'It's bigger than me': Jaylene Tyme on using Canada's Drag Race to raise awareness of the Sixties Scoop
In a Q interview, the Vancouver drag legend talks about using her platform for good
Jaylene Tyme was first introduced to drag culture in the '80s and '90s amid the HIV and AIDS epidemic, when activism seemed to explode for the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
"We really needed that community because you couldn't really walk down the street and be yourself," the Vancouver drag legend tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "As a young person, I saw drag on a stage being celebrated, but also doing some really great work for [the] community by raising funds and awareness."
Jaylene recently competed on Season 5 of Canada's Drag Race, where she not only won the title of Miss Congeniality, but also used her platform to send powerful messages about truth and reconciliation, missing and murdered Indigenous women, and her own experiences as a Sixties Scoop survivor and two-spirit trans woman.
As a young child, she was separated from her brother, removed from her Indigenous home and put up for adoption, which left her with a lost sense of cultural identity.
"It wasn't until [I was] 50 years old that I had those answers," she says. "And then I started to explore and realized that my ancestry is very rich, and it is steeped in tradition and a beautiful reality, but also a really heartbreaking one at the same time."
On Canada's Drag Race, Jaylene educated her fellow queens about the history of the Sixties Scoop and its impact on her and other survivors.
"Being in a room and asking the question, and having most people say they didn't know about it, I was kind of shocked, but then not shocked at the same time," she says. "I just knew that this was an opportunity for me to share the story and define it."
As a result, Jaylene says she received messages from people all around the world thanking her for sharing her story. While many of her fans weren't aware of the Sixties Scoop, they told her they turned to Google to learn more.
"I just knew I wanted to be intentional to show up authentically," she says. "I just knew everything is about paying attention to the details and realizing that the opportunity to show up here is not only mine alone. It's bigger than me."
The full interview with Jaylene Tyme is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Jaylene Tyme produced by Amelia Eqbal.
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