John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

I knew I could never be an actor as a man. It just doesn't work, you know? And so when I was doing drag, I realized I could do that kind of stuff, and then when I was transitioning, I kind of gave up on the whole thing because I didn't think that this time would ever come, you know?

Oh, completely liberating because even if you don't do a woman right, you just have to put on high heels a wig, a bra and a dress, and I feel liberated.

Gender is a spectrum.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that only gender non-conforming, non-binary, or trans people have a gender identity. But the truth is, everyone has a gender identity.

I love disappearing. That's what acting is. For me it's about putting on a persona, stepping into a pair of shoes. It's my face, but I'm using it as a tool for that spirit, that character.

They say it's good but I didn't know what I was doing until I got into the suit and they put the moustache on me, and somehow, when I got all the drag on, it came out. It was the most amazing thing. I'm truly extraordinary.

Androgyny is not trying to manage the relationship between the opposites; it is simply flowing between them.

As a singer I tried on all these hats, these voices, these clothes, and eventually out came me.

Sexuality and gender don't change anyone's performance on the court.

We're born man, woman and sexual beings.

I don't think of myself as a model. I'm genderqueer, and I've got tattoos.

What interested me, was that as we age, those seemingly unbreakable barriers that define us, our gender, they begin to crack, to blur; they're not absolutes anymore.

When I played Candy Darling in 'I Shot Andy Warhol,' that was easy to play that part. They made me into a woman: I'm in heels; I'm waxed. I'm gonna find the femininity and lay on the bed and take the voice of an old movie star.

I love the idea that we're going to be genderless and boundaryless in the future.

I've seen some beyond-amazing performers do karaoke who should be on stage somewhere, and I've seen people who you rather didn't enter the bar. That's the beautiful thing about it; it's for everybody.

The gender question has always obsessed me.

Trans women are women, we're just a different type of women.

I thought doing drag in the beginning was fun: playing dress up.

Theatre comes alive when someone cross-dresses onstage.

Everybody is in drag.

I never questioned if I was effeminate or not. That didn't matter in the theatre.

Nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and trans people have always been around, just as long as any other type of person.

When not dressed as Conchita I am a man, and a lazy one at that.

That's part of what made me interested in theater as a kid. It made it acceptable to be a man for an hour onstage.

I threw away all my boys' clothes and started wearing makeup.