Drag Queens

[feminazi]

This was something I hadn't given much thought to until recently, but with the way that trans issues have blown up, it has got me thinking.

I know two drag acts in real life, both are 'normal' men who do drag for a living. They aren't trans, it's just a job to them. I don't really have a problem with that, but I feel that I should in principle.

I've never seen that Ru Paul show, but I hear it's entertaining. I might give it a watch to see how I feel.

Your thoughts?

I haven't seen much drag and am no afficionado of the gay scene.

When I have seen it including when I was young it made me feel a bit - uncomfortable I guess? - I didn't like it. Actually I'm thinking about men dressed as women generally don't know if it counts as drag. Like Kenny Everett, which probably would (cupid stunt). Or even Les dawson or the 2 ronnies. I always felt like they were taking the piss out of women. The boob hoisting, and the overdone speech mannerisms, and the pettiness. It was never kind. That was what was on TV when I was growing up.

I don't really like it. It does feel, to me, like when a man dresses as a woman, it's generally to take the piss out of her (the character / women in general).

Not so offensive to women, but certainly offensive to the trans community:

www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/08/23/trans-charity-label-drag-fun-run-for-hospice-a-hate-crime/

Yes I find it boggling that for all these years there have been groups of women saying that they found it offensive and they were ignored. Trans people say it's offensive and that is taken more seriously.

And the whole massive ironies of that are just, well massive

Dana, one person at a trans organisation complained unofficially on their behalf. This was followed by feminists saying how it was typical of all trans people, and trans people saying they didn't agree with the initial complaint.

Read the comments below the story.

Sparrowhawk nails it for me. I don't like it either. I don't watch Drag Race, so I can't speak to that, but the drag acts I have seen, which was in the clubs in the 90s and 00s had a nasty edge of misogyny to it. Aren't women ridiculous? Aren't we silly when we're dressed up as women? And we get to say things that we can't otherwise say. We're catty, we're bitchy, we're superficial etc...

I've discussed this with gay friends before. Some like it, just see it as a laugh. But there are also some who really don't, because they feel it plays into the stereotype that a gay man is like a woman in many ways, that a gay man has access to and can send up femininity because it's part of their make up, because they're not "stereotypically" masculine. That's not how they see themselves, and while they're taking against it on behalf of gay men and not on behalf of women, we end up in the same place of disliking it.

The history of Drag is quite interesting really. It's very much part of gay culture nowadays, but it originally comes from the theatre. It was very popular in the late nineteenth century in the music halls. But it really comes from a much longer theatre tradition of men dressing up as women because women weren't allowed to act on stage so men and boys played the female parts.
Cross dressing is present in lots of theatre, like pantos and Shakespeare. Drag acts are all about theatrical performance. Pretending to be a woman, but never with any intent to fool the audience. You can see it as an art form.