The same sense of overwhelming beauty that I felt the first time I encountered
God is the same sense of beauty that I feel every time I get in drag.
I feel like I've been doing drag my whole life because if you look at it,
like, I was putting on this character of the perfect Christian boy, and so it's
like, I've been doing drag since forever.
This week, I'm back in the heart of New York City to meet a former pastor
who was tagged by Emily Leclerc.
My entire life, I was bullied heavily.
I like, didn't really have any hope
until I found God at the end of my junior year.
It was such a weird feeling, I just felt like I was beautiful for the first time in my whole life.
I had never felt like I was genuinely beautiful.
If me feeling beautiful was a taste
of what God could give me, then I was in. Everything the Bible says about
what a man looks like, that's what I want to become.
At the age of 18, Zach left his
parents' home in Texas to join a ministry school in Redding, California.
My thing became setting gay people free from their gayness.
As if it's this demon that needs to get out.
While I'm at the front of churches all over America preaching that,
like, I'm free and I'm straight, at home I feel like I'm living a lie.
I was told by many, many people
that being gay will put me in hell. To the point where there's a
verse in Romans, I don't remember what it was, I used to have it memorized cause I
used to preach it, but I don't preach it anymore.
Religion and, like, Christianity, I think totally breeds homophobia.
Since 2007, the percentage of
Christians who believe homosexuality should be accepted in
society has risen from 44 percent to 54 percent. That shift in ideology hasn't stopped
younger Americans from leaving the religion. While 78 percent of baby boomers
identify as Christian, just 56 percent of millennials claimed the same.
In my brain, I see religion
completely separate from God. I don't think that they are one.
So I was like, OK God,
he, she, it, whatever you are, help.
I came out to my parents, then moved to New York, so now I'm like, what is a way
to shake my brain and my heart so much to align with what I feel like I really am?
And I was like, I'm gonna get in drag.
I remember staring in the mirror and
just being like, I can be whoever I want to be.
I feel like I've been put in a box
of what gender looks like my whole life, so now I'm like, "Screw that,
I can do whatever the heck I want!"
Now I'm completely my own person, as Stella.
As Stella, I get to tell whatever story I want that day.
Every time I get in drag, I think what is a powerful
person look like and I put my spin on it.
Performing is so exciting, and it gives me life like nothing else does.
In my brain, I'm free.
I've stripped enough away from what people have taught me is right
and wrong, now I'm able to see God in a more pure light.
There are people on the street who are like, disgusted by her, and that's so
interesting to me because I'm like, if you knew who Stella was, you wouldn't be
disgusted by her. I know Stella and Stella's intentions
are so pure. Stella wants to be somebody who allows people to feel that they're
beautiful and allows people to be themselves and like, why would you not
want somebody around like that?