Racializing white drag

While drag is primarily understood as a performance of gender, other performative categories such as race, class, and sexuality create drag meaning as well. Though other categories of identification are increasingly understood as essential elements of drag by performers of color, whiteness remains an unmarked category in the scholarship on drag performances by white queens. In this paper, I argue that drag by white queens must be understood as a performance of race as well as gender and that codes of gender excess are specifically constructed through the framework of these other axes of identity. This essay asks whether white performance by white queens necessarily reinscribes white supremacy through the performance of an unmarked white femininity, or might drag performance complicate (though not necessarily subvert) categories of race as well as gender? In this essay, I will suggest that camp drag performances, through the deployment of class as a crucial category of performative femininity, might indeed be a key site through which whiteness is denaturalized and its power challenged. Specifically, I will read on camp as a politicized mode of race, class and gender performance, focusing on the intersections of these categories of identity in the drag performance of Divine.     

Ad/dressing the nation: drag and authenticity in post-apartheid South Africa

This paper examines a style of drag in South Africa that features "traditional African" clothing. In a region in which homosexuality is denigrated as a colonial, European import and "unAfrican," the meaning of "traditional drag" is deeply inflected by the question of cultural authenticity. This dragging practice fits within a distinctly post-colonial production of tradition and its self-conscious display--in the form of attire--of a decidedly "gay" one. Traditional drag also responds to ongoing politics within and between lesbian and gay communities about racial "representivity" and "transformation." The paper focuses on displays of traditional drag at Johannesburg's Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade but also explores the complex politics of publicity and address suggested by varying contexts in which traditional dress and drag are mobilized.     

Suburban queer: reading Grease

This article examines how nontraditional representations of gender can complicate received social norms, and it examines, in particular, how pre-adolescent suburban youth reconfigure social codes within popular film in order to identify positive queer aesthetics. While several studies have documented the function of classic and mainstream film in the tradition of queer reading, there has been comparatively less analysis devoted to the ways that filmic representations themselves might contribute to theoretical debates regarding sexual identity. As a case in point, this essay analyzes the 1978 musical Grease in order to suggest ways that critics might navigate between strict social constructionist and essentialist theories of sexual identity in order to identify avenues for queer identification within non-queer contexts.     

Balancing acts: drag queens, gender and faith

While engaged in research on the same-sex marriage debate in mainline denominations, I interviewed 23 LGBT Christians, four of whom were drag queens. While it is not possible to generalize from such a small sample, the drag queens in this study insist on maintaining their identity as Christians despite the hegemonic discourse that renders faith and LGBT identities mutually exclusive. They developed innovative approaches to reconciling their gender and sexual identities with their spirituality. Their innovations are potentially liberating not just for them personally, but for LGBT people generally because they challenge Christianity's rigid dichotomies of gender and sexuality.     

"Let the drag race begin": the rewards of becoming a queen

Drawing upon my ethnographic experiences in a drag venue called The Park in Roanoke, Virginia, this article explores the experiences of female impersonators in terms of their early motivations for doing drag, how they create and maintain drag personas and identities, and the obstacles to becoming a queen. Departing from previous researchers that have framed female impersonation as a deviant, stigmatizing, and pathological activity, this research analyzes the significant benefits some drag queens garner by donning women's attire. An experiential understanding of drag reveals that the significant rewards from the activity--contextual power and status, self-affirmation and empowerment--are powerful motivating factors. Instead of being deviant and/or partaking in pathological behavior, female impersonators can be seen as operating on an incentive system where the benefits of doing drag positively enrich the quality of the performer's life in a context where successful queens are held in the highest regard.     

One body,some genders: drag performances and technologies

This chapter examines the ways in which one body becomes the site for multiple and varied gender performances through Alana Kumbier's performances as drag king Red Rider and drag queen Red Pearl. Using theoretical frameworks provided by Judith Halberstam, Ira Livingston, and Teresa de Lauretis the essay also calls for a consideration of material technologies and artifacts as technologies of gender.     

Lesbian drag kings and the feminine embodiment of the masculine

Part of an ongoing ethnography of an imperial sovereign court I am undertaking, this chapter explores the world of the lesbian drag king and the gendered performance she undertakes in this realm. Taking a relational, situational approach to understanding gender, the lesbian drag queen of the court is also examined in terms of how "her" image and actions give gendered meaning and confer import to the lesbian drag king. Note is also made of lesbian court members' often contradictory gendered relationships with the gay men in this setting: gay drag kings and gay drag kings. Although embodying a masculine persona in image and action has enabled some lesbian drag kings to successfully challenge the often sexist actions and reign of the gay men of the court, it has also resulted in some lesbian drag queens being subordinated in the process. Thus, as much as lesbian drag kings subvert existing gender hierarchies they also sometimes recreate them in the pursuit of situational power.     

Crime and punishment: A national reading

The results of a recent national survey pertaining to the perception of the seriousness of crime, the response to crime, and views regarding the three controversial areas of pornography, marijuana, and abortion are reported. Canadians are found to be deeply concerned with the level of crime and critical of the police and the courts, favouring more severe handling of offenders including the use of capital punishment. While the majority are opposed to the legalization of marijuana, they endorse the criminalization of neither pornographic distribution to adults nor abortion in select situations. The author concludes with a discussion of some of the implications of these findings.     

The last drag: an evaluation of an LGBT-specific smoking intervention

Many studies in the past 20 years have documented that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals smoke at rates that exceed the general population, yet, there have been few reports of smoking cessation interventions targeting this population. This study reports on data from 233 participants in The Last Drag, a seven-session, six-week group education and support intervention tailored for LGBT smokers. Data on smoking rates were collected during the first and last sessions, and at one, three, and six months post-intervention. As with many interventions over time, missing data is a challenge in determining success rates, but even using the most conservative estimates, nearly 60% were smoke-free at the end of the intervention, and 36% remained smoke-free by six months post-intervention. This success rate is comparable to, or better, than many mainstream smoking cessation interventions reported in the literature. The Last Drag is an effective, low-cost, LGBT-specific community intervention that can be replicated in other communities.     

Beyond the boundaries of the classroom: teaching about gender and sexuality at a drag show

Like much of the general public, the vast majority of my students strongly hold dichotomous, essentialist outlooks about what the categories female and male/gay and straight are supposed to represent and be. One way that I have found to challenge these oppressive worldviews, and also to queer my classes in the process, is to take my course participants to drag shows and/or to use videotapes of drag queens and drag kings in my classes. As part of an ongoing ethnography of drag performers I am undertaking, I have taken over 300 students to drag shows over the past eight years. Female students have often found attending a drag show to be a fun experience free of the sexual harassment found in most bars, while male students often contextually experience being a social minority for the first time in their life. From both attending drag shows and/or watching recordings of them I show in class, students have reported gaining an experiential appreciation of the performed basis of gender, sexuality, and inequality. Or, stated slightly differently, students begin to understand how the stratification system metaphorically makes drag queens of us all. This, in turn, provides the basis of the foremost argument I make in all my classes: equality will not be realized until nondichotomous, truly new ways of relating to others are envisioned and acted upon.     

Erotic arguments and persuasive acts: discourses of desire and the rhetoric of female-to-male drag

This chapter analyzes the October 21, 2000 drag king performance by Mildred Gerestant, a.k.a. Dréd. Arguing that her act appropriates, embodies, and manipulates certain ideological discourses of desire and identity, the article studies the shape and force of Dréd's performative arguments and illuminates how a drag king act can not only tease and titillate the addressed audience (the actual people who watched the show) but also hail the invoked audience (the audience called upon, imagined, or made possible by the performance). Arguing that, as a rhetorical act, Dréd's performance offers a purposeful discourse about gender, race, and power, this chapter ultimately explores how a rhetorical analysis of FTM drag elucidates the complex relationship between the rhetor, performance, and audience. More specifically, it shows how a rhetor's performance of non-normative identity and engagement with discourses of desire has the potential to unmask the hegemonic effects of language and power and to unsuture the seemingly natural connections between sex and gender.     

Chicks with dicks, men in dresses: what it means to be a drag queen

One of the burning questions about drag queens among both scholars and audiences is whether they are more gender-revolutionaries than gender-conservatives. Do they primarily destabilize gender and sexual categories by making visible the social basis of femininity and masculinity, heterosexuality and homosexuality? Or are they more apt to reinforce the dominant binary and hierarchical gender and sexual systems by appropriating gender displays and expressing sexual desires associated with traditional femininity and institutionalized heterosexuality? We address this question through a case study of drag queens at the 801 Cabaret in Key West, Florida. On the basis of life histories, observations of their performances, and focus groups with audience members, we examine the role of gender and sexuality in the process of becoming a drag queen and in the personal identities of drag queens. We find that transgenderism, same-sex sexuality, and theatrical performance are central to the personal identities of these drag queens, who use drag to forge personal and collective identities that are neither masculine nor feminine, but rather their own complex genders.     

Seeing double,thinking twice: the Toronto drag kings and (re-) articulations of masculinity

Through a close reading of the performances of masculinity by the Toronto drag kings, this chapter argues that drag king shows parody the hyper-masculine star at his most contradictory and dialogic. Given that drag king performances parody both the contradictions of masculinity on stage, and the productive technologies of the star, king performances are essentially both meta-theatrical (performances about performing where lights, music, body language, dance all make the man) and meta-performative (performances which are at once conditioned by the performative reiterations which enable a fiction of identity in the first place). Finally, I explore the rather abstracted question of what cultural work the category of "drag king" does. I argue that it is a term which articulates a series of productive but necessary slippages in and through the contradictory and dialogic practices of identification. The bottom line is this: drag kings are situated in and play with the ironic no man's land between "lesbian," "butch," "transman" and "bio-boy" where the sell evident is neither.     

Moffies, artists, and queens: race and the production of South African gay male drag

This article draws on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa to explore the experiences of urban and township drag performers. I show that two distinct sex-gender-sexuality systems have emerged based in the sociopolitical history of South Africa, and I argue that urban drag produces race oppositionally and examine how township femininity creates raced forms of gender, sex, and sexuality. Contemporary South African drag foregrounds the performativity and constitution of race and gender. My analysis attempts to challenge definitions of "drag" and "audience," suggesting the necessity for an integrated reconceptualization of drag studies.     

The beauty and the beast: reflections about the socio-historical and subcultural context of drag queens and "Tunten" in Berlin

In this article, I focus on two different faces found in Berlin's gay subculture: the Tunten and the drag queens. Both are commonly seen as "male homosexual transvestites," although many such individuals today prefer to identify themselves somewhere within a diverse transgender spectrum rather than as transvestites. Tunten and drag queens differ in their gender performativity, their self-image and their chosen role models as well as in the niches in which they have been able to establish themselves in German mainstream society. Based on ethnographic data, I argue against the widespread reductionist view that the differences between Tunten and drag queens lie primarily in style, behavior, talent and success. Nor can these differences be easily explained away as a result of subculture globalization. Instead, I show that there is a simultaneous coexistence of both a subculturally established, "traditional" local transgender culture and a more recently adopted and partly imported, new local transgender culture. The coexistence of these two urban transgender cultures also indicates the paradigm shift in German gay and youth cultures of the last decades. Thus, I will emphasize the importance of the socio-historical and subcultural processes in studying transgender cultures in Western societies.     

Wigs, laughter, and subversion: Charles Busch and strategies of drag performance

This paper examines the strategies of drag performer/ playwright Charles Busch. His performance aesthetic is explored and shown to be subversive even though its initial impulse is to entertain. Basing my arguments on the work of Judith Butler, Elin Diamond, and others, I argue that drag queens like Busch can not only entertain but also make audiences question and criticize through drag's power to create a Brechtian alienation effect and historicize the subject. After showing how he can be viewed as a drag queen, I give a brief biography and discuss such contested terms as "camp" and "gay sensibility." I then focus on Busch's staged reading of Ibsen's Hedda Gahler andA Doll's House, both done in one afternoon at Theatre for The New City (6 May 2000). By examining the performance of Busch and his fellow actors, I demonstrate how a contemporary relevancy is achieved by having the roles played by a female impersonator whose acting choices are filtered through a gay sensibility. The ongoing dialectic between spectator and performer creates a historicized moment in performance that underscores the gender dynamics in unexpected and stimulating ways.     

The interaction of drag queens and gay men in public and private spaces

This study examines the issue of internal segregation within the gay community, focusing on the ways by which the drag queen subculture is distanced from larger mainstream gay society. Through the use of institutional ethnography, symbolic interactionism, and a naturalist approach to sociology, the researchers sought to understand the subjective experience of the drag queen, in particular how drag queens perceive their interactions with mainstream gay society. Data for this study were collected through a series of observations conducted in a variety of spatial contexts and interviews with 18 drag queens. Findings indicate that spatial distance between the drag queens and the mainstream gay men is dependent on both the social context and the level of professionalization of the drag queen. Although drag queens' perceptions of their status in the gay community are also dependent on the latter, discussions of relationship difficulties and the quest for a long-term romantic partner illustrate that discrimination within the gay community is both widespread and complex.     

A comparative analysis of hijras and drag queens: the subversive possibilities and limits of parading effeminacy and negotiating masculinity

Gender studies in general and queer studies in particular have stressed the notion of imitation, play, and performance of gender. In this essay I undertake a comparative analysis of the hijra and the drag queen in terms of the shared and disparate subversive possibilities and limits of the gendered performances they undertake. Studying the hijra alongside the drag queen will in no way mean conflating the two categories. Rather, I explore the cultural nuances involved in the hijra performance, including its ritualistic and religious aspects. While my analysis relies heavily on previously written works about hijras and drag queens, I have also had the opportunity to meet and visit with hijras during several marriage ceremonies of cousins and other relatives from 1992 to 1998 in New Delhi.     

The Golden Girls Live: residual television texts,participatory culture,and queering TV heritage through drag

The SF Golden Girls have been producing live performances of The Golden Girls episodes in drag since 2005, creating an iterative form of fan productivity that consistently resonates with San Francisco audiences. This essay considers the cultural significance of the SF Golden Girls’ live performances as a case study in how queer participatory culture can change the meanings of a residual media object. I argue that the participatory engagement between the audience members and the drag queen performers make The Golden Girls a collective and visible site of queer television heritage, and that producing The Golden Girls Live in drag also offers different logics of representation and engagement than television. These live performances are significant because The Golden Girls has become a symbol of television heritage, and performing episodes in drag explicitly queers a television program that has become a site of cultural memory and historical meaning. Additionally, these performances are staged in December as The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes, which restructures television heritage to create a new continuity between the past and present and construct a queered Christmas ritual that is familiar and imbued with historical consciousness.