Clocking It with The Facial Femmes

If you’re a resident SLC queer, you probably have heard of (or seen) local drag performers, internet viral stars and SLUG alumni, Ms. Meredith and Jenna Tea, taking Utah’s queer nightlife by storm. Though if you’re not so social media inclined, you might’ve missed their newest joint endeavor, @thefacialfemmes: an Instagram account documenting their journey transitioning in real time together, with a goal of getting facial feminization surgery at the same time along the way. The Facial Femmes hope to showcase all of this and become a welcoming space for all to enter and experience sisterhood.

“We’ve always been very close friends, but I feel like we decided to make it Instagram official.”

Ms. Meredith and Jenna Tea are no strangers to internet popularity. Both have separately gone viral at different points in their drag careers. Meredith went viral for a video documenting her life before becoming a drag queen: a life where she was a BYU student who even went on to serve a mission in Ukraine before coming out as a gay man and eventually discovering she was transgender. This sparked her performing at the LoveLoud Festival here in Utah, where she opened for acts like David Archuleta and Neon Trees. Jenna went viral for a heartwarming video that she secretly recorded of her great-grandmother Katherine, where she came out as transgender and was met with one of the most beautiful speeches of love and acceptance, which in turn landed her The Kelly Clarkson Show and interviews with outlets like GMA. With the traction these two queens were gaining, it felt like a no-brainer to join forces. “We’ve always been very close friends, but I feel like we decided to make it Instagram official,” Jenna declares before adding, “We noticed that people loved seeing us together, so that was a big factor in making the account together.”

“It is such a hard place to be trans in the world right now, let alone Utah. Why not try and share that and open that up?”

Friends almost feels like an understatement when Meredith and Jenna recount their “first official girls’ night” together on a trip with other local Utah drag queens. Meredith shares, “We went on the trip, and we were both like, ‘We’re different than a lot of the other queens are.’’’ Jenna adds, “They [the other queens] all went out to the gay bar, and we stayed in. That was the night that we told each other that we thought we were both trans.” The Facial Femmes is just the start to documenting their sisterhood and career expansion outside of drag together. “It is such a hard place to be trans in the world right now, let alone Utah. Why not try and share that and open that up?” Meredith says. Videos of The Facial Femmes making light of the “Trans Agenda” and candidly discussing others’ shock to them dating straight men have led to the formation of their upcoming podcast, Clock It. “Those were really the videos that picked up and did the best for us, which is why we started doing the podcast,” Jenna explains.

Besides the launch of Clock It and its Patreon, which will feature exclusive behind the scenes of not only the podcast but of their lives, they also have started their very own drag house called “Haus of Gloss” featuring a myriad of other local queens in SLC. With all this excitement, they don’t forget their own personal goals when it comes to their transitions. “I think it’s here in the phrase ‘protect the dolls,’ and I know it’s maybe redundant or feels less interesting to say, but part of that is paying the dolls and booking the dolls,” Meredith explains. “A lot of that is showing up on that front because that is truly what helps us get what we need, which is gender-affirming care.” You can support these dolls by following their Instagram @thefacialfemmes for their GoFundMe and follow their future endeavors like Clock It and @hausgloss.

Read more about local LGBTQ+ activists making beautiful waves of change:
Talking Trans Joy & Resistance With Genderbands
Bold & Beautiful: Salina Marina

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