In 2022, Flamy Grant’s album “Bible Belt Baby” rose to number one on the Christian charts after the drag queen and Christian country musician was referred to as an example of the “deconstruction movement in the church.”
“These are truly the last days,” a musician wrote on Twitter, condemning Grant’s collaboration with a worship leader on her song “Good Day.”
Grant released her most recent album, “Church,” in October and performed at the United Church of Gainesville 一 1624 NW Fifth Ave. 一 as a part of her No More Drama tour Tuesday night. Grant described her new album as truly her own.
“It is a character, but it is also an extension of me, who I am,” she said. “It's given me so much more vocabulary to talk about my experience.”
Grant grew up in North Carolina as a member of an evangelical church and served as a worship leader for 22 years. She said she started doing drag at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and began to find ways to implement drag into her songwriting, using it to vocalize her experiences and display internal thoughts and emotions.
On “Church,” Grant said she used her identity to explore themes of religious trauma in songs like “Revenge” and “How to Find the Words,” which detail her experiences with coming of age as a queer person in a “fundamentalist, oppressive religious space.”
“I am someone who definitely identifies with the idea that the church, especially the American church, right now, has done so much damage to its queer members and the queer kids who come up in its ranks,” she said. “It's ultimately a farewell and swan song to the church because I no longer go. I'm not in any church anymore.”
Grant said her single, “If You Ever Leave,” outlines her feelings towards the church’s mistreatment of its LGBTQ+ members and how the rhetoric surrounding sexuality leads many of them to leave the institution.
“A God who makes you cling to hatred for yourself is not a God who saves,” she sings over a plaintive guitar melody.
On Tuesday night, Grant performed at the United Church of Gainesville, a local church that promotes an inclusive religious environment. The building has a banner on the outside that states, “We Say Gay and Trans.”
Talia Raymond, the church’s minister, identifies as queer and said she knew of Grant through her social media presence and the song “Esther, Ruth, and Rahab,” a song Raymond described as “fundamental.” Raymond and another member of the church reached out to Grant about making a stop in Gainesville, to which she agreed.
“This is her first show in Gainesville, so we’re thrilled to be hosting,” Raymond said. “At this moment in time, anything we can do to manifest queer joy and support in the community, that’s what we want to do.”
Jamie Mullens, a fan of Flamy Grant from San Jose, said she was drawn to Grant’s music after hearing her cover of “El Shaddai” on YouTube. Mullens has seen Grant perform several times and enjoys the relatability of her music.
“It helps people who are deconstructing their faith and religious beliefs,” she wrote in an email. “She’s one of my favorite musicians and a great person in general.”
Grant said she sings for those who, like her, were raised as members of the Christian church and struggle with feeling unwelcome. Storytelling has always been important to her, she said, and she began exploring her own sexuality thanks to stories of other queer youth in the church.
On tour, she often tells the story of listening to Christian radio host Dawson McAllister’s show, where teens called in for advice. Grant remembers people her age calling in and discussing their sexuality, which introduced her to the concept.
Through her own storytelling, Grant said she hopes to challenge the depiction of queerness within Christianity and reach young people growing up in the church.
“Nobody in Christian music wants me,” she said. “The industry ー they don't like me. But for me, it's so important because I know what it could have done for me when I was a kid if I had had more stories and seen more representation of happy, healthy, whole, adult queer people, and I just didn't have that model for me.”
Despite not feeling embraced by the industry, Grant hopes to serve as a positive and progressive force in Christian music, especially as she observes its shift toward Christian nationalism and right-wing politics, she said.
While she recognizes the strides that have been made in the Christian music industry, Grant said the industry is a “dark place.” She remembers attending the 2022 Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards in drag and feeling uncomfortable, saying, “It’s just not for me.”
Grant has collaborated with a community of LGBTQ+ musicians and plans to continue to work with them during her Make the Yuletide Gay tour, starting Dec. 4 in St. Augustine. She said she finds it refreshing to work with other queer artists who grew up in religious environments.
“I like queer people,” she said. “I think we're fabulous. That's just the phase of life I'm in. I want to hang out with queer folks more.”
Before devoting herself to music full-time, Grant worked for a nonprofit in San Diego. Today, she advocates for a variety of causes and organizations while on tour, including the Trans Youth Emergency Project, for which she has raised about $6,000.
Grant believes it is her role as an artist to reflect the world back to itself. Advocating for the causes she believes in through her art is the most effective way of garnering support for her beliefs, she said.
She hopes her music can create an open dialogue in a way that social media can’t, reaching the audiences she represents and those who she might upset, she said.
“I hope that I get to not just entertain people but give them some lovely food for thought and give them an opportunity to see things maybe a little differently than they did before,” she said. “A chance to step into someone else's shoes and hopefully contribute to making the world a more compassionate, kind, understanding, loving place.”
Contact Juliana DeFilippo at jdefillipo@alligator.org. Follow her on X @JulianaDeF58101.
Juliana DeFilippo is a freshman journalism major and General Assignment reporter for The Avenue. In her free time, she loves to read and work on crossword puzzles.
