Why so anti drag?

[nicetoseetgesunsout]

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

David Bowie and Boy George weren’t drag artists, they just didn’t conform to norms. I’m pro that.

However drag - yes including the otherwise lovely Paul O’Grady - is misogyny because it is appropriating and mocking womanhood in the most vulgar, stereotyped way.

Bjt it has moved on since the years of Lily Savage - it’s now at a point where we have to pretend blokes dressed as women for a job are under the LGBTQ umbrella and they experience the same discrimination as gay people. It’s a joke.

whoops - late 70's - how time flies :)

I don't like drag. Surely the reasons why are obvious.

Most of us didn’t mind 30 years ago when it was Dame Edna and Christopher Biggins. But that isn’t what modern drag is: it’s womanface. The context is different. The trans stuff has poisoned it all, and the attempts to access libraries, schools and kids story time makes me think they’re predatory and trying to sexualised children. Horrid. They should get back to 2am slots in cabaret bars.

Yazo · Today 16:46

Yeah I don't get it either but I think a lot of it is tied up in anti-trans hate and don't get that either.

You are wrong.

No, she's not.

I hate drag, just misogynistic shit. Paul O’G wasn’t as offensive as the modern crap but I preferred him when he dropped it. Not sure why you’re mentioning Boy George or Shakespeare.

No, I’m not suggesting that at all.

And in my view blackface is quite different to drag. Blackface used the oppressor culture — white men, mostly straight white men — to represent caricatures of an oppressed minority. Drag is portrayals by a minority — gay people — of a mainstream majority. Women are oppressed but are not a minority. I know it’s not a clean-cut distinction but I think there’s significant enough cultural context for it to be different.

Anyway. I’m not trying to tell you what to think and I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. I just added my perspective. You and @ThereIbledit have good reasons for disliking and objecting to drag. I have my reasons for not minding it. (Or at least some of it.) I would hope there is place enough in the world for both views.

gay men are still men and so still part of the oppressor group

Mysogeny is still mysogeny even if women express it

Not all drag queens are gay.

And gay men are still men in that they still oppress women. A gay man still benefits from male privilege.

I think it’s caught up in hate for ‘some’ drag queens now in mainstream media and all the ‘fishy’ comments. A lot of society have started mixing them up with the trans movement and the whole drag queen story time which does seem odd.

Although you could argue that drag itself is about letting men dress as women if they want and yet they are still men. According to many GC people on here, that should be acceptable. The fact it’s done in an exaggerated way and for entertainment is apparently offensive. I find it a bit sad so see that much negativity in everything. Life is going to get very boring.

Yes, he will. But then white women will have white privilege. And in some situations the white woman will have more privilege than the gay man. In other circumstances she will have less privilege. It’s not a competition.

Modern drag targeting children - if you're not anti that then I'm entitled to question your boundaries, morals and fitness to be round kids.

Modern drag targeting adults - its not my cuppa tea but if you want to watch a man in tight, short clothes prance about on stage mimicking the very worse stereotypes of women according to woman haters, go ahead. Give the tosser your hard earned money.

But leave kids alone. No libraries. No schools. No drag queen story hour or tweaking at kids. Full stop.

Paul o Grady was a lovely man by all accounts, truly lovely. He does not deserve to be compared to Anna Bortion.

As a GC person I’m 100% all for men ‘dressing as women’. Harry Styles et al and formerly Eddie Izzard are breaking the mold.

But that’s not what drag queens do. Steve aka Anna Bortion isn’t popping down to Sainsburys in his OTT make up and 9 inch heels. It’s being done for entertainment, ‘it’ being mocking women.

Until about 10 years ago, drag was about sticking two fingers up to homophobia and celebrating male femininity. Likewise, artists such as David Bowie, Marilyn, and Boy George (who, don't forget, served prison time for kidnapping a male prostitute, so let's not hold him up as some paragon of gender-bending virtue - he was a sexual predator) all helped to kick against the gendered stereotypes that would serve to keep us all in our boxes.

Great. All for that.

However, contemporary drag punches down on women. It makes them the butt of the joke. It's cruel, it's hostile, it's coded misogyny, it takes stereotypes of femininity and parodies them to the point where it reads as contempt. It's hyper-sexualised. POG and Dame EE, et al did big hair, sequins and glam, but they never did enormous tits or called themselves 'fishy'. They were funny, sardonic, incisive, political, they had something to say and a point to make.

Drag queens today seem to just get up on stage wearing as little as possible in front of an audience (preferably including underage children) and shriek, "Well it's not going to suck itself darling!"

I don't know who drag is for these days, but it's not for gay men and it's certainly not for women. So who does that leave...?

White gay men have white privilege AND male privilege. It’s not a competition but women are not in any way shape or form oppressors of men, ever. It’s ALWAYS the other way around. It’s not OK to mock the class you oppress.

I think this is very extreme. The majority of people are trying to increase trans rights to help trans people cope in society. And I think the whole point of drag time story time is to show children they can dress how they like and be different and that it’s ok.

There are always those who take it too far and areas where safeguarding isn’t checked. As a general rule, all this change is coming for a good place. Or at least trying to do the right thing. I find it a bit depressing how so many GC women see it.

I find it a bit depressing how so many GC women see it.

I find it depressing to see how many pick-me’s are so keen to piss away their rights and pave the way for men, having been convinced these men are far more oppressed than a woman will ever be. It’s regressive nonsense that enforcing gender stereotypes, not fighting against them.

No I don't believe that drag story time is showing children they can dress how they like

Because if that was the case you could just have normal men like Bowie was dressing - in a none sexualised fashion - many of the drag outfits are unnecessarily sexualised , and if they weren't on a drag person but on a woman teacher she would be disciplined

Of course it isn’t because no one but drag queens dress like drag queens.

A good way of telling children they can dress how they like is scrapping gender pink/blue nonsense and deciding a boy who likes pink and follies must have trans traits.

But this all comes down to your perception that they are mocking women. Would it be ok for a black, gay man to dress like a women then because they are more oppressed?

Also I thought men and women could dress how they like and it’s fine because clothes are meaningless and gender is a social construct? You could argue that GC people should love drag as it is the opposite of trans. You do realise that if drag was more acceptable, fewer men would need to say they are trans, potentially.

Absolutely

my eldest two children love drag race so I’ve seen it a fair bit

its for adults

Exactly. They’re just dressing up!

And I agree. That should be done too.

I’ll be honest I’ve never actually attended a drag queen story session. Does he actually act sexualised?

I like drag. I think it’s a lot of people getting offended for the sake of being offended.

You like it
But it doesn't mean that other people have no reason to be offended

Many people like banter
It's often very offensive