Drag Performer and Artist Skylar Worn Finds Balance In A Multi-Layered Identity
As a part-time employee at Ulta Beauty and Hot Topic by day and a drag-performing singer-songwriter and sex worker by night, trans-artist, Skylar Worn, who goes by the character name, Alison Sideshow on the stage, finds balance in a multi-layered identity.
The now 22-year-old Worn initially got into performing drag by means of the internet. The artform drew her in by allowing her space and setting to explore her gender expression as well as share her talent.
“I’ve been doing drag since the day I turned 18,” said Skylar Worn. “I found YouTube videos when I was younger, and I just sort of fell into it because I was like a little gay boy at the time. It was a way to sort of express my femininity that I didn’t know, at the time, that I wanted to express as much as I did, but it was a gateway for me to explore gender expression.
I go by the name, Alison Sideshow, and I built a backstory for her and everything,” Worn continued. “She’s an undead hooker brought back to life by scientific experimentation. So, a lot of my numbers, a lot of my performances are very dark and goth. I like to call myself the pop-punk princess of the drag world. I do a lot of the Killers and My Chemical Romance. It’s a lot of emo-kid shit.”
Finding the balance is simple, as Worn explains in her experience of being a drag performer who happens to be trans.
“For someone who doesn’t know what drag is, the easiest way to put it I found is that some people paint canvases, but we just choose to paint our faces,” said Worn. “That’s our art form.
As far as the sex work goes, I’ve been doing it for about four years,” Worn continued. “That was more when I was a really low place in my life, and for all intents and purposes, homeless, I was living with friends and sleeping on couches, and it was easy money. I love sex, so I was like okay, cool, and I sort of carried it on the more successful, and the more stable I got I sort of kept it in my back pocket, and it served me well.”
However, Worn insists on putting safety above all else when getting into sex work. She stresses standing firm and making sure that you are in a safe situation before engaging with clients.
“Be goddamn careful. Always use a condom. I don’t give a fuck what your client is trying to tell you, or how’s he’s trying to haggle you. You have to stand firm, and there’s a lot of situations in sex work where you feel pressure to make your client happy, and I guess the best advice I can give is to know your worth and keep your feet firmly in one spot. Don’t be swayed by these poor fragile men.”
Worn brings her same steadfast confidence and sense of self-worth from her sex work into her medium of art as a drag queen. She lends solid advice for individuals looking to enter into the world of drag.
“Something that I would have wanted to hear back when I started doing drag is don’t let what you see in other drag queens affect how you want to present your character because I fell into the trap of wanting to look like everyone else for a minute. It was not fun because I lost who I wanted to be as a drag performer. Make sure you are being 100 percent authentically you in that character. Not trying to look like X, Y, Z.
Alison has had a lot of evolutions. When I first started doing drag, I was actually doing it under the name Anorexia Nicole Smith. That pissed off a lot of people, so I changed the name, but I kind of came up with her when I was writing fan fiction. I sort of developed her over the years, and when I could finally perform, I had a solidified idea of how I wanted to present.”
As of late, when she is not on the stage, Worn is creating music with a pop-punk-rap twist. Her first single, “Losing My Mind” under the name KillSkyy, was released a couple of months ago with a music video. You can listen to her music on Spotify and catch her on an upcoming appearance on MTV’s “How Far Is Tattoo Far” discussing what it is to be trans and a drag queen You can follow Worn’s drag work on social media @alisonsideshow, and her music @killskyy.