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Eliza Gomez, left, watches as Benji \u201cSaliva\u201d Bautista tries on a dress formerly worn by\u00a0Heklina at Heklina\u2019s Closet, a new gender-affirming clothing resource created in memory of the late drag queen at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert (Riverside County) in June 2025.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
A statement is posted on the wall at Heklina\u2019s Closet above a rack of clothing ready to be borrowed at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in June 2025.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Jay Bell holds up a mask worn by drag queen\u00a0Heklina at Heklina\u2019s Closet at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in 2025.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Clothing once worn by drag queen Heklina is piled up at Heklina’s Closet at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in 2025. The gender-affirming clothing resources is estimated to have over 300 items available to use.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Eliza Gomez wears a pair of Converse sneakers with rainbow shoelaces at Heklina\u2019s Closet at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in 2025.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Three years after the still unresolved death of San Francisco drag legend\u00a0Heklina<\/a>, her material legacy continues to inspire the next generation of performers.<\/p>\n Inside a plain mobile structure housing the Gender and Sexual Diversity Pride Center at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, near Palm Springs in Riverside County\u2019s Coachella Valley, is a back room stocked with the tools of drag. Bins of foundation garments, makeup and racks of costumes are available for checkout at the community drag and gender-affirming closet. Among the sparkling gowns and bouffant wigs are a still-growing selection from Heklina\u2019s own collection, donated in the past year by the performer\u2019s close friend and executor Nancy French.\u00a0<\/p>\n French has become something of a fairy godmother to the group. A longtime Bay Area performer herself, French relocated to Cathedral City in 2019 after buying a house a few doors down from Heklina. After selling Heklina\u2019s house in December, she continues to distribute the remaining pieces of the drag and brings bags of supplies from tights to eyelash glue to the center.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThe world sucks right now,\u201d French remarked when the Chronicle visited the Coachella Valley in June. \u201cThis place is a little oasis of queer joy.\u201d<\/p>\n Nancy French, a close friend of late drag queen\u00a0Heklina and estate executor, laughs as she delivers some of Heklina\u2019s clothing to Heklina\u2019s Closet at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in 2025.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n As she sorted donations with students Eliza Gomez, Opal De La O, Jay Bell and Benji Bautista French shares stories of Heklina. Although they\u2019re too young to have seen Heklina perform live, the aspiring drag artists have come to view her as a significant queer ancestor.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI identify more with the alternative drag scene, which is why I love Heklina so much,\u201d said Bautista, twirling in a navy blue fishtail gown from the closet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cMy biggest dream with drag is to go on to \u2018Dragula,\u2019\u201d they added, referring to the drag reality competition on which Heklina and Peaches Christ had appeared as judges. \u201cThat\u2019s actually where I discovered Heklina.\u201d<\/p>\n Born Steven Grygelko and self-named for the Icelandic volcano Hekla, Heklina blazed a trail in Bay Area queer history as the co-founder of the subversive South of Market drag night Trannyshack beginning in the mid-1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n Opal De La O, from left, Jay Bell, Nancy French,\u00a0Eliza Gomez, and Benji \u201cSaliva\u201d Bautista laugh as they carry clothing once worn by late drag queen\u00a0Heklina to Heklina’s Closet, a gender-affirming clothing resource at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert in June 2025.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Her more than 30 years as an entertainer spanned stage \u2014 including San Francisco\u2019s annual \u201cThe Golden Girls Live! The Christmas Episodes\u201d \u2014 podcasts, television and film. She was also one of the founders of the drag club Oasis, which remains a local epicenter for the drag art form.<\/p>\n Her death at 55 in London on April 3, 2023, sent shock waves through the local drag community that reverberated down through the LGBTQ scene in the Palm Springs area, where she had\u00a0 moved at the height of the pandemic. Heklina was in London rehearsing for the parody \u201cMommie Queerest\u201d at the Soho Theatre. Her longtime friend and co-star, Peaches Christ, discovered her body in the flat they were sharing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In January 2025, after nearly two years with few updates on the case, London Metropolitan Police released video footage of three men leaving the flat where Heklina was found dead and asked for the public\u2019s help in identifying them. Later that year, French and Peaches Christ told the Chronicle<\/a> the police informed them that a \u201clethal amount of drugs\u201d was found in Heklina\u2019s system.\u00a0<\/p>\n Heklina hosts \u201cMother: Britney vs Christina,\u201d a drag show at Oasis\u00a0in San Francisco in 2020. The drag queen died in London under mysterious circumstances in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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