Nicky Doll meets gender-questioning people around the world in a compelling docu-series

If you were a fan of Drag Race France, you may be feeling particularly inactive since the end of this Season 2 which crowned Keiona Queen of France (rightfully so) on Aug. 25, 2023. As well as grabbing tickets to see the eleven interested nominees during their live tour across France which kicks off on September 7, and especially go see the drag queens who already perform near you, a new documentary series can help put some zing into your life. The host of Drag Race France present at the moment Nicky’s travels on France 5.

Nicky Doll meets transgender people in India to explain their conditions

The first episode was broadcast on 29 August 2023 on France 5 and is already available for rerun on the France Télévisions website. We see France’s most famous drag queen travel to different countries to meet other cultures and people that the West would classify as queer, transgender and/or drag queen. The first episode is set in India, where trans people, of all castes combined, number in the millions according to the NGO The Humsafar Trust. Only those people we call Hijra which were sacred since ancient times, have been criminalized since British colonization in the 19th century^And century that has imposed a violent gender binary.

From a legal point of view, in summary Information about France“ the Indian Supreme Court has recognized since April 2014 the existence of a ‘third sex’ or third gender, neither male nor female. A decision which was followed in 2018 by the decriminalization of homosexuality. But these advances remain insufficient when one considers the way Hijras are still treated in India today, as can be seen in the first episode of the Nicky’s travels.

The documentary series Les Voyages de Nicky avoids the trap of the exotic white gaze

Far from the usual glitter, Karl Sanchez aka Nicky Doll delivers microphone and camera Hijra (rather called Thirunangai in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India), so as to present their reality without make-up, nor exotic colonizing white eyes, nor traumatic porn. We (re)learn that many of them are rejected by their families, suffer physical and sexual violence, and survive thanks to begging, sex work, but also community solidarity. One of them, the activist Grace Banu (who comes from the caste of the Untouchables), even managed to create a village so that her community could feel safer and help each other.

Directed by Maxime Donzel, the following episodes take us to Greece (Athens with the busy drag clown Kangela, then to the island of Lesbos in the footsteps of the ancient lesbian poet Sappho), Mexico and Japan.

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