Drag visionary Bimini Bon Boulash on identity, fluidity, and the art of becoming

In a culture that rewards conformity and fragments the commodified, learning to inhabit one’s body as it evolves is a quiet act of rebellion. Especially when that body resists easy categorisation or societal norms. Bimini Bon Boulash knows this intimately. “My relationship with my body has been anything but linear,” Bimini tells Bazaar India during an exclusive conversation. “When I started drag, everything changed. Drag gave me a language to explore and unlearn—especially the rules I had grown up with about gender and identity.”

Born in Great Yarmouth, a seaside town far removed from the glittering nightlife of London’s queer clubs, Bimini grew up in a place where difference wasn’t embraced but scrutinised. “It felt like I was a burst of colour in a world that wanted me to stay greyscale,” they say. That early resistance to conformity sparked something enduring: an unrelenting fire for self-expression that refuses to apologise or explain.

Growing up queer brought its own reckonings. “I experienced a lot of shame about how I looked, how I moved, how I existed,” they share. “Drag was like a giant middle finger to that shame. It allowed me to explore femininity, masculinity, and everything in between.”

That spirit continues to shape Bimini’s creative expression—whether on stage or through their visually arresting, genre-defying work in fashion and queer culture, since rising to prominence on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in 2019.

But before the limelight, there was the struggle to make sense of a body that defied conventional expectations. “From the day you’re born, it’s pink for girls, blue for boys. That binary is everywhere,” they note. “So using drag to tear those assumptions apart—it felt like a kind of freedom I’d never known.”

To Bimini, drag is more than performance—it’s resistance, healing, and liberation. “Non-binary isn’t a new category—it’s the undoing of categories altogether,” they explain.

On Bimini: Dress, David Koma; gloves, Atsuko Kudo; collar, Miló Maria; earrings, Vickisarge On Dani: Dress: Paul Costelloe; skirt: The House of Syth; necklace, Vickisarge

It’s also why Bimini chooses not to pad or tuck on stage. “I’m not trying to do female illusion. I’m just me.” Their body isn’t something to conceal or reshape to fit an ideal—it is theirs, in all its authenticity. “Corsets, hair, make-up—they’re powerful tools, of course. They’re fun. But they don’t erase me. They amplify me.” Still, their relationship with their body remains fluid. “When I spoke about being non-binary on Drag Race, it was about gender being fluid,” they say. “It’s still changing, even now.”

Being non-binary, for Bimini, isn’t about stepping into a new label—it’s about dissolving them. But not everyone keeps pace with that evolution. “It feels like people have started treating it like its own gender,” they add. “And that’s not what it is.”

“There’s no one way to look non-binary. No set aesthetic. The way I dress, the way I see myself—it changes all the time, because I’m changing all the time.” This philosophy of fluidity finds expression in their approach to fashion. With a background in journalism, Bimini brings a documentarian’s perspective—weaving fashion with culture, politics, and protest.

“Fashion has always been art to me. Even before I started drag, I’d go out dressed as ‘The Death of the Ocean’—orca in a bag, oil spill make-up, the whole thing,” they say. “I thought I was dead edgy. But it was always about something bigger.” That ‘bigger’ now often centres on radical self-love. “Every time I perform, I’m telling my younger self: You deserve to be seen,” they share. “That message is in everything I do.”

Whether on stage or in front of a lens, Bimini’s body becomes a canvas—where beneath the glamour lies quiet defiance. “I like looking masculine with feminine make-up, exaggerated silhouettes, mixing things up. There’s no one way to be beautiful. There’s no one body type that should be celebrated.”

Freedom, however, isn’t always comfortable. Drag is physically intense—tight corsets, towering wigs, late nights and long hours. “It’s physically demanding—those long hours, those heels, those wigs! I try to eat well and exercise…but sometimes, my joints hurt,” they admit. “That’s why we’ve got omega-3s!”

Yet, for Bimini, power doesn’t stem from perfection. Asked if they’ve ever felt truly at home in their body, the drag artist recalls a recent live performance. “I’d been taking time away from live shows,” they share. “Spending more time in the studio. I wrote this riot song because I was angry—angry at politics, at how trans people are being treated, just angry in general.”

That rage, they explain, became catharsis. “The crowd’s reaction was incredible. I hadn’t performed live in so long, but at that moment, I thought—this is where I’m meant to be. I was just me up there. Fully in my body, fully present. I felt recharged.”

This duality—gentle and furious, tender and fierce—defines Bimini’s artistry. “The body is a vessel,” they add. “But it’s not just a container—it’s a storyteller. Everything I do is about letting my gender, my queerness, my beliefs, my history...all explode at once. That’s performance. That’s power.”

And what’s next? “Maybe something a little more daring,” Bimini muses. “Maybe it’s about stripping away some of the armour. Maybe it’s about showing more vulnerability. Or maybe it’s building a whole new world again. But whatever it is—it’s going to be bold.”

Drag, they remind us, has long been ahead of its time—especially in how it honours bodies that the mainstream still struggles to embrace. “We’ve been poking fun at beauty standards forever,” Bimini says. “Drag is a neutral body in motion. My body is me—and that is totally enough.”

Lead Image: Emalea Jones.

This article originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar's June-July print edition.

Also read: Here are six books that belong at the very top of your TBR pile

Also read: The women who write women: Changing the narrative from within