For every action, there’s a reaction.

For slack-jawed Americans witnessing the White House’s slew of assaults on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the arts, LGBTQ+ rights, and trans identity, one might be: I’m gonna get myself into some drag. It’s a great way to get out there and meet people.

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Here are five pieces of advice from those who know the drag beat best.

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Know Yourself

“Figure out who you are,” says Alaska Thunderfuck, winner of the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars. “Figure out who you are, and what you like, not just like what is trending right now. That’s important. That just comes down to your vision for yourself.”

“If you’re going to start drag, the place you start is with yourself,” says drag impresario RuPaul, creator of her eponymous show. “Who are you? What’s your objective with this? Why do you want to do this? You know, drag doesn’t change who you are. It actually reveals who you are.”

“B**ch, do it!” says Peppermint, another Drag Race vet.

“Do it, let your titties out — well, maybe don’t take your titties out — but do it if you’re trans, if you’re queer, if you’re gender nonbinary, you’re gender non-conforming — show people that you have whatever talents you have,” she says. “As long as you have that talent, it will speak for itself.”

“No one is going to cheer for you harder than you have to cheer for yourself!” says Bob the Drag Queen, who arrived in New York City 20 years ago with just $500 and a suitcase. “I think if you want to drag, you’ll figure it out.”

Immerse yourself

“For me, it was really important to immerse myself in the New York nightlife drag scene and become an integral part of that community,” says Bob. “Even clowns have a college. You gotta learn drag from another drag queen.”

Bob was out and about but learned online, as well.

“My drag mom is YouTube,” Bob adds. “I learned everything I wanted to learn. You can learn anything on YouTube.”

“It’s great to learn how to do stuff from YouTube, like, how to do the staples of makeup and how to do hair and clothes,” says Alaska. “It’s great to know all that stuff, but then figure out what you like — not just what is trending right now.”

And learn a few hard and fast rules from those that know, says RuPaul.

“I don’t care if you are in the back seat of a trick’s car or if you were in church or if you were on stage, do not take your shoes off,” RuPaul demands of drag newbies. “Do not take your wig off. That is my number one pet peeve, and that is the rule for life.”

Set yourself apart

Says Alaska: “It’s very hard nowadays to tell drag queens apart, as their names all sound the same, their faces are all the same, the f*cking same clothes and same hair. So maybe the stuff that you’re kind of embarrassed about, or you think that you’re trying to hide, like, put those out front too, because that separates you and gives you something different.”

“My Blackness, my queerness, my gayness, my inability to shut the hell up—these are all things that have really worked for me,” Bob explains.

“I like a kind drag queen,” RuPaul says, “because, first of all, you got to understand: people who gravitate toward drag are sweet, sensitive souls who have uncovered the mystery of our society, which is, it’s all a hoax. Our society is a matrix. It’s all an illusion. Don’t become bitter. That’s the biggest challenge you’ll have when you get into drag.”

Get creative

“I didn’t notice that there were a lot of roles written for me specifically, like a funny person who can’t sing and is a halfway decent dancer,” Bob says of arriving in New York City to become a Broadway star, and later, the winner of Drag Race Season 8.

So, he says, “I started doing standup. Cabaret shows. I wrote my own musicals that we performed around town.”

“I wrote this parody of Little Shop of Horrors, which was Little Shop of Whores; you can imagine what it was. Instead of drinking blood, you can imagine what it drank.

“If I can’t find the plays that I want, I will write them myself,” Bob says, “and I will cast people in them, and I will create opportunities for people.”

You be you

“There are a lot of people who have traditional values and those are valid opinions, but the bottom line is we are moving forward and either you can stay behind or you can move forward, and women can do anything that men can do,” Peppermint says. “Trans women can do anything that cisgender women can do. We’re all equal. Drag is drag.”

“The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given was given to me by my 10th-grade drama teacher,” RuPaul recalls. “I think I was going to get expelled or something was up, but I was really distraught. He said to me, ‘RuPaul,’ — my real name — ‘don’t take life too seriously.’ Of course, then I didn’t know what he was talking about. Didn’t understand it. But here, 40 years later, you better believe I know what he’s talking about.”

Of Alaska’s first shows as a drag queen baby, she says, “We would literally inundate ourselves with [alcohol] and see if we could make it to the end of the night. And we usually did.”

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