Hi, I’m Christa Orth, a queer nonbinary creative non-fiction author and historian based in Amsterdam, NL.

I was a drag king who came of age twenty years ago, and this 48-page specially risograph-printed zine contains my reflections on the current right-wing backlash against drag performance and trans people. I look into the past for inspiration from gender expansive people before us, and harness my desire and rage to imagine how we will survive drag bans and trans bans to endure forever more.

Available now: Don’t Stop Me Now zine

What people are saying

  • “In Don't Stop Me Now, Christa Orth takes us on a magical journey through time and possibility, exploring history and the postcolonial gender-liberated future we can all create together, starting now. This book is such a gift—I'm excited for you to receive it and live in it. If you're like me, you’ll nod in nostalgia recognition, cry in shared pain, giggle with joy, and notice that each page you turn opens your heart a little bit more.”

    – Ariel Gore, author of Hexing the Patriarchy, We Were Witches, and the Wayward Writer; founding editor and publisher of Hip Mama Magazine.

  • “Christa Orth's Don't Stop Me Now is a smart, queer, sexy, and daring look back at the last 20 years of drag's existence & resistance, from the point of view of one drag king's evolving ideas and identities around gender.”

    – Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer and The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison.

  • “Don't Stop Me Now is a timely, historical, powerful fuses pumping live heat twisting on a wire chapbook!! F@#k the Drag Bans! Complete and total liberation NOW.”

    - China Martens, author of The Future Generation; coeditor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind and Revolutionary Mothering: Love On The Front Lines.

About Me

Christa Orth (they/them) is a queer nonbinary creative non-fiction writer and historian, and the author of the chapbook Don't Stop Me Now: How to Resist Drag Bans and Create Total Gender Liberation. Christa is published in the Lambda Literary Award winning anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, The Encyclopedia of American LGBT History and Culture, and VisualAIDS.org. Christa is a Lambda Literary Fellow and the recipient of a University of Oregon Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Essay Award. Christa’s full-length book is coming soon: Queer Famous, a memoir about their drag king utopia.

Christa is CEO of Seaworthy Fundraising, a consulting practice for social justice organizations across the globe.