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Original poster

Why so anti drag?

319 replies

nicetoseetgesunsout · 10/04/2023 16:44

I've just watched the Paul oGrady tribute programme and it brought me to tears.
He did so much for children and their families and for so so many animals, plus against social injustice for gay people and anti section 28, not being scared to raise its injustice on mainstream tv.
My 75yr old mum is very upset about his passing.
Why the hate for drag performers?
My children grew up with Boy George,Marilyn and Leigh Bowrie RIP as they are friends. My children (boy and girl, now a woman and a man) always knew that they were, and are, men and saw them without costume wigs and makeup.
I'm also friends with a married couple who were drag queens a long time ago. My children have always known that these guys are men, dressing up as women, as they liked to and it was entertainment.
No offence meant to women. They saw them dressed as their drag persona but also without costume and mostly as men.
One couple of ex drag queens I know are now a Director for a hospice and his husband is a social work manager. Reputable jobs, no desire to be women and have two cats who are their babies. Lovely men.
Pantos have always had men playing women but we all know that they're men. Shakespeare plays had men playing women - that's more offensive to me.
Female authors like SE Sinton wrote and published amazing books without her obviously female first names - as she couldn't get published otherwise. These upset me much more

OP posts:
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6
Hoppinggreen · 10/04/2023 17:15

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Yes, it’s all the American far Rights fault
None of us on here have a brain and can form an opinion, we are all such silly little women that we have to wait to be told what to think.

cocksstrideintheevening · 10/04/2023 17:15

TeenDivided · 10/04/2023 16:49

POG's drag was very different from modern drag. There will no doubt be someone along in a while to explain it.

This and POG was actually
Funny

eurochick · 10/04/2023 17:15

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:09

toxic masculinity? A lot of fairly unpleasant people (male or female) can accept gay people in theory, but simply cannot come to terms with a man straight or otherwise wearing women's clothes.

Wrong. The issue is with the parodying and/or colonisation of womanhood.

A prime example is Eddie Izzard. When he was saying "these are not women's clothes, they are my clothes", etc GC feminists had no issue. The same with the New Romantics years before.

Men in drag parodying womanhood or claiming they are women pisses off many women. Unsurprisingly.

midgemadgemodge · 10/04/2023 17:16

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:09

toxic masculinity? A lot of fairly unpleasant people (male or female) can accept gay people in theory, but simply cannot come to terms with a man straight or otherwise wearing women's clothes.

It's not the clothes
It's the attitudes

So man in a dress or a kilt or whatever is fine
Like others here I grew up with people who today would be considered as in drag but they weren't they were just wearing clothes and make up that they liked

Drag at least today is something more - it's very much a performance which is therefore very different from someone just wearing unusual clothes and not making a fuss about it
And that performance comes with a lot of misogyny- as people here have pointed out in the language used to talk about women , in the names the drag artists chose ,

Deadringer · 10/04/2023 17:17

I don't see what trans and drag have to do with each other. Surely trans people are trying to pass as their chosen gender while drag artists are being as extreme as possible and not remotely trying to pass.

WinterTrees · 10/04/2023 17:18

The character of Lily Savage was a strong, sassy older woman that Paul O'Grady based on the women in his family - his mum and his aunties - Scouse women from a certain time who spoke their minds and stood up for themselves when it wasn't easy for women to do that. It was a parody, sure, but one that came from a place of affection and admiration, not objectification or disgust (for women's bodies - hence 'fish' etc) which seems to be the basis of most over-sexualised drag now.

The object of the joke was men not women, which was funnier and less cruel because everyone knew that it was being made by a man. And it was clever and incisive, like all the best comedy, not just shocking or crude.

midgemadgemodge · 10/04/2023 17:19

No there isn't a simple link between drag and transgender issues - but as soon as anyone wants to normalise any mysogenistic activities they accuse anyone against them as right wing trans haters

CovertImage · 10/04/2023 17:19

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

"anti trans", "right wing", "literally killing people", "white supremacists", "fascists" all in one post.

You win the thread for hyperbole and ridiculousness, many congrats

RufustheSpeculatingreindeer · 10/04/2023 17:20

Boy George, Marilyn and all the New Romantic pop stars in the 80s wearing make-up or the soft rockers with long hair have nothing to do with drag

i did wonder why they were being pulled into it

( i really wanted to say ‘dragged into it’)

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:21

eurochick · 10/04/2023 17:15

Wrong. The issue is with the parodying and/or colonisation of womanhood.

A prime example is Eddie Izzard. When he was saying "these are not women's clothes, they are my clothes", etc GC feminists had no issue. The same with the New Romantics years before.

Men in drag parodying womanhood or claiming they are women pisses off many women. Unsurprisingly.

Show quote history

Plenty of women wear typically male-identified clothing, and the vast vast majority of men aren't so fragile as to get insecure about the 'colonisation of womanhood' whatever that means - they just shrug and deal with it.

Its a blatant double standard to suggest that men shouldn't be able to do the same.

A guy revelling in a pervy, hypersexualised caricature of womanhood = obviously wrong to me and agreed unacceptable. A guy wearing a flowery maxi dress just because he likes it - what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't men be able to like female things?

Tomboys are a thing, why can't we have tomgirls too?

TheCentreSlide · 10/04/2023 17:21

Women’s safety does matter, women’s spaces, women’s sport.

TRAs who actively want to break into those things for their own ends are always calling the voices of women ‘fascist’ when in fact women are simply wanting to protect their rights.

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:22

oops, sorry that should have read 'colonisation of manhood'

TheCentreSlide · 10/04/2023 17:23

That was to @pikkumyy77

If you think male rapists should be in women’s prisons, and women’s sports should be dominated by male bodied trans women, then don’t pretend you’re all about love and acceptance. You’re promoting misogyny.

Sarahconnor1 · 10/04/2023 17:23

Plenty of women wear typically male-identified clothing, and the vast vast majority of men aren't so fragile as to get insecure about the 'colonisation of womanhood' whatever that means - they just shrug and deal with it.

Yes for reasons of comfort, practicality, sometimes safety or modesty. The vast majority of men who wear womens clothes are not doing it for the same reasons.

roarfeckingroarr · 10/04/2023 17:24

Nothing wrong with drag

Big problems with drag queens in revealing, overly sexualised outfits, performing for children

RufustheSpeculatingreindeer · 10/04/2023 17:26

Big problems with drag queens in revealing, overly sexualised outfits, performing for children

absolutely

Abhannmor · 10/04/2023 17:26

I wish people would stop saying drag and panto dames are the same.

Danny La Rue played both and said they are totally different. Drag is Adult Entertainment.

I can't imagine Danny - or Paul - putting on a sexually explicit performance for children either.

ohfook · 10/04/2023 17:27

It doesn't bother me at all tbh although a drag queen once slapped me and everyone laughed - 20 years later I'm still mad about this because it bloody hurt and I can't think of any other situation where people would laugh at a man hitting a woman!

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:27

Sarahconnor1 · 10/04/2023 17:23

Plenty of women wear typically male-identified clothing, and the vast vast majority of men aren't so fragile as to get insecure about the 'colonisation of womanhood' whatever that means - they just shrug and deal with it.

Yes for reasons of comfort, practicality, sometimes safety or modesty. The vast majority of men who wear womens clothes are not doing it for the same reasons.

Why can't men like stereotypically feminine things? So much effort gets expended into telling young women they can do anything they want to and encourage them to adopt male sports, rugby, football, boxing etc etc.

Equally for a truly accepting tolerant society we need to accept that men and boys can like stereotypically feminine things and that is OK. Not just clothes, but pastimes and hobbies too.

Have you never seen Billy Elliot?

MavisMcMinty · 10/04/2023 17:33

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:27

Why can't men like stereotypically feminine things? So much effort gets expended into telling young women they can do anything they want to and encourage them to adopt male sports, rugby, football, boxing etc etc.

Equally for a truly accepting tolerant society we need to accept that men and boys can like stereotypically feminine things and that is OK. Not just clothes, but pastimes and hobbies too.

Have you never seen Billy Elliot?

Show quote history

Who says they can’t? I’m 60, and men have been wearing dresses and make-up without opprobrium for as long as I can remember.

Sarahconnor1 · 10/04/2023 17:36

goodf · 10/04/2023 17:27

Why can't men like stereotypically feminine things? So much effort gets expended into telling young women they can do anything they want to and encourage them to adopt male sports, rugby, football, boxing etc etc.

Equally for a truly accepting tolerant society we need to accept that men and boys can like stereotypically feminine things and that is OK. Not just clothes, but pastimes and hobbies too.

Have you never seen Billy Elliot?

Show quote history

I didn't say they couldn't.
I didn't say there was anything wrong with a man wearing a flowery dress or liking dance or becoming a nurse or liking pink.
And yes I have seen Billy Elliott (odd question).

Gender stereotypes types should be consigned to history.

What I did say was most women wear traditionally masculine clothing for reasons of comfort and practicality and that a lot of men who wear womens clothes are doing it for very different reasons

Botw1 · 10/04/2023 17:36

Men can like typically feminine things

Not a problem

Pretending to be a woman.

Is a problem.

Surely you can see the difference?

CurlewKate · 10/04/2023 17:38

Of course men can like stereotypically feminine things!

GlassBunion · 10/04/2023 17:39

Lily Savage is a class act born out of love and respect.
Most of today's draggies aren't.

I don't like draggies in much the same way that I can't stand blackface , misogynistic comedians, any impersonators ( Mike Yarwood et al,) and any comedy performers who make a living from disparaging routines.

GoingOnce · 10/04/2023 17:39

Danny La Rue played both and said they are totally different

Oh well if Danny La Rue said it it must be true.

I get that drag is more ostensibly adult than panto but I still find panto dames utterly cringeworthy and offensive. Drag is just horrific. Blackface legitimised.