Oaklash is an Oakland-based arts nonprofit that produces large scale Drag performance events, facilitates mutual aid, and provides mentorship to emerging queer and trans leaders in nightlife. 

Founded by Beatrix LaHaine and Mama Celeste in 2018, Oaklash has provided a stage to over 600 queer and trans performers from all around the world and raised over half a million dollars to support queer and trans art here in Huchiun and Yelamu, also known as the Bay Area. 

Our flagship program, The Oaklash Festival of Drag and Queer Performance, is part of our mission to create opportunities that showcase, elevate, and resource local queer and trans talent. Our year-round programming aims to create safe and accessible environments that celebrate the diversity of intersectional identities held within our community, especially queer and trans Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color. Our organization was founded to showcase performances that are boundary-pushing, underrepresented, and unique to the sensibility of the Bay Area. We aim to stay true to the history of Oakland as a home to creative renaissance rooted in diversity. We hope that by amplifying and supporting the queer art community in the Bay Area, we illuminate the need for investment in the arts in the face of systemic racism, growing economic disparities, and the Bay Area housing crisis.