We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Giganta Smalls a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Giganta thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I have always shined brightest in front of an audience. I had taken acting classes throughout and middle and high school, and I always wanted to play female characters. Strong, intelligent, and sassy women have always appealed to me and I knew I could play the hell out of those roles! But conservative Northwest Connecticut wasn’t ready for my feminine energy. Along the way, I struggled with coming out as a gay person in the mid 2000s. The AIDS crisis was an unspoken part of history, and Will & Grace had “fixed” queer representation in media! But you could only be one kind of gay. You could be a Will, but being a Jack was too much!
And here I was, dodging suggestions of doing drag because that was “too gay”. Rupaul’s Drag Race premiered my senior year of high school, and even though I was hooked immediately, it wasn’t until I was well into college finally being cast as sassy female characters, that I started developing the beauty that is Giganta Smalls. I was captivated by drag queens like Jinkx Monsoon, BenDeLaCreme, and Bianca Del Rio. Who did so much more than what I thought drag was at the time! I saw that they combined the art of theatre and comedy and drag and I really wanted to be a part of that. Eleven years later, I can say that I am

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well, I already gave a bit about how I got into doing drag professionally, but it was after I graduated from CCSU’s theatre program and started acting in local Connecticut theaters in drag. Playwright Rachel Teagle cast me in what she hoped would be an all drag production of Lysistrata…I was the only drag queen who showed up. But I still slayed and help drag out the production naturally! I came out into the club & bar scene a while after that, competing in local drag race type competitions, and always knocking the audience’s socks off!

Giganta Smalls is and will always be a goofy comedy queen who brings a smile and a laugh to the crowd. I have become quite the hostess, and bring an effortlessly charismatic energy to the mic. Others have said my presence is warm and welcoming.
As an artist, I am creating custom costumes and performances for audiences across the East Coast! If you need a fat drag queen with enormous hair and make up to make an audience smile for an hour or two, I’m your girl.

I am most proud of my resilience as an artist. Despite drag’s growing popularity, it is still a very niche market, which is highly competitive. I have stuck around for eleven years, and I have seen many of my peers fall out of the business, but I remain, as some kind of campy statuesque beauty, basking in the glow of night club lights

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In our current political climate, drag is being vilified as a scapegoat for conservative extremism. As a family friendly performer, and someone who regularly works with queer and non-queer youth, I have been the victim of many attacks on my character and harassment from homophobic and transphobic people and groups. Last year, several story hour events I did were protested by these people. I was called various derogatory names and slurs. I had many untrue and nasty things written about me over social media. They found out where I work my day job, and tried to get me fired. They knew my real name. It was horrible. I never felt so discouraged but I pressed on. People who waste time commenting horrible things about me are simply not worth it!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I started drag, RuPaul’s Drag Race hadn’t become the global phenomenon it was today, there were no drag queens with massive followings on social media. The way to get into the scene was to compete and show how talented you are. But competition leads to comparison. I would often in my career compare my cohorts successes to my own, and not favorably at that. I would be very jealous of how others were received, or opportunities they were granted. But that kind of toxicity led me to be very miserable and very lonely.

Learning to not compare my journey or art to others,, has allowed me to find peace within the community

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @gigantasmalls
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GigantaSmalls1/
• Twitter: @GigantaSmalls
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCLtuINhbap_CIcdvL6mZZbA
• Other: Tiktok: @gigantasmalls Venmo: @GigantaSmalls

Image Credits
Michael O’Neil Flaminia Middletown Pride