Bold & Beautiful: Lydia Chlamydia

Biking circles around downtown Salt Lake City — in full drag and with no hands?

KJ Leuthauser, known to most as Lydia Chlamydia, is making her mark on the drag world one bike ride at a time. Decked out in full neon, traffic lights aren’t the only bright and shiny thing to look at on 9th & 9th every Thursday night.

“Drag has allowed me to accept the feminine part of myself. It’s always there … my confidence is through the roof.”

Lydia Chlamydia was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, to a religious family whose lifestyle teetered on the conservative side. Her affinity for the world of drag was therefore buried under deleted YouTube searches and an intense fear of parental disapproval. It wasn’t until 2018, when her family took a trip to New York and saw the Broadway Musical Head Over Heels, that she admitted her love for professional drag out loud.

Further capitalizing on her rebellious streak, she took the first step towards self acceptance on Halloween in 2019. “I wanted to be a drag queen for Halloween. No name, not any sort of drag queen, just a drag queen. Period. I looked like a mess, but anything to piss off my parents,” she says.

The look might have been an amateur makeup job and a poorly-placed wig, but the “fantasy feeling” that she experienced on the inside was so much more rewarding. Dressing in drag unlocked a confidence within her that had been buried.

“Drag has allowed me to accept the feminine part of myself. It’s always there, it is not some character that I can put on and take off, but when I am in drag, my confidence is through the roof,” she says. “I can walk up to someone and not think about what they’re thinking about me because I am too busy thinking about myself: If I can look even more ridiculous than they think I look and still feel glamorous in that. It kind of makes me feel invulnerable to anything.”

“Start right now! My first step was a really shitty lip and one [type of] eyeliner, so take that first step, no matter what it is.”

She began her journey by performing in a local theater production of Head Over Heels, where she mastered the skill of applying drag hair and makeup, but she was still a baby in the drag world, so there wasn’t much demand for her in other professional venues.

The University of Utah presented her the opportunity of a lifetime in the 999 bike ride. A sort of weekly protest advocating for more sustainable forms of transportation, it quickly became the ideal stage to blend her inherent athleticism with the need to make a name for herself as a queen.

“I started showing up in drag and I got so much attention, so I kept doing it. I think for a lot of the people here, it might be their first time ever seeing a drag queen, so it is different out here,” she says. “Not everyone is expecting me, so they get more excited.”

Lydia feels that people are more receptive to her in the bike club setting because they see her excelling at an activity that they love. Lydia can ride for an approximate mile without using her handlebars which, in a straight male dominated space, gains her the respect of her audience.

“It’s like telling your friend, ‘Hey did you hear, Lydia got chlamydia? Like, she is a slut.'”

“They see me biking with no hands and go, ‘I can’t do that, I am struggling doing this,’” Lydia says. “They might think ‘maybe she isn’t so bad, she’s one of us.’”

Lydia empathizes with aspiring queens who are afraid to take the leap, but now as the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Nines” and a hostess at The SunTrapp SLC, one of Salt Lake City’s favorite queer bars, her advice to them is to simply start: “Start right now! My first step was a really shitty lip and one [type of] eyeliner, so take that first step, no matter what it is.”

Lydia thrives on community, and you can be a part of hers on her Instagram at @lydiagotchlamydia. “It’s like telling your friend, ‘Hey did you hear, Lydia got chlamydia? Like, she is a slut,’” she says.

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