RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars contestant Trinity the Tuck might be known by fans as an international drag celebrity but at her heart, she is a drag queen with hometown roots.

As she discussed with Shadow and Act, Trinity hails from Alabama, from a town right outside of the state’s metropolis and one of the major sites of the civil rights movement, Birmingham.

“Originally I grew up in Springville. It’s like 30 minutes outside of Birmingham, but I moved to Birmingham when I was 18, when I moved out on my own,” she said. “I lived all over; I lived in Hoover, I lived in Homewood. I lived in Five Points [South]. I lived for a short time on 280 [the area around the Highway 280 corridor between Birmingham, Mountain Brook and Hoover]. I lived right downtown. So I’ve lived in a lot of different places in Birmingham, and I love Birmingham [and] still consider it my home. I would love to move back eventually one day. I just love Birmingham.

She said that while she’s proud to be from Birmingham, she’s hoping the state at large can catch up to Birmingham’s more progressive politics.

“Alabama, in general, political-wise, is very toxic,” she said. “It’s not where I feel our state should be at,” she said. “I’m super proud of our community in the city of Birmingham because it’s more progressive and [the city keeps] pushing to get these venues for queer people and people who are allies because it’s super important. It’s super important that we are represented in Birmingham so that people do realize that we do exist. Trans people do exist, queer people do exist, and we have to have safe spaces. If we continue to build these spaces, it’s only got make Birmingham [and Alabama as a whole] more inclusive, more accepting, and eventually change will happen [in the state].

Right now, though, Trinity is having the time of her life on Drag Race, saying she’s “so elated” to be back in the werkroom.

“I love Drag Race. I’m still a fan of Drag Race, even though I’m part of the franchise,” she said. “This show has really changed a lot of people’s lives, not just the people that have been involved with drag race, but you know, people all over the world, it’s really, you know, it’s given queer people and even people that aren’t queer something to relate to and an outlet to be happy during all these tumultuous times in the world. So to be back is just great. I love competing. I love sharing my art with the world and I love representing Birmingham as the only Birmingham queen to ever be on Drag Race.”

One of the highlights of her time during Drag Race‘s All-Winners season is the jam-packed Snatch Game, in which Trinity portrayed a high-camp version of Satan and Leslie Jordan.

“I was super proud of what I did,” she said regarding her performances. “…The Snatch Game is like a Drag Race staple every season…It’s a very hard episode to win. It’s a hard challenge to do well in and win it. There are a lot of expectations. So to go back and win it again, it just solidifies that it wasn’t a fluke. I did. do well the first time and I did well at it again and it’s just great…I’ve loved all of my choices [in my Snatch Games] but I’ve loved my choices this time because I really was able to infuse my own personal humor in with those characters more than the last two characters that I did.”

She also said how this season, this challenge is more about competing with yourself rather than competing with each other, especially since no one goes home this season.

“[W]e have a reputation of our own from our previous seasons where we won. And so it’s really a challenge to outdo yourself previously, or at least be up to par so you don’t disappoint your fans and so people don’t say, ‘Oh, well, You shouldn’t have won your first season,” she said. “You want to do well. You wanna do at least as good as you did before. So it definitely puts a lot of pressure on yourself to live up to what you’ve done in the past.”

Part of what Trinity has been known for on her past seasons is churning out couture garments quickly, and she didn’t disappoint this season either. She said that during the Legendary Legend Ball, she really took the challenge and ran with it.

“I love to sew. I used to make almost all of the stuff that I wore for shows and drag in general. Because as you know, in Birmingham…there used to not be resources at all 20 years ago when I started drag. There’s probably more now [in the city], but there were no designers there, no hairstylist, and you really had to figure it out and do it yourself,” she continued. “That’s kind of how I learned to sew, [through] trial and error [by] myself. So, in this episode, to do well again at doing that, it just made me very excited because sewing is something that I love to do.”

Thankfully, Birmingham has changed in the 20 years since Trinity started her drag journey. The city now has more drag venues, more queer spaces for community and support, an annual pride parade and more. If Trinity does decide to move back, she would be welcomed by her former home.

“Being in the south being raised in the south, being from Birmingham and the queer scene in Birmingham that basically taught me to be an adult,” she said. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So I’m super proud of our community there. We’re fighters. And I think that…there’s so much more left that we need to do, but we’ve come such a long way. Even in the 20 years that I’ve been in the queer community.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars streams every week on Paramount+.