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AIBU?

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Original poster

To find drag queens offensive?

999 replies

MrsMummy500 · 12/12/2020 18:39

AIBU to find drag queens really bloody offensive?

I hate the term offensive, it’s bandied around far too often at far too insignificant things (am aware this may be one of them). BUT, men dressing up as some fetishised version of a man made ideal of a woman really pisses me off. Hyper hair, max make up, drink in hand, revealing clothes.

I do not know a single woman like that. It riles me and I feel like I’m unable to express it as women have lost so much of their space to LGBTQ+ community (I perceive this, I don’t say it as a fact).
potential bomb drop alert but if white people are taken down (rightly IMO) for ‘blacking up’ should it be acceptable for men to parody women in the form of drag queens.

Ps- I do not buy for one minute that they are celebrating the female form with balloon breasts. It feels more like a piss take.

OP posts:
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GlummyMcGlummerson · 13/12/2020 23:44

I know women IRL who find drag offensive. Even if they don't think there's a sexist angle, I'm pretty sure all the women in my life at least find it shit and unfunny

dadshere · 13/12/2020 23:44

They are supremely unfunny, often highly offensive and belong in another era. I hate them, always have, always will. They are fetishing women through mockery. It would not be allowed for any other group.

Quaagars · 13/12/2020 23:45

Wow. Transphobic MN strikes again

Yep!!
I find it REALLY interesting that not one single person has picked up on that apart from you and I.
Fucking disgusting trans and drag referred to as freakery and it's a shit plop like posters say but it's just been ignored.

BrumBoo · 13/12/2020 23:46

They hear "there's no right or wrong way to be a woman" - and they don't think "Oh, of course, and that only applies to actual women". They think "that meansIcan be a woman then!". They are physically and figuratively barging their way into our world

I feel this quote should be put on posters for all to see. This seems to be the precise mentality.

Men have had a long long long history of telling us women who we can or cannot be. Women's liberation obviously fought against this, and whilst we hadn't won, we were bloody getting there. Then the same men moved the goalposts, 'oh we said that women can't be equal because your biology makes you weak? We were wrong! It turns out being a woman isn't anything to do with your biology, and everything to do with your mind. See, we can woman too! Probably better (and certainly funnier) than you can'.

And people fall for this crap. It's unbelievable....

Quaagars · 13/12/2020 23:47

trans people are not drag queens. Who's the transphobe again?

Try re-reading the thread and see what they were referring to.

Quaagars · 13/12/2020 23:53

I resent the BBC force feeding this freakery onto us

How is this acceptable, how has nobody else picked up on this?!
Actually I know why sadly.
Trans and drag are not freaks,, I'm neither but it's fucking disgusting to say they are.
(Yes, I'm aware they're separate, before anyone says, but then again I'm not the one who conflated them)

Kalula · 14/12/2020 00:01

You can be a lapsed Jew or Catholic, you can be a 'bear' gay, a butch lesbian, there are MANY different ways you can be gay or religious, @Quaagars there is no one way.

The point is though that misogyny is so, so deeply ingrained in society, that you and a few others on here cannot see the correlation. And it's because society has been brainwashed to accept abuse of women as normal, that you cannot see it, no matter how many times or how many different ways it is explained to you, you are conditioned to think abuse of women and misogyny is not 'as serious as racism or transphobia or homophobia'. Do you think anything at all will make you see the reality? And that, yes, like it or not, Womanface is EXACTLY what this is.

Quaagars · 14/12/2020 00:12

you can be a 'bear' gay, a butch lesbian, there are MANY different ways you can be gay or religious, @Quaagars there is no one way

Agree, and I said you "just are."
However you are gay or butch or lesbian.

Quaagars · 14/12/2020 00:13

As in there's many ways to be gay, butch lesbian
Just like there's many ways to be a woman
You just "are."

Smallgoon · 14/12/2020 00:20

[quote GlummyMcGlummerson]@Smallgoon trans people are not drag queens. Who's the transphobe again?[/quote]
Oh I'm well aware of that thank you very much. But several posters in this thread keep bringing up the 'trans agenda' to of course appease the transphobic baying mob that exists within MN.

Do you not think the below is a little bit transphobic?

Yes, they're unfunny and grotesque, IMO. I'm sick of seeing the trans agenda constantly pushed by the BBC. It's like we have to all go along with the concept that being gender fluid/neutral and/or trans is the new norm that we should all accept without question, as though trans is the 3rd gender and we're wrong to dislike or question the rationale behind it. They even show snippets when they advertise Strictly - ItTakes Two (so I always mute the TV when they are shown). I resent the BBC force feeding this freakery onto us.

Smallgoon · 14/12/2020 00:23

@Quaagars

Wow. Transphobic MN strikes again

Yep!!
I find it REALLY interesting that not one single person has picked up on that apart from you and I.
Fucking disgusting trans and drag referred to as freakery and it's a shit plop like posters say but it's just been ignored.

It wasn't called out because most of the posters in this thread agree with the sentiment. Sad times.
elgreco · 14/12/2020 00:23

Drag queens are clearly mocking women.

jewel1968 · 14/12/2020 00:39

On twitter recently someone asked if a trans woman could be a drag queen. In answer quite a few people mentioned there were a small number of women who were drag queens i.e. women who adopted an exaggerated form of 'feminine' dress for a performance. It took me a while to wrap my head around that.

Shastabeast · 14/12/2020 00:43

Will there come a time when trans women are offended by drag?

Quaagars · 14/12/2020 00:44

Will there come a time when trans women are offended by drag?

Maybe some already are?

Defenbaker · 14/12/2020 02:12

I apologise - I did not mean to infer that trans people are freaks. I meant the people who are on that Ru Paul Drag Race show - to me they make themselves look grotesque, in the same way that clowns do (and I have a similar feeling to clowns).

I think that people who undergo sex change procedures must be very troubled and unhappy with the body they were born with, which is very sad. I'm just not sure that these procedures really solve the problem for them, especially if they are peformed at a young age. I'm sorry for any offence I may have caused any trans people, and I do feel sympathy for their predicament, even though I don't necessarily agree with them going to the extreme of sex change surgery.

I can understand that some gay people prefer to dress against the gender stereotype for the sex they were born into - as in, some gay men like to dress in a feminine way, while some lesbian women might prefer a butch style of dressing, but when these things are taken to extremes and presented on BBC TV as entertainment it seems like a step too far, IMO.

Smallgoon · 14/12/2020 02:16

@Defenbaker So you're labelling Drag Queens as freaks?

I'd stop digging if I were you.

Defenbaker · 14/12/2020 02:26

@Smallgoon No, I'm not labelling drag queens as freaks, but I do think that they look freakish, in the same way that clowns do. They choose to go to extremes with their appearance, so perhaps they enjoy the attention, but there are people who don't want to watch that sort of thing, and find it all a bit silly. To each their own, but I can't imagine that the majority of people want to watch programmes based around this theme, it seems very niche viewing.

Smallgoon · 14/12/2020 03:05

[quote Defenbaker]@Smallgoon No, I'm not labelling drag queens as freaks, but I do think that they look freakish, in the same way that clowns do. They choose to go to extremes with their appearance, so perhaps they enjoy the attention, but there are people who don't want to watch that sort of thing, and find it all a bit silly. To each their own, but I can't imagine that the majority of people want to watch programmes based around this theme, it seems very niche viewing.[/quote]
So don't watch it then. I hate Formula 1 which I find incredibly boring, and when it's on, I choose to switch over. I don't then go and label F1 drivers as freaks because they partake in a boring sport. I also don't resent channel 4 for forcing "freakery" onto me.

Defenbaker · 14/12/2020 03:26

@Smallgoon I repeat, no, I'm not labelling them as freaks, but I do think they make themselves look freakish - there is a difference.

I agree with you about Formula 1 - utterly pointless in my book. I'm stifling a yawn just thinking about it... maybe I should try watching it to cure my insomnia! Grin

I will be more careful about my words next time the T subject comes up. I know very little about it, apart from one or two biographical films I've watched. It seems like a very hard thing to cope with.

Defenbaker · 14/12/2020 03:33

@Quaagars posted "Trans and drag are not freaks, I'm neither but it's fucking disgusting to say they are."

I crossed a line using the "freakery" term, I'm sorry for any offence caused to any trans people. As per my recent posts, I do not regard trans people as freaks, but I do think that drag queens make themselves look freakish. That is their choice, but I believe it's a fairly niche subject to show on a publicly funded TV channel.

rockinaftermidnite · 14/12/2020 03:49

Maybe drag is more of a pretend thing? Dressing up for fun?

MerchantOfVenom · 14/12/2020 04:30

The ‘just don’t watch it, if you don’t like it’ argument is so ... I dunno. Hard of thinking...?

I mean, wow - great suggestion, if only I could’ve thought of that genius solution myself, it’s just so insightful and helpful.

Not.

People who don’t like things like, for example, drag, porn, whatever - for all the reasons already outlined - don’t watch it, as it is. Confused Because, duh, they don’t like it.

Random person X not watching drag doesn’t do a single thing to actually address the issues they see as being perpetuated by drag. Which is - misogyny, sexism, etc, etc, etc....

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 14/12/2020 07:37

Desperate attempts at derailing overnight, when the Transphobe Finders General come out to censor women.

Drag has got nothing to being with trans. Some drag queens happen to be trans, most aren't. I find parodies of women, which focus on how sexually disgusting we are, offensive, whoever is doing it: gay men, straight men, trans people or women. That doesn't mean that I dislike or am 'phobic' of any of those groups as a whole - I am just objecting to one specific behaviour by a minority.

wigglerose · 14/12/2020 07:44

Not keen on drag, to be honest. I do think it comes down to mocking women.

Can we lump in unfunny shit like dressing up as women that is not drag like Mrs Brown's Boys as well?

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