Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Barboza (Call Me Justice).
Hi Christopher , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hello,
I am Justice, a drag queen here in Austin, Texas. I’ve been doing drag now for about 8 + years.
When I first started:
I moved here in 2017 to attend UT Austin in pursuit of a journalism degree. While attending, a friend named Luca brought me to my first ever drag show hosted by Kelly Kline at Oilcan Harry’s on 4th Street. I was reluctant to go, but my first impression of the show was that drag was something I could do. I think it brought out the show man in myself, as Journalism is more about highlighting rather than being the feature. The queens all came out in their 4 way stretch costumes and heavy drag make up, which they’d spent years developing. It a type of drag that had its roots pre-drag race. All the queens were older than 30, and their makeup was dramatic. Think white highlights and dark shadows with eyeshadow that met their hairlines. This type of drag didn’t jump off ceilings and split and every climax, but it was the foundation of the type of drag I’d come to appreciate. One of dramatics and stage presence.
Very soon after my first drag show:
I’d buy Walmart makeup with a highschool friend, Marcela. She was attending saint edwards university. She enthusiastically advised me on what I’d need to complete a full face. I’d develop my makeup skills in my dorm room, which my roommate was never in. Perfect for a closeted art project. I’d source heels from good will, What ever fit was good enough. Eventually i found my first stride with a drag competition called Drag Survivor, also hosted by Kelly Kline at the same bar. 12 weeks, wild challenges and a series of unfortunate events later (for the other girls) I won the crown. I was the dark horse of the season.
My favorite memories from this era of my life was making drag out of anything. Before I had any skill, I had only a week to prepare. Each week I’d create a new costume, make a new mix, learn the mix and hopefully create a thoughtful number.
Where I am now:
Now I am in a different place in my life. I’ve graduated school but I have not been able to find anything in my field. My relationship at the bars I began my drag career have soured. But all is not lost.
I’ve become well known in the city for my sewing talent, as I make all of my outfits and I seem to have style. I’ve developed a social media skill, so I can edit, take photos, produce my own image with a marketing sensability. And I’ve developed new relationships with bars in the same scene.
I’m in a place that is teaching me resilience. For 8 years (i graduated in 2025) I chased this degree in hopes that it would bring me some kind of finacial stability, but as I’m learning more about service industry and having a year away from school, something about giving up drag as a career for more of a hobby seems a little sad to me. There is something about the place that I am in, performing every other week, having drag that I’ve created over the past couple of years that I can lean on, that just feels a little easier. I’m allowing myself to breath before I allow my next phase of drag show itself. I think its respecting the creative process and not pressuring myself to constantly create. How do I turn into a drag queen into an artist with a message. That is where I am now.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My eternal struggle is that I can do everything, but I shouldn’t.
Call it creativity, call it survival, I’ve been self taught in everything I find myself doing. Here is a small list:
Creating outfits, makeup artist, designer, graphic designer, videographer, photographer, social media strategist, producer, host, etc. I’ve learned to kind of do everything in bar entertainment industry…. except make money. The hardest thing is that I feel like I have to do it all to get close the goals that I have with the capital I don’t have.
My biggest struggle was getting let go from the bars that I started at. Specifically I was a social media content creator. They let me do security… again. In the bar industry, this is usually the lowest paid and earnestly the lowest respected of all the roles in the bar. I eventally left my monthly cast spot at Oilcan Harry’s and almost went home to the Rio Grande Valley due to financial insecurity and a family injury.
A couple months later I was able to come back and started working at Highland Lounge. This caused a rift between me and my previous employment. I learned that drag as a career in a local scene is largely about community. I’ve felt unspoken shift between me and perivous co-workers and entertainers who still work at that venue. Despite it all, I still support the venues I worked at. My personal conflicts don’t negate the respect I have for the community spaces these venues have built, but being excluded while in a huge tranistion period of my life is just apart of the journey I guess. I figure that I might as well learn these lessons now, especially if I’m ever to build a career in entertainment that out reaches the local Austin scene.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think what I do in drag is a catch all.
I ‘d say my speciality is …. hmmmm…. the dramatics. When I perform I primarliy focusing on the emotion of the song and conveying it through movement. I really use my long limbs to express myself.
If I were to guess how others describe me, I’d think they’d say I’m striking with a strong point of view in fashion or asthetic.
I think that sets me apart from others is that I don’t see myself as a “diva.” In fact alot of traits I see others exhibit I find to be more ego centric. Don’t get me wrong I like to be vailidated. But I want people to feel something, tap into something. I want drag to be seen as a serious craft how I see it. While I appreciate silly and cunty drag, thats not really where I find myself.
To me drag feels like an instrument. And I want the audience to feel me at every capacity.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Hmmmm, alot of youtube and instagram.
My best tip, especially as a gen z-er is that I take information at small doses. So instagram tends to be where I learn alot of skills from sewing to graphic design. I save all my inspos and create folders so I can go back and reference.
Drag is so broad, I think you just really got to find what your very specific draw to it is and then go from there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youtube.com/@SomeOfThisIsDrag
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justice.creates/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SomeOfThisIsDrag
