Earlier this year, Queer Kentucky spoke with Lexi Love about substance use and harm reduction. This story is part of an upcoming digital issue of Queer Kentucky surrounding Harm Reduction and its intersection with the LGBTQ+ community. Want to know when it drops? Sign up for our newsletter!

Sobriety and recovery look different for everyone, whether that means living “California sober,” cutting out one or two substances, or choosing full abstinence. With methamphetamine (colloquially, meth) holding a growing number of LGBTQ+ people in a vice grip, one queer activist and newly rising star is destigmatizing harm reduction through personal awareness and her own safer practices.

Lexi Love, Louisville’s “Roller-Derby Doll” and RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 contestant, says it’s time for LGBTQ+ people to have hard conversations about substance use disorder, particularly chemsex or to some known as, party-and-play (or PNP) culture. And Love herself isn’t excluded from those hard conversations, having faced homelessness and battled addiction before her time on Drag Race. 

“I have had my hands in every single recreational drug that you can think of—I’ve tried it all,” she tells Queer Kentucky. “But I think what’s most prevalent in our community is, of course, the use of crystal methamphetamine, GHB and those types of party sex drugs.”

Love, who was forced out of her home as a teenager after her family discovered she was queer, says the family rejection served as the catalyst for her slipping into the world of hard drugs. With nowhere to go and no support system, she found herself on the streets.

“Once you’re homeless, and once you have no running water, electricity…[using drugs] just becomes a way to distract yourself from everything,” she recalls. “Something turns into a distraction, and then it turns into a lifestyle, and it’s very difficult.”

Love struggles to pinpoint her darkest moment because she says there were too many. But she recalls her late friend, Cody, who introduced her to the darker, more dangerous side of the LGBTQ+ meth scene—an experience so unsettling it ultimately scared her away from that world. Love credits Cody’s actions for ridding meth from her life and wishes she could have helped prevent his death with the knowledge she now has.

photo by Josh Astor

“We are gonna have to have a long, hard conversation about intimacy, love, and sex,” Love says, “because these are the three main problems that the gay community [will try to fix] with crystal meth.”

In Love’s Meet the Queens video, she shared that everything she does is “surrounding love and making others feel loved,” emphasizing the importance of human connection in a world where it’s increasingly slipping away.

For her, using meth was the missing puzzle piece during a time when she struggled to love herself and with intimacy. And what does RuPaul say? “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

“People that have been missing certain types of love and affection in their life, and now they’re searching for it in other ways so a lot of this stems, I think, from love and affection and not receiving it,” she says. “Meth is an upper and makes you feel uninhibited. You’re all of a sudden not worrying about all of your concerns and worries in the world.”

Having moved away from meth, Love explains that she isn’t “Sober Judy,” but has paved a way for a happy life through practicing harm reduction. For Love, sobriety isn’t about abstinence, but stability. She defines sobriety as the ability to be a functioning part of society. She believes that addiction isn’t just about using substances but about finding effective coping mechanisms. Working in clubs and bars, Love says she is often offered every drug imaginable and as a result she must be careful in her own workspace.

Love has been candid about her struggles with addiction on Drag Race, referring to herself as a “frequent flyer”—a term for regular meth users—yet her openness has made her a target for ridicule.

In RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, Episode 9, titled “Heavens to Betsy,” theater and flapper queen Suzie Toot joins the other contestants in the iconic “Reading Challenge.” When it’s her turn to take a jab at Love, she said, “You’re just steps away from reaching your dreams—12 steps exactly,” referencing the Alcoholics Anonymous program. She follows up with, “I’ve never met anyone who works harder than Lexi Love’s liver.”

While the reading challenge is a playful chance to throw sharp, below-the-belt digs at fellow contestants, Toot’s words also reflect a broader stigma faced by those practicing harm reduction rather than full abstinence—often dismissed as not being “truly” sober.

Photo provided by MTV

“It doesn’t affect me,” Love says about judgment from others. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t your problem, and therefore I really don’t care about your opinion because those people are the ones that have always judged me and never wanted me to succeed—so they can suck my big toe.”

Substance use is a serious issue across the U.S., with 1,984 Kentuckians losing their lives to drug overdose in 2023 — a rate of 45.9 deaths per 100,000 residents. The 2023 Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report shows fentanyl was involved in 79.1% of overdose deaths, while methamphetamine contributed to 55.2%, making them the leading substances in overdose fatalities across the state.

Queer people, like with most progressive social movements, are at the forefront of promoting harm reduction, often disbursing Naloxone and fentanyl test strips in sacred queer spaces to prevent overdose deaths. Love says that bars that understand that drug usage may happen within their facility are being smart and want to keep their patrons as safe as possible.

“I see lots of things happening. I see lots of little baggies being passed around, and that does make me extremely nervous for the people I’m performing for, she says.

The Season 17 second runner-up recently announced on her Instagram that she is taking a step back from the spotlight to nurture her mental, physical, and emotional well-being while also transforming her relationship with her “inner-saboteur.”

Lexi Love’s Instagram

“This journey isn’t one I can take alone,” she writes. “I know I’ll need help, guidance, and grace along the way — and I’m so grateful to have the love and support of this incredible community behind me.”

A few days after sharing her message with fans, she posted a stitched video featuring Amy Winehouse singing, “They tried to make me go to rehab and I said…,” which then cuts to a clip of Lexi responding, “OK, let’s go.”

Queer Kentucky reached out to Love’s public relations team at Metro Public Relations to confirm whether she is entering rehab, but they have not responded.

And for those still struggling? Lexi Love has a message for you:

“I love you. I’m sorry. And whenever you feel like this is too much or thinking ‘what am I doing?’ And maybe thinking that it’s too late to turn back? It’s never too late to turn back, never too late to turn back one more time. It is never too late to turn back. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.”

Love, who is living with HIV, would also love to let the Queer Kentucky audience know about HIV resources for those struggling to find care. She would like to direct people to Mistr.com, ViivHealthcare, and Planned Parenthood.