The country’s reigning Miss Gay America — a title she sometimes playfully refers to as “the president of drag” — doesn’t live in a Los Angeles mansion or a New York City walkup. She calls midtown Tulsa home.
Travis Guillory is the last person to predict he would be standing among the dozens of shimmering costumes, wigs and crowns required to transform into Tracy La Louisianne, who he describes as “Travis on steroids.”
A former local TV anchor and current executive director of Theatre Tulsa, Guillory’s drag career began less than four years ago. Now he’s fielding requests from America’s Got Talent producers who watched Tracy earn the national title in January.
“I’m not kidding when I say my life literally changed overnight,” Guillory said.
‘Proved every single one of us wrong’
Guillory’s journey to winning the country’s longest-running and largest drag pageant wasn’t linear. Originally from southern Louisiana, he moved to Tulsa in 2017 to work for 2 News Oklahoma. The longtime performer and director quickly became involved in the local theater scene.
That’s where Tracy was born. Guillory was cast as seasoned drag queen Miss Tracy Mills in World Stage Theatre Company’s 2021 production of “The Legend of Georgia McBride.” The role required him to take a “crash course” on drag performance and culture. The University of Tulsa’s HallowQueens show came calling soon after. First, though, Guillory needed a name.
“I looked up Louisiana cocktails and I found ‘La Louisianne,’ which is basically a New Orleans version of a Manhattan, my favorite drink,” he said. “It just stuck.”
Alongside a career shift to public relations, Guillory began performing one-woman cabarets with Oklahomans for Equality and expanding Tracy’s repertoire. Her persona is inspired by the larger-than-life female leads Guillory grew up watching in Broadway musicals. Think Mrs. Lovett from “Sweeney Todd” or Miss Hannigan from “Annie.”
“I get to be what my younger self always wanted to be,” Guillory said.
The act caught the attention of the then-reigning Miss Gay Oklahoma, who encouraged Guillory to condense the cabaret into a six-minute routine and enter a pageant. The contest follows a similar format to the Miss America competition, featuring an on-stage Q&A, judges interview, evening gown and talent showcase.
Over time he began to see each element of the score as a chance to do what he does best: communicate, think on his feet and embody Tracy’s theatrical personality.
“You don’t have to fit the mold. You have to be the mold,” Guillory said. “It’s not like you’re trying to show up with what people expect Miss Gay America to be and look like. You show up the way you do your art at a very high level, and that’s Miss Gay America that year.”
When he met Guillory in Tracy’s early days, Tulsan Ryan Bennett was already an established drag artist performing as Natalia Masters. Guillory was always talented, Bennett said, but a bit hesitant to lean “into his shtick” as a ball of energy on and off the stage. That’s no longer the case.
“The one thing that I have seen him grow in is actually just his self confidence as an entertainer,” said Bennett, now one of Guillory’s best friends and collaborators. “There were so many people that told him that the direction that he was going wouldn’t get him very far, and he just proved every single one of us wrong in the best way possible.”
The weight of the crown
By the time she headed to Little Rock for the national competition in January, Tracy had already racked up honors like Miss Gay Oklahoma and Miss Gay Gulf Coast. In the days prior, Theatre Tulsa company director Mandy Gross and Guillory began discussing what it would look like if Guillory returned with the title.
“I think Tracy knew that she was going to win, but Travis didn’t think that he was going to win,” Gross said.
Many peers are in the pageant system for years before reaching the big stage. But Tracy pulled out all the stops — walking the stage in a gator costume holding a detached head and earning audience roars during her cabaret, which forced judges to pick their own adventure — and stole the show in her second national competition.
Part of Tracy’s pitch was her ability to build a brand and lead the Miss Gay America organization through an ownership transition and moving its national competition to Atlanta.
“I can put on a nice gown and a nice wig and do all of these things. I can figure out the aesthetic,” Guillory said. “But it’s more of what’s in somebody’s heart and what’s in somebody’s brain that actually makes them a successful Miss Gay America.”
The crown can weigh heavily on the head that wears it. Bennett describes the duties as “grueling,” requiring weeks of travel to lead contestant orientations and judge briefings at competitions across the country in addition to performing and promoting gigs. Many winners quit their day jobs to complete their reigns.
Not Guillory. He and Gross have worked together to ensure he can still give his energy to Theatre Tulsa, which he took over in summer 2024, and keep shows running smoothly.
“You know how people are left-brained or right-brained? He’s got both,” Gross said. “He is really great at the creative stuff, and really great at scheduling and being organized and the stuff that super creative people usually aren’t. I don’t know where he gets that from, and I don’t know where he gets all the energy to do it.”
Bennett has watched Guillory weather the highs and lows that come with pursuing a burgeoning drag career and keeping up with responsibilities at home. He has a community of supporters, including his partner and fellow drag performer Kallaya, who understand the pressure.
It also comes down to feeling the emotions in the moment and not letting them overtake you, Bennett said. When Guillory needs to cry or scream, he lets it out.
“He’s a superstar in that,” Bennett said. “He knows when it is appropriate to let loose and be vulnerable, and he knows when it’s time to put your big girl panties on and be professional, be the administrator and do the job of being Miss Gay America.”
Travis Guillory holds a prop head of his alter ego Tracy La Louisianne while standing in his midtown Tulsa home drag room. 
Many of the outfits on racks that Travis Guillory wears as Tracy La Louisianne. 
A Tracy La Louisianne sticker among others are used as decorations in Travis Guillory’s home drag room.
‘We just want to exist’
Five months after returning from Little Rock, Guillory is still navigating his new reality. He’s embracing the flood of new opportunities — potential residency in Puerto Vallarta, anyone? — while still appreciating what Tulsa has to offer as an affordable home base for regular gigs in Arkansas and Missouri. He’s passionate about growing the city’s arts scene and says he’s never had a reason to leave.
“I’ve lived three lifetimes in Tulsa and I’m on my fourth one now,” Guillory said.
He’s not sure where life will take him by the time his reign ends in January. For now, he’s focused on a full calendar of gigs and the mission in front of him: representing Oklahoma on the national stage and serving as a beacon of hope for those feeling targeted by anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
“We just want to exist,” Guillory said. “When people see Miss Gay America, they need to see somebody who’s just existing to the f–king fullest.”
News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
