“ ‘Gender is a performance’: Scotland’s first ‘drag school’ sells out”

[SuperSleepyBaby]

Children from age 11 can go here...

www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jul/16/gender-is-a-performance-scotlands-first-drag-school-sells-out

FFS. The Guardian was once a reputable newspaper...

'Gender is a Performance'

I haven't read the article, but from that headline it would appear that the Guardian FINALLY gets it!!! They just need to add that sex is immutable and matters in terms of sex separated spaces /events and we're there.

The Guardian is no longer even a newspaper, let along a reputable one! I subscribe for decades until I realised that they were choosing not to report so many things that were happening in the world. It's more like The Beano now with Little OJ as Beryl the Peril 😆

So gender is ‘a performance’, but also somehow related to being gay.

A lot of the complaints were from people who didn’t really understand what drag is.

I suspect complaints were from people who have a more coherent understanding of drag and gender than King Dalby, 22.

makeup, performance and the history of drag artists going back to the Stonewall riots.

Surely they realise that the history of drag goes back longer than this??

Dalby adds: “A lot of the complaints were from people who didn’t really understand what drag is. People have this idea that drag is offensive, but it’s not – you can make fun of the ridiculous stereotypes, drag kings with fake abs, drag queens who go incredibly feminine then drop their voice. And then there are drag artists who think ‘Gender is stupid, I’m going to be a robot or an alien.’”

This guy sounds incredibly young and naive. Also incapable of understanding other people's point of view, as he wants to immediately write them off as out of touch or ignorant.

Drag is offensive to many women, drag can be incredibly misogynist and demonstrates total contempt and disgust in women. It is also usually sexualised adult entertainment. I wouldn't take an under 16 year old to a drag show, so there is no way I would sign up an 11 year old for a day long workshop.

‘Gender is stupid, I’m going to be a robot or an alien.’

Well yes, unless you are a woman explaining why you reject gender and then you could lose your job.

My first response was the identical with NancyDraweds. And the penny finally drops!

The shaky sands on which 'gender' is constructed in part explains the anxiety surrounding it, IMO. That's especially true given the parameters defining it have never been static by definition. The 'feminine' gender was a very different thing in the interwar years to how it is today. How is it possible to construct a solid sense of our own identity based on something so shifting and imprecise?

The next question they need to address is how something performative, that's acted out ad infinitum in response to a social diktat, can possibly be innate. Not holding my breath on that one though: it's the Grauniad we're talking about after all ...

Gender is a Performance

Yes it is. Sex is a biological reality. Gender is a performance.

Well, somebody finally said it! Long overdue. Will they be getting the same label as applied to GC people who have pointed this out, I wonder?