I have always had an affinity for drag queens and a hatred of math. In high school, I learned all my makeup tips from drag queens while almost failing my math classes. Never did I think that two opposite spheres of my life would overlap, but when Canadian drag star Kyne published Math in Drag in March, I knew I had to read it. 

I was lucky enough to meet Kyne at Take Cover Books on April 8th during her book tour for Math in Drag, and hear the story behind the book.

I was hooked at the first line she read outloud: “Math is like a drag queen: marvelous, whimsical, at times even controversial, but never boring!” My 13% and 7.5% marks on real-life math tests during high school would suggest otherwise, but I was intrigued nonetheless to see how math—something that had brought me to hysterical tears multiple times—could be as magical as one of my favourite interests: drag. 

The two seem so opposite, with math being full of rules while drag is a ruleless and subversive performance of gender. Yet, during the book launch, she revealed that drag—especially when competing on a show like Canada’s Drag Race—there are clear and specific “rules” that one must follow in order to be perceived well by the judges as well as the at-home fans. Your makeup has to look beautiful, and your wig too; if it falls off during a lipsync for your life, your probability of winning goes down severely! See how the math begins?

She revealed that math is a little more lenient than we have been taught in school. with concepts such as set theory and the mathematical history of infinity needing new sets of rules to be created in order for these concepts to be taken seriously. The same needed to happen with things we could not even fathom having a world without, such as the existence of the number zero. All of these magical math mind-benders are explained in depth in the book using wigs, makeup, lashes, and heels in our imaginary scenarios.

At the launch, Kyne revealed that growing up as what Filipino families refer to as “bakla” or “a boy who acts like a girl” was hard enough as it was, but being interested in math, which felt like an all “boys club”, was even more isolating. Math class was a relieving safe space, but it was also a place that rejected her untraditional feminine side. Math in Drag is an expression of over-the-top femininity in a masculine sphere of academics, widening the space for femininity in general. 

Not only does Math in Drag celebrate femininity and academics as two interlacing traits of a person, it also celebrates queerness in academics. In reference to John Nash, an American mathematician who contributed greatly to the fundamentals of game theory who was also accused for the entirety of his life for being a homosexual, Kyne writes “those who write history have proved very reluctant to associate genius with queerness.” 

The book is an interesting mix of math textbook and biography, but it is such a smooth read with flawless transitions from heavy math material to relatable real-world scenarios in which a drag queen could use her fabulous mathematical skills. The book was intended to be mostly about math, but throughout the writing process, her editors pushed her to write more about her life as a gay man and drag queen, creating this strange yet oddly satisfying mixture of genres. 

Kyne began writing the book in early 2020, shortly after being asked to sashay away on the second episode of season one of Canada’s Drag Race, in which she had been quickly deemed “annoying” and a “brat” by other contestants following her mini-challenge win in the first episode. In the book, she reflects on the experience of being overconfident in drag race and gives us a mathematical example of a payoff matrix while being a contestant on Canada’s Drag Race.

Overall, Math in Drag teaches more than the complexities of mathematics. It is a book that celebrates and encourages straying from the binary in terms of both math and self-expression. It is more than merely a textbook, and more than an auto-biography: showing readers how math and our real lives are infinitely intertwined. Kyne shows us the parallels between life lessons and math lessons and that open-mindedness does not just apply to instances of social phenomena like sexual orientation and gender expression, but things like math and science.