RuPaul's Drag Race Finale Crowns a New Queen Who Believes in Drag as Activism

This season of RuPaul's Drag Race has been a wild ride, and last night it came down to a first-ever Grand Finale lip-sync showdown between the final four -- Trinity Taylor, Peppermint, Sasha Velour, and Shea Coulee. While all of the queens deserved the season nine crown at the end, one winner was chosen.

The battle kicked off with Trinity and Peppermint going wig to wig in a lip-sync to Britney Spears's "Stronger" while Sasha and She took on Whitney Houston's epic "So Emotional" in the preliminary rounds.

SPOILERS if you haven't watched.

While Trinity started off strong, Peppermint wowed RuPaul with a wig toss for the ages. Sasha beat Shea in their match-up, and so the final performance came down to Sasha and Peppermint dueling it out to Houston's "It's Not Right But It's Okay."

While it would have been new and exciting for Peppermint to have claimed victory and broken ground as the first transgender winner of Drag Race, Sasha's interpretation to drag as a form of activism is especially timely.

"I believe drag is a form of activism. It centers queer people and queer ways of being beautiful, especially in a political context where beauty is narrowly defined or what's considered important or valuable is narrowly defined, and drag always offers a different option," Sasha told Entertainment Weekly. "I took for granted how much drag is still about play, and how playing and being light about your identity and yourself is actually a form of resistance, too."

The Advocate interviewed the queens at the finale to find out which supernatural creature other than The Babadook should become a queer icon.