Anania Williams is genreless. Some may know them from their comedic TikTok videos, which regularly amass hundreds of thousands of views. Others may recognize them as host of Gaydar, a viral entertainment-education show about queer culture, history and current events; an interview Williams did with the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani did go viral, after all. There’s also Williams’s drag performances, including those where they opened for icons such as Chappell Roan and Bob the Drag Queen. Or their bevy of musical theater roles – Lola in Kinky Boots, Dominique in Lucky Stiffs, to name a few.
For years, Williams has been launching their own creative universe. As a 25-year-old genderqueer, Black artist, Williams, who uses they/she pronouns, has used their ever-growing social media presence (more than 2.8 million followers across their social media platforms) to fashion the career of their dreams outside anyone’s binaries. For their next project, Williams is set to perform in Saturday Church, a new musical at New York Theatre Workshop which opens 27 August. The play dives into the world of a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ youth. “It’s a feelgood musical,” said Williams of the production. “It’s just queer, Black joy, and there’s a beautiful message about it.”
Williams will play a trans woman, another bonus in their ever-growing theatrical career. “The further I get in my transition, it’s been nice to feel affirmed,” they said. “It’s just been awesome to be in those spaces and to make a way for myself.” With talent and charisma, Williams’s rise is practically ordained; as they look forward to balancing their various projects, now comes the task of navigating their expansive future and chronic frustrations of being online.
Growing up
For Williams, growing up in Davenport, Iowa – an industrial, midwestern town of about 100,000 people, was an exercise in strength. At school, Williams was bullied for “having a girl name”, they said. Their home life was equally tumultuous, Williams recalled, rife with abuse and neglect. But life in the midwest sowed the seeds for their future artistic passions. As a child, they sang in the church choir, later joining show choir, following in the footsteps of an older sister.
For college, Williams attended Emerson College’s in the musical theatre program in Boston. University was one of the first times that Williams got to reflect on who they were, what they wanted. But musical theater came with its own binaries and limitations, especially as Williams is both genderqueer, meaning outside the typical binaries of gender, and Black. “It felt like: ‘Lord forbid you be somewhere else on the gender binary,’ and then, ‘Lord forbid you’re also Black at the same time’,” Williams said.
Related: Breaking the Binary: meet the founder behind a US theater company for trans and non-binary artists
Even when Williams attempted to create their own lane, they said they faced resistance from their professors. “There was a teacher that was like: ‘You keep bringing in girl songs. Why is that?’ And I tried to explain it to them, and it didn’t go well,” Williams said.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Williams returned to their home town to wait out the return to normalcy like most people. The isolation allowed for reflection and served as a moment that allowed them to fully realize their gender identity. “I had to admit a couple things to myself, like, ‘Yeah, I’m queer. Yeah, I’m probably genderqueer.’ And from there, it kind of spiraled,” they said of that time period, jokingly adding: “I call it the pronoun pipeline.”
Around the same time, Williams started to create content on TikTok, quickly becoming known for short, comedic rants captured during their late-night walks. Most of their content was spur-of-the-moment musings on anything from Christianity and relationships to a new iPhone. In 2022, they started to speak more openly about being genderqueer, posting videos of their drag and makeup routine.
Reflecting back on that time period brings a mix of feelings, Williams said. On one hand, it has been extremely gratifying to grow alongside longtime viewers. “The audience that’s been with me the longest has signed on to watch me evolve,” they said. “[They] watched me do makeup for the first time or try to glue down a wig. Those people are why I feel like I can keep going.” On the other hand, Williams sometimes wishes “the first version people knew me of was who I am today”.
The rise of Gaydar
The nature of their content has continued to grow. In 2024, Williams became the host of Gaydar, created by Amelia Montooth at the company Mutuals Media. The show quizzes an array of guests on queer culture in an attempt to find out if they are “straight, gay or homophobic”. Questions include anything from what a “lipstick lesbian” is to assessing a guest’s knowledge of a gay icon. Willliams herself is also learning alongside contestants, often in real time. “I didn’t know who Sue Bird was and the lesbians whacked me up and down the streets, oh my God,” they quipped.
The show’s a comedic premise with the goal of inviting viewers to become educated, said Williams. “We are inundating queer history and queer culture into digestible questions and clips that lets people relax into the learning,” said Williams of the show. “They can take something in a funny way that’s more engaging than saying: “Here are the facts. Here’s a screenshot of this article I read, and you should care about it.”
Early versions of the show featured mostly strangers Williams found on the street. The segment has since hosted a number of celebrities and public figures: singers Lucy Dacus, Reneé Rapp and Vivian Jenna Wilson, the daughter of billionaire Elon Musk. The New York City mayoral candidate Mamdani, an avid progressive, attracted social media buzz as one of the first politicians to grace the show. Mamdani shocked Williams when he was successfully able to name a lesbian bar in the city: the Manhattan-staple Cubbyhole.
“He was just such a team player about it,” said Williams of the interview experience. “We let our audience, which is younger, know who he is and he got to speak for himself.” Williams added: “It’s cool to be a professional zeitgeist in that way, to know that throughout it all, we’re making a difference.”
Williams’s ascent hasn’t come without difficulties. They have faced cruel harassment as they have been more public about their transition. “What they really like to do, especially with dolls, is pick apart fashion and makeup and hair,” said Williams, referring to online trolls. Williams added: “I want to believe that people are becoming more comfortable with transness, but I think they’re coming around to a very specific, stereotypical, western, white, skinny type of trans person. When someone doesn’t fit that standard, they get berated.”
But Williams has found ways to consistently ground in the real world, alongside the growing pains. There’s their found family, a best friend from sixth grade. High school friends and their boyfriend as well as online friends they met through TikTok. And, of course, baking and video games are hobbies, living outside the pressure to monetize or make content of their life. A cake for a friend’s birthday was already in the works for later that evening. “It’s either red velvet or strawberry,” Williams said, with a large laugh. “I remember the color, not the flavor.”