Tshwane ward councillor reveals his female alter ego

A Tshwane ward councillor has recently revealed his alter ego of what goes on beyond council chambers.

Anru Meyer, a councillor for wards 4 and 30, revealed to fellow Democratic Alliance (DA) colleagues on 24 September that he was also Pretoria’s first queen in politics, he told Pretoria Rekord.

When he is not addressing potholes and power outages, Meyer is Blue De Leblu, born after he attended a drag performance at Beefcakes.

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A long time coming

Meyer said when he first went to Beefcakes and saw other performances, he was immediately hooked, and slowly taught himself how to do makeup, shop for clothes and dress up as Blue De Leblu.

“When I was little I used to try on my mother’s heels, not because I wanted to be a woman, but because I thought it was fun.”

He first revealed his alter ego to the DA at a party launch in Freedom Park.

“Solly Msimanga was very excited, I was placed up on stage, and my party members were really excited to meet Blue. They really loved it.

“The caucus chair said they were hoping to see Blue Da Leblu at the council meeting.”

And that is precisely what Meyer did.

At the next council meeting, he became the first-ever drag queen councillor to sit in a council meeting.

“I decided, what’s the worst that could happen? I could be asked to go change. But it was all fine, I was completely accepted.

“That was the final decision to say I would be a queen in politics. Blue Da Leblu will be the new refreshed queen in politics, bringing comedy, but also trying to bring a message across.”

Helping others express themselves

Meyer told the publication it was important to fight for freedom of expression for people to be themselves.

“Our freedom of expression was a hard-won right, and one we should always protect.

“There is still a long way to go. I hope that Blue will help that journey along, in terms of education, in terms of getting people to understand the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, understand the struggles and fights that we still need to get through,” Meyer said.

“We live in a new South Africa that should protect us, but in reality that is not the case. Pride is for the community to come together and build our safe space. Making the statement to say ‘this is who we are, we are not here to fight or take over, we are not forcing it down your throat, we just are.

“[Pride] is a space we invite people who are afraid to be who they are, who are afraid they will not be supported or safe for being who they are,” he said.

“If you are gay, it’s okay. The fight has been fought to get where we are, and that fight will continue.

“But also, [Pride is] to celebrate what we have achieved, the sacrifices that have been made to win us our freedom to be who we are without pretending we are something else.”

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Edited by Nica Richards.

This article first appeared on Caxton publication Pretoria Rekord’s website, by Shaun Sproule. Read the original article here.