“If I hadn’t been a girl, I’d have been a drag queen.”
One of Dolly Parton's most iconic one-liners is reverberating with renewed emotion from the LGBTQ community.
"Tennessee's LGBTQ community is mourning Dolly Parton because she was the outsider who made it big by being herself, and leading with love," the Tennessee Equality Project said in a statement to The Tennessean. "There are thousands of stories of individual people in our community whose lives have been touched by her light, and they are telling those stories today all over social media. We always felt that she had our back, and it mattered, because she was the most beloved Tennessean in the world."
Parton's 1991 album "Eagle When She Flies" includes the track "Family."
"Some are preachers,
some are gay, some are addicts, drunks and strays. But not a one is turned away when it's family," she sings.
Parton wrote the song "Travelin' Thru" for the 2005 film "Transamerica," which stars Felicity Huffman as a transgender woman, and her 2019 Netflix anthology "Heartstrings" featured a gay character.
And in her iconic rhinestone-covered, bombastic and voluptuous stage wear, Parton was no stranger to the dramatized personas, leading to her very public support of drag art.
In her 2021 book "Dream More," she recounted entering a Dolly Parton drag lookalike contest in Santa Monica, California and losing.
"They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated -- made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything," she said during an ABC interview about the caper. "All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy... but I got the least applause."
“I have a huge gay following, and I'm proud of them,”she told The New York Times in 2016. "Sometimes some of them look more like me than I do."
Rest in peace, @DollyParton. Thank you for sharing your talent and inspiring us all. We will always love you. 💘pic.twitter.com/Cyy7soaiZ8
— RuPaul's Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) August 25, 2026
Lots of love from drag performers
Texas drag queen Brigitte Bandit posted a touching tribute on social media, recounting the moment that Parton gave her a rhinestone-studded guitar signed "Love, Dolly Parton."
Bandit told NBC News station KXAN that she received the guitar after a representative with Dolly Parton Productions saw a photo of Bandit at the Texas Capitol, testifying about the 2023 Texas drag ban and holding aloft a children’s book about Parton.
"I talk a lot about Dolly, as she has been a huge influence in my life and my drag," Bandit said in a social media post. "Dolly has shaped much of my life as a drag artist. I will be performing (my next show) to pay tribute to the queen who has changed the world with her love, artistry, and glam! My diva forever."
RuPaul's "Drag Race" show posted a tribute after news of her death: "Rest in peace, Dolly Parton. Thank you for sharing your talent and inspiring us all. We will always love you."
Parton's legacy of love and acceptance reached Tennessee politics as well.
In the months of turmoil leading up to Tennessee's 2023 anti-drag legislation, which placed heavy limitations on the locations drag could be performed in, protesters at the state capitol sang Parton's song "9 to 5."
The same year, Parton was asked in a Hollywood Reporter interviewabout anti-trans legislation being pushed through the Tennessee General Assembly.
Parton told the outlet that she tries “to get into the human element of” the issue.
“I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge," she said. "And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are. I know how important this is to them. That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton."
Actress and activist Jane Fonda, Parton's "9 to 5" co-star, posted a lengthy and heartfelt tribute to Parton Aug. 25.
"To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you," she said. "You know that without me telling you. She loved all her fans and they are legion. And you know she doesn’t want y’all to mourn now. Dress up and celebrate her spirit."
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Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, or follow her on X at @angele_latham
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Dolly Parton's love for drag performers, LBGTQ community
