LGBTQ performers Ryan Perry, Darren Truth LaFay, Sophia Flawless and Black Eyed Suzie joined in a panel discussing resilience on Feb. 26. Tom Markland

SHEPHERDSTOWN – During a panel discussion hosted by the Roving Peregrine Theater Company, four LGBTQ artists discussed the impact of transgender and non-binary voices in performance.

Black Eyed Suzie, a Maryland-based non-binary entertainer, led the discussion, asking questions of Darren Truth LaFay, a drag king from Martinsburg, Sophia Flawless, a drag performer and singer from Strasburg, Va., and Ryan Perry, a non-binary singer, songwriter and actor from Inwood.

Members of the panel started the night by discussing how their identity contributed to their art. While both Flawless and LaFay are drag artists, Perry said their own performance was a big part of how they realized they were non-binary.

“Through music and through performance and through songwriting, I was able to unpack some of those things and realize that I was repressing things that were making me spiral and making me miserable,” Perry said.

“Performance is a place like a sandbox, almost,” Perry added. “You’re in this experimental space, where you can explore the things that for the most part have been taught to not explore.”

Later in the night, the “Voices of Resilience” panelists discussed how to deal with pushback against their art. LaFay said when he encounters it, he does his best to roll with the comments, smile and keep going.

“If you’re gonna hate me, you’re gonna hate me,” LaFay said. “But you’re gonna look like a fool at the end of the day, because all I’m gonna do is smile and be like, ‘Okay.'”

Being a drag king, LaFay has faced pushback even from within his own community, since drag kings are less common than drag queens. The panel agreed, saying it’s important for those spaces to stay open to all types of performers, even those that are less conventional.

“Sometimes, the biggest thought to face isn’t from the preacher outside of the pride event with the megaphone — it’s that queen who says the backhanded comment and you’re like, ‘Oh, I thought I was with family,”’ Flawless said.

LaFay said those environments have pushed him to find a better place, eventually landing in Cumberland, Md., as a spot to perform, with a larger scene for drag kings.

Despite the struggle, the panel agreed that coming together as a community is vital in difficult times.

“I’m feeling like the more of us that are coming out, that have a performance interest or background, find ourselves exploring our gender and being outside of whatever has been established as normal. I find that if there’s more of us in this process of being creatives, we have community in each other,” Suzie said. “It goes back to this sense of resilience, not just having this inner strength all by yourself, but that you can find others that are like minded in that way.”