomed by all, though. With a drag ban in several states and LGBTQ+ rights being used as fodder in political debates, tensions were much higher for the quartet than has been seen on the show in previous years. Local shops refused to serve them, one town refused to let the queens perform, and several people hurled hateful speech at them left, right and centre.

But, even in the face of all this, it was important not to lose sight of what's important, Sasha Velour says: "I think it's essential to stand up for the truth and for our whole community. There's just no other option, I feel, if we want to exist, if we want to survive.

"We are put in this position where we have to speak up for ourselves. It feels like no one else is going to, particularly in these towns where the pride organisations didn't necessarily rally to stand up against the hate and against the lies. It's like, OK, I guess drag queens are going to do it."

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"In my great love and appreciation of drag, I've learned that's something we've always had to do," she goes on. "Our spaces are always the loudest and the most visible, and the most daring when it comes to the queer community.

"Maybe it's because we have nothing to lose, maybe it's because we're a little bit extravagant to begin with, but it's great to have a space where we're not going to bow to the pressure. We're not going to stay silent and we are going to gather enough information to have not just a rhetoric, but a strong argument and a case to be made for our people."

One occasion where this was put to the test is when Sasha, Priyanka and Jaida visit Tennessee town hall in full drag, there they listened as a teenage girl called the LGBTQ+ community a "cult" and claimed drag performers acted out "sexual acts" in front of children. The teen and her father later asked to talk to the queens, where they continued to use hateful speech towards them.

"I'm exhausted of hearing these lies," Sasha says of the interaction. "It's funny, that girl says the worst thing you can do to young people is lie to them, and that's exactly what they're doing. They are denying science and research and history to paint queer and trans people as unnatural, when we are just as natural as everyone else.

"I'm not sure that I was able to get through to them, but I was thinking about the people who would be watching it. I didn't want them to feel powerless in the face of those lies, and so I felt like, 'OK, I have to talk and say the truth, even if it feels a little too argumentative'. But I tried to have strength and humour and lightness, and part of me [wondered] could we convince them?

"I think losing hope that you can change someone's mind would be a dangerous thing. We can never lose hope in it completely. So I'm gonna keep trying to stand here for the truth."

At the start of the interaction, the teen's father refers to Sasha, Priyanka and Jaida as "sir", something that prompted Jaida to immediately leave rather than engage further in the conversation. She explains to Yahoo that the reason she did so is because she "didn't want to be a punching bag."

"There's this space in our minds now, especially as queer people, that we have to be open and have conversations to learn and to grow, and that is very important but there is also a space where we have to know when there is not a conversation," Jaida reflects.

"Maybe there is not a conversation to be had, and people want to further abuse you. As a black, femme, queer person, people have said horrible things to me about my colour, about my race, about my hair, about the way I move in the world.

"So many nasty things and so many times I have had no choice but to stand there and listen to, and then sometimes hear those things and then hate parts about myself that I had no reason to hate. We're here to have hard conversations, we're here to understand people, we're here to give and receive understanding but I don't think anybody in any situation should ever be a punching bag."

Wanting to avoid that "negative energy", Jaida adds: "It just felt like 'today I don't feel like being a punching bag'. I think that that's also important for a lot of people to understand, there are moments where you need to stand up for yourself and sometimes standing for yourself is not about having a conversation that could lead into an argument, sometimes that's going 'you know what? I'm better than that and I don't have to take this, and I'm going to walk away'."

This wasn't the only time that the queens were verbally accosted. When Sasha, Priyanka and Latrice travelled to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, they held a meet and greet in a public park after being refused a location to film their drag show in the town, and while people came out to support them in their droves there were a few protesting their presence and shouting abuse at them.

"I was very shocked at how true to TikTok it all is," Priyanka says of the experience. "I was very shocked that the first day of filming a truck full of straight guys drove past us and screamed 'f****t', these are not paid actors, and then you realise that this is real and then you're heart sinks into your stomach and falls out of your a** because you're don't feel that safe.

"And then you're like, 'what if I lived here and there were no cameras around?' It's an interesting feeling where you don't expect to see what you see online... you hear these stories but when you're there you're like, 'I can see how this could happen'. It makes it so real and it's always in your face and it's very scary."

"What's really cool about this season is that you really get to see how one sided their opinions are," Priyanka adds. "And how when we challenge them in a very calm, collective, non argumentative way, they won't have answers for us because they don't know. It's very interesting."

Latrice helped spearhead the conversation against the protesters in Bartlesville, in one instance she repeatedly asked if a protestor was willing to have a conversation but he continued shouting and hurling verbal abuse.

"It's never fun facing opposition when they're throwing hateful slurs at you and telling you you're demon and you're going to hell," Latrice says.

"But I've been called [that before] and so none of that fazed me, my mission was to find out did this person really want to have a conversation or were they just there to be hateful? Because had he wanted to understand and have a conversation we could have talked."

"This fight is going to be ongoing, unfortunately," Latrice adds. "It's never ending because as long as we have people in the world like the people that we are experiencing [on the show], teaching their young this hate and this misinformation, we have to be warriors to [fight] that imbalance, and hopefully it will get easier for the next generation.

"Granted some of these kids right now have no clue, for them to see what's happening with LGBTQ+ rights... they've never seen anything like this in their lifetime, but this is the fight that we've already fought many, many times, and so we will keep fighting.

"Every time someone wants to take office and eradicate us we're going to have to fight harder. So get your allies, get your friends, your friend's friends, [and] vote, get people in office that care about people, care about humanity and not their own self-propaganda and gain."

We're Here season 4 premieres at 10pm on Sky Max and NOW on Sunday, 16 June.