So, what is drag to you?

"Dressed AS a Girl"

It's the nuances that end up hurting our community. Whether it's straights or gays performing it, or enjoying it, the message is the same-we (and conversely, you) aren't real women. In the case of drag kings, the message is 'your not real men'.

I somehow cringe when I see another drag spectacle on TV. Whether it's Rupaul's show, or now Showtime's Wild Things, it's all the same. Person's making a mockery of living or temporarily visiting time in the other gender.

Our local HRC is having a fundraiser soon. They've named it, "The night of 100 drag queens- a Space Oddity". Hard to believe, but it's true. Imagine a straight group having a party called, "Night of 100 ->-bleeped-<-s-a Space oddity". Gays would be outraged.

Is it that we're society's lowest common denominator? If you want to feel better about yourself, step on the little guy or person with you think is 'weirdest'?

Maybe that's it. Drag is perpetuating our community as just being weird, or a joke.

As someone who's out looking for work, I am doing my best to be stealth. Otherwise, I'll not be taken seriously. Tell me that drag is not hurting my prospects, whether in finding or keeping a job or in reconnecting with my family who can't understand me.

Fact is, I'd rather be able to be out and proud and transgendered, without society deeming me unfit or nuts. Gay, or straight men's interpretation of women or of me just doesn't help.   

Drag is a form of entertainment.  I enjoy a good show, but at the same time it puts a poor light on the trans community.

Many of the "normal" people sees the trans community in that light of being drag.  I still enjoy a good show, but on TV it just puts that poor light on us.

But that's not the message. Drag queens are making fun of performative femininity, with the message that "this stuff doesn't make me a woman." They're claiming the freedom to wear women's things, act feminine, and still be real men. They're making fun of the fact that because they're gay or effeminate, society thinks they must be women, or woman-like.

Drag queens, by and large, are well aware that they're not trans women and they don't represent trans women. Their audience may be more confused on the matter.

Drag kings...are a different sort of thing. Too many of them seem to take themselves far too seriously. I don't find them offensive, but I do tend to find them terribly boring, and I have yet to figure out what their message is, if they have one.

Quote from: kyril on September 25, 2010, 10:35:16 AM


Drag queens, by and large, are well aware that they're not trans women and they don't represent trans women. Their audience may be more confused on the matter.

Kyril, I would agree with this. That's the harm, however. They're mocking gender roles, which I understand. Mocking women, or confusing the public about trans women is another matter. Neither of these outcomes justify the farce that drag is hoping to create. 

By putting on, and taking off their gender role, they are sending a message to the public. Society at large doesn't understand those of us who live the life everyday. If television or the media spent an equal time showing the real lives of people like you or I, then perhaps they could understand the nuanced difference. One is 'entertainment' and the other reality. I'm sure most people who have met us would swear that they've never seen, much less engaged a real trans person. With many of us stealth, the public doesn't understand us nor our normal lives.

Unfortunately, the Rupaul wing of the trans community makes the news, and gets the press. It will take a lot of Brittany Novotny's running for Congress to change the public's mind that we're credible people who should be taken seriously.

I used to feel pretty uncomfortable about drag, but then I saw some acts at a Pride festival, and that certainly opened my eyes.

I'm definitely not a fan of offensive drag. When a guy decides to whip a prosthetic penis from under his skirt during a Lady Gaga parody in front of a family audience, it offends just about every sensibility I can think of. On the other hand, I was thoroughly warmed by a stellar duo in All Mouth and No Trousers. They looked great, sounded awesome and had a wonderful, dinnertime TV type of humour about them. Yes, they crack jokes about femininity, but (those I consider to be) good acts do so in the manner Kyril describes rather than flaunting coarse language, male anatomy or tone-deafness dressed in a wig.

Some drag is very good - the rest of it clearly caters towards some audience of which I am not a part. And while I don't enjoy the idea that trans people might be associated with drag, I think society has realised there is a line drawn there. I've always understood it that the confusion is perceived between 'transsexuals' and cross-dressers, rather than transsexuals and drag artists.

I feel as if drag is a gender performance. There really isn't much else to it besides that. In many newer types of drag performance the emphasis is on presenting as androgynous. There's also faux queens...a kind of drag where (typically) cisgender women perform as women...or more so as men performing as women. I was a drag performer (drag king) and think/feel that after I'm on hormones and feel comfortable in my own skin I will do some sort of drag again. Either as a androgynous/gender ->-bleeped-<- type or as a drag queen.

I go to a club here in NH called the 313, in fact I was just there last night for my birthday. They have drag shows several nights every week. I have enjoyed them immensely and gotten to know several of the drags and call them friends. I can't speak for anywhere else, but in my experience they are generally decent people who are performance artists. They do not portray themselves as being real women, or trans women for that matter. The ones I know have no pretense of being anything other than a performance artist. I think if the average person on the street is confused about the difference between a drag queen and a trans woman, it is not the fault of the drag queen. They don't go around proclaiming themselves to be anything that they are not. I think if people are worried that they are somehow harming us, or "real women", then educating the public is what's needed, not projecting onto the performance artists who are just trying to earn some money.

Drag has a special place in my heart. For me, it took the teeth off of gender roles. Whether live or in some form of media, drag always let me feel more at ease about myself. I'm not sure where I would be at, self-acceptance wise if it weren't for drag, in all its beauty and playful subversiveness.

Of course, there are individuals who might misinterpret drag as a direct representation of all transgender persons, but that says more about their own narrow mindedness than it does about the actual performance.

i'm not too sure how I feel on this subject. One part of me thinks its harmless but at the same time I can see why people with gender problems might take offense. Even if the drag queen on stage isnt intending to hurt anyone and is only doing it for fun people who are watching may not see that and ,as Kyril said, might be confused and therefore may believe they are an MTF. Some small minded person will see that and think "oh thats what all ->-bleeped-<-s must me like" and then that makes transgender people look bad. Its like when you see over the top incredibly camp gay men on TV everyone seems to think thats what a gay person is like when in fact most of them act very "straight." It all depends on how you think and see things.

The other day I received this in the email:

Please join us for the 19th annual Night of 100 Drag Queens. This year's theme, 2010...A Space Oddity, promises to be even more fun and wacky than you can imagine!

It came from a trans group member.  Another member replied:

Oh those "wacky" (and funny) drag queens <sigh>.... An Oddity indeed!!
Is it just me or does anyone else share my bewilderment with "drag" as an "ok" entertainment? Would the NAACP have a "black-face" minstrel show scheduled for its fund-raising banquet?

I've heard too many mainstreamers speak of drag as if it is the same as TG.  RuPaul is seen as our ambassador.  Those of us who live the real life rarely are seen as true representatives of transgender people.  So when we apply for a job or just come out to family and friends, we're just another wacky ->-bleeped-<-.

Drag?  You can have it!

I have no issue those who participate, view it, or consider it as purely a form of entertainment.  What gets my back up is those idiots who associate TS with the Drag culture, and when that occurs I view drag queens as very distasteful, even offensive.

Steph

drag queens are mostly gay men who are making money as female impersonators.I don't think i can listen to another cher song without puking.But  don't even mess with rupaul now she is the real deal. I love her

Drag queens are MEN who make a living posing as caricature of women.  They'd better not be confused with transsexual or intersex women.

i was wrong when i said if i hear another cher song i will puke.I love this song
   
Half Breed Lyrics
Artist: Cher

My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother's people were ashamed of me
The indians said I was white by law
The White Man always called me "Indian Squaw"

CHORUS:
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born

We never settled, went from town to town
When you're not welcome you don't hang around
The other children always laughed at me
"Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee"

Repeat Chorus

We weren't accepted and I felt ashamed
Nineteen I left them, tell me who's to blame
My life since then has been from man to man
But it can't run away from what I am

I have one issue with what a lot of people have been saying. Drag queens do not always identify as men, and some do have a trans identity. There is no definite line of who is "really trans" and who isn't "really trans."

I used to do a Drag show, long ago while I was still very much in the closet - although at the time I did identify myself as a gay man.  Amongst my workmates of the time, almost all of them were gay guys.. There was also a trans person who also performed with us, who was the MC and she always made the point  of talking about us s "the guys".. And would use our MALE stage names to introduce us.. "Let's give a big hand for Max and his dancing boys" - was me being introduced with my backing dancers..

This was at at the largest gay club in town, who's Drag Acts were widely enough known that they would draw in a straight crowd to see the show.

I can understand why some of you have the reactions you do, not that I agree.. Also here in Australia, we had/have the phenomena known as "Les Girls" a very well known and well regarded Drag act that started back in the mid-60's..  Yes, the humour was risque, and the act somewhat over the top.. But they opened every show with the comment "All our cast are men."

The youtube video features Carlotta, who is well known in Australia - and is almost known as a national treasure..

A link or 2 about Les Girls..
http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/history/Transcripts/s1193273.htm

Divine in Hairspray the movie......ok....?

Overweight glittery gay men using the caricature of being female to be aggressive, rude, bitchy and hostile.... to complete strangers in clubs... 

But I'm dressed as a W O M A N.... so it alright baby....

(Nope I don't think so)

But I can just about stand RuPaul.... and it was hysterical when he/she towered over Kylie at a UK award show...

Neither of them knew what to make of the other....

Quote from: kelly_aus on September 25, 2010, 08:16:50 PM


I can understand why some of you have the reactions you do, not that I agree.. Also here in Australia, we had/have the phenomena known as "Les Girls" a very well known and well regarded Drag act that started back in the mid-60's..  Yes, the humour was risque, and the act somewhat over the top.. But they opened every show with the comment "All our cast are men."

The youtube video features Carlotta, who is well known in Australia - and is almost known as a national treasure..

Carlotta is unique as a drag performer because she is actually a transsexual woman ( had srs many years ago) so technically not in drag or a gay man, but unfortunately she is still viewed as a man pretending to be a woman.   

The drag scene isn't really my thing, however I have no problem with it. I wouldn't have survived when I first came out as trans person without the help of a wonderful trans friend who also happened to do drag professionally.

Z