Kylie Sonique Love famously tripped during the last lip-sync of the RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 6 finale, but she landed with a crown — and a role in her first major movie, Dope Queens.
Written and directed by Grafton Reyes Doyle, the film is billed as a vibrant romantic thriller that follows three friends (Empire's Alexandra Grey, The Man From Toronto's Pierson Fodé, and Hustlers actress Trace Lysette) over the course of a wild night on the gritty streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Kylie plays Monika, a queen of the local DIVAS club who's a fierce performer with a striking exterior and a playful personality. She ultimately warns the group about the city's streets, the dangers of which her fellow queen Sheba (Krystal Thomas) is all too familiar with.
The film is one of few pieces of mainstream media to explore the Tenderloin region, the home of Compton's Transgender Cultural District, the first legally recognized transgender district in the world that encompasses six blocks of the city. It takes its name from Compton's Cafeteria Riots of 1966, one of the first documented trans uprisings in United States history.
