PerthNow’s 15 September 2022 feature profiled two women performing drag in Perth: Pippa Toia-Johnston as Prism and Paige Howells as Kimmy Head. Their stories offer a snapshot of how these performers understood drag at the time—not a count of the scene or evidence of its size today.
What the 2022 PerthNow feature reported
The article placed Prism and Kimmy Head within Perth’s nightclub drag scene, saying they could mainly be seen at Connections Night Club in Northbridge at that time. That venue reference describes the 2022 report; it does not establish the club’s current programming or either performer’s current schedule.
The headline’s suggestion that female drag queens were “on the rise” came from the interviewees’ recollections and the profiles of two performers. PerthNow did not supply counts, a venue census, or a measured growth rate, so the story is best read as a reported change in perspective rather than a quantified trend. Read PerthNow’s feature, published 15 September 2022.
Prism: character and artistry over the performer’s gender
Pippa Toia-Johnston performed as Prism. She told PerthNow that she had performed the character while identifying first as male and later as female. In her view, drag had become more focused on the persona and performance than on the performer’s gender: “Instead, now it’s all about what you’re viewing and who someone’s drag character is, rather than their gender.”
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Toia-Johnston also said reality television, including RuPaul’s Drag Race, had helped renew attention to transgender women in drag. These were her observations about the changing scene, not survey findings or a claim that all performers share the same experience. The report said she had practiced drag for almost 10 years as of September 2022; that relative duration should not be read as a current career tally.
Kimmy Head: an invitation to perform
Paige Howells told PerthNow she created Kimmy Head three years before the September 2022 feature, after meeting Toia-Johnston at Connections. Howells recalled wishing she could be a gay man so she could perform drag, and being told she could do it as a woman.
She described drag as a source of stress relief and joy, and said Kimmy had become an inspiration to other women. As Howells put it: “Drag is my stress relief and gives me so much joy, so it’s been so great to have Kimmy become this inspiration to other women to show them that they can do drag.” This is her account of what performing meant to her, not a universal description of women’s experiences.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why gender and drag remain part of the conversation
Drag has a queer history, and arguments about who can participate—and what participation means—are part of its cultural context. A 2017 Teen Vogue feature discusses that debate and the importance of understanding drag’s history. It provides background, not evidence about Perth’s scene in 2022 or the present day. Read the Teen Vogue feature on female drag performers.
The distinction matters: a performer’s gender identity, the gender presentation of a drag character, and the artistic choices made onstage are related but not interchangeable. Toia-Johnston’s account emphasized the character and what an audience sees; Howells’s account centered on finding permission and encouragement to perform. Together, their perspectives show two individual routes into drag without settling broader debates for everyone.
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What this snapshot can—and cannot—tell us
- It can: document how Prism and Kimmy Head described their work and what PerthNow reported about their appearances in 2022.
- It cannot: establish how many women were performing drag in Perth, prove a citywide growth rate, or verify current shows, venues, or schedules.
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