Aibu to not like drag Queens?

[Draggedalong1]

And why don’t I? To me there is something intimidating and scary in the make up, and harsh glamour, parodied until it’s ugly and I think, aggressive. I remember going to drag shows long again in the 90s and they seemed to be a bit of fun and almost innocent compared to whatever it is about ru Paul et al. Nothing wrong with a bit of dame Edna from what I remember as a kid. What’s the reasoning behind this new style I wonder, and aibu?

YANBU I’ve always felt that it is the same as black face and couldn’t understand why people defended it.

I wonder where people's good sense and critical thinking have gone when they say, well it is legal or not illegal so it is ok.

Posting children used to be legal
Lobotomies
owning humans as well as buying and selling them

the fact that some people enjoy something that’s inherently negative in principle

This is where we disagree I think - that it's inherently negative in principle. Says who? Some people would say it's inherently positive.

I'm not sure an AIBU with a small number of posters from a self selecting community stacks up that well against 12M views. There must be large numbers of women enjoying that show. I thought you meant properly conducted opinion polls.

please don’t dismiss it because ‘it’s just women’ who feel that way. Women are the ones with the most right to feel uncomfortable and offended by drag so our views are surely the most important.

Absolutely not dismissing anything, and certainly not because it's "just women". Any woman is entitled to feel that drag is offensive and I can see why they do. But equally, women are entitled not to find it offensive, and many women don't. Neither pov is wrong.

There are some trans people who have called for drag acts to be banned.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/06/21/trans-woman-wants-drag-acts-banned-from-pride-festival/

And for balance, here's an interview with two drag queens on whether drag is misogynist:

www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/27232/1/are-drag-queens-doing-enough-for-feminism

'We’re like a funhouse mirror of society, a distorted and bent exaggerated reflection of what we amongst. We don’t have the answers, we’re just drag queens, but posing questions is what we’re about.'

'drag helps move us in the direction of loosening up the man/woman binary. The idea that you’re one, or the other, it’s false ' - well, this is just nonsense, of course. Presumably he means sex stereotypes are unnecessarily restrictive.

I'm not convinced that exaggerating and aping stereotypes is doing anything to 'question' them or subvert them, though tbh. Perhaps if women did it, it might. But men mocking the stereotypes applied to women? That's just punching down.

And also noting that one of the queens in that article has been accused both of racism and abuse: www.thedailybeast.com/drag-race-star-sharon-needles-terrorized-a-15-year-old-superfan-and-they-werent-alone

It makes me feel uncomfortable, in the same way a clown does - because it masks identity.

FWIW I don't feel the same about people who actually choose to live full time as another sex - because that then IS who they are. I just get freaked out by alter egos or hidden personalities.

Oh, my mistake, actually both of the drag queens interviewed were accused of abuse.

I don't feel the same about people who actually choose to live full time as another sex - because that then IS who they are.

How does one 'live as another sex'?

@Sickenedbypeople

This thread has just shown me that people are happy to have a place to hide behind their keyboard and spout intolerance and bile. It’s sickening.

When I first read this I thought you were referring to the people supporting womanface as being intolerant and spouting bile.

The word "spouting" should have alerted me (usually also accompanied by words like "frothing" "screeching" "hysterical" "bigot").

Do you have any response to the statistics on trans offenders?

Also noted that no one has come up with any argument yet as to why drag isn't womanface or the same as blackface.

The word "spouting" should have alerted me (usually also accompanied by words like "frothing" "screeching" "hysterical" "bigot").

Oh, aye. 'Shrill' and 'bitter' are usually on the bingo card, too.

I don't know about other statistics on trans offenders but the ones quoted upthread are a bit problematic to say the least.

MoJ itself says 125 is unreliable, that there are likely to be more
Of the 60 in for sex offences they don't say how many are trans men / trans women
They do say that there are likely more trans prisoners in for other offences who are not included in the figures

Plus the proportion of imprisoned trans people who are in for sexual offences doesn't necessarily tell us anything about how likely trans people are to commit sexual offences. You would need to look at the total number of trans people vs number of trans sex offenders for that, and compare with the same figures for non trans men. These figures (if they were accurate, which MoJ says they are not) might only be telling us that there are very few trans burglars / thieves / GBH offenders / drunk drivers / fraudsters / blackmailers / drug dealers etc

@Sickenedbypeople

Do I? Pray tell me what else I don't realise. I didn't know there were a bunch of mind readers on here, LOL.

This thread was entirely unnecessary and simply made by someone who wanted to stir controversy and pander to the transphobe mentality that seems so rampant these days...which has no basis in fact.

I'm dying to know the stats on men pretending to be women to commit assaults. Please, do enlighten me.

@Sickenedbypeople I shouldn't have to clear up your ignorance for you, but here you go, be enlightened. And realise that your femphobia and intolerance of women's rights has no basis in fact, and your tolerance of men exploiting and assaulting women is 'not an issue' is you having your head in the sand, is ignorance and has no basis in fact, because the fact is men pretending to be women have commented literally hundreds of assaults already. That, is based IN FACT.

Comparisons of official MOJ statistics from March / April 2019 (most recent official count of transgender prisoners):

76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9%

125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3%

13234 sex offenders out of 78781 men in prison = 16.8%

and

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-prisoner-who-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seven-sex-attacks-in-womens-jails-by-transgender-convicts-cx9m8zqpg?fbclid=IwAR1JhugsOSdg58PzKpMAfvzqZVXxb7mRWs93qWqQyBA6vupiwnk1U_BJOOc

www.fox46.com/news/transgender-woman-convicted-of-sexually-assaulting-10-year-old-girl-in-bathroom/

www.scotsman.com/regions/edinburgh-fife-and-lothians/female-spaces-need-better-protection-after-trans-woman-sex-assault-girl-say-campaigners-140883?fbclid=IwAR2iMILdrlxCbawettem8KbyhpnRUfjpQIx8ZhPUiEeFGXCia1_soi-5JZI

www.foxnews.com/us/parents-speak-out-at-loudoun-county-school-board-meeting

fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-sex-offences/

transcrimeuk.com/

Is that enough for you?

Or what about this... how about the LA spa incident where a naked male-bodied person with a semi erection was walking about amongst women and children, in a woman's spa? Later emerged that they are on the sex offenders register. But that was how EASY it was for them to gain access to women's spaces.

Or what about the woman's beauty clinics where a male-bodied person demanded the person on duty wax around their penis and testicles? And then tried (unsuccessfully thankfully) to sue these clinics?

What about that? EVERYTHING we warned that would happen, and were told wouldn't happen, has happened. EVERYTHING. Ignorance is no defence under the law and there can no longer be any excuse for your ignorance. This is facts, this is reality. You can no longer close your eyes to the facts or stick your head in the sand any longer.

Also noted that no one has come up with any argument yet as to why drag isn't womanface or the same as blackface.

Their origins and history are completely different.

Yes it has been pointed out why drag and blackface is different

And I don’t agree most women would find drag offensive or give it much thought what happens on chats/debates on social media does not represent life

As we have seen in the debates around many many subjects

@OhWhyNot

Yes it has been pointed out why drag and blackface is different

And I don’t agree most women would find drag offensive or give it much thought what happens on chats/debates on social media does not represent life

As we have seen in the debates around many many subjects

Equally it's been pointed out why drag and blackface are exactly the same, and someone previously even posted an article showing how. I think when most women are engaged on the issue and made to think about it, they tend to see how it is deeply misogynistic, femphobic and is in it's roots and practice, Womanface.

*76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9%

125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3%

13234 sex offenders out of 78781 men in prison = 16.8%*

As I said, this doesn't tell us anything about the likelihood of trans people committing sexual offences, just that non trans people commit a greater number of other offences.

I don't think anyone is saying that no trans people are sex offenders, so of course there are individual cases. It would be useful to see figures which show what proportion of trans people are sex offenders, if you have them.

From what I can see from a quick google, there are an estimated 200000-500000 trans people in the uk and there are more trans women than trans men. So a ballpark figure might be 140000-350000 trans women. Using your numbers of people in prison that gives an offending rate of 0.02-0.05% compared to 0.04% in other males. I used 30M as the number for males, but if both groups were adjusted for adults only, the 0.04 would likely overtake the 0.02-0.05, making trans women less likely to commit sex offences than men. (There are many more male children counted in the 30M than there are trans women children in the 140-350k.) Of course these figures are very ballpark as there isn't a definitive number of trans women in the uk according to the Equalities Office. (Disclaimer: nb quick google)

But sorry for the derail since this thread is about drag, not trans people.

Ah Draineddraineddrained

I came on here because I wanted to. To give my opinion and it's making you so annoyed. I wish for you that you learn to live and let live.

I respect you and your thoughts.

The article is an opinion

Blackface came about when many black people were still slaves

I’m well aware that women at times were not allowed on stage but drag has not derived from women being treated as subhuman (that is not to say some were not)

Hangonamo , women are more than 50% of the total population and yet only 125 are in prison for sex offences compared with 76 male prisoners who identify as women. Even if there were 350,000 males who identify as women, this discrepancy proves that they behave more like males who identify as men than the female half of the population.

@334bu

Hangonamo , women are more than 50% of the total population and yet only 125 are in prison for sex offences compared with 76 male prisoners who identify as women. Even if there were 350,000 males who identify as women, this discrepancy proves that they behave more like males who identify as men than the female half of the population.

Yes, the original post about this was comparing trans women to men (quote below), so I did the same. And with those ballpark figures I used it is indeed in line with men's offending rates, or probably a bit less.

I'd expect it to be in line with men's offending rates. Why do you think putting on women's clothes changes offending patterns. Odd.

@Sickenedbypeople

This thread has just shown me that people are happy to have a place to hide behind their keyboard and spout intolerance and bile. It’s sickening.

Do you get this angry if people say they don't like wrestling, ballet or pottery exhibitions?

What a round about way of saying I was right.
So trans women you agree have rates of offending more similar to men than women.
Therefore we'll keep safeguarding around them based on their male sex.
Glad we agree. Even with those conservative fact check BBC statistics you've shown that male pattern offending rates are in line with them.

Tbf to hangonamo, I've never seen a person change their mind on this topic before. Fair play.

It is not the same at all.

As a black woman and a fan of drag I find it offensive that some people can even compare the two.

The stereotypes used in drag is not as harmful as blackface since it involves different power dynamics.

Blackface is often performed by white people who are socially and culturally in a position of power, while drag is often performed by a group already marginalised in society.

Drag culture may include harmful stereotypes about women through its focus on unrealistic feminine beauty standards -a cinched waist and large breast - or through acting out stereotypes of women as catty and slutty.
However, the stereotypes shown in drag do not have the same influence over culture as the stereotypes created by white racist people in power.

@WorriedMumsDontSleep

What a round about way of saying I was right. So trans women you agree have rates of offending more similar to men than women. Therefore we'll keep safeguarding around them based on their male sex. Glad we agree. Even with those conservative fact check BBC statistics you've shown that male pattern offending rates are in line with them.

Well you were right to expect the rates of sex offending by trans women and men to be broadly in line, but wrong in your conclusion that they weren't In answer to another PP, I'm not sure how I've changed my mind when I didn't offer an opinion either way - I was just trying to draw sensible inferences from the stats, such as they are.