Is there anywhere where you can ask questions and get dispassionate answers?

[CurlewKate]

For example, I want to know when and why drag came under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

Drag was always predominantly, part of gay culture and has a very, very long history of being so. So of course it was always going to. But it was always gay men.

What's different is a) the TQ+ and b) straight AGP men now being included in the LGBTQ+. They never were historically; they tended to be the more conservative types decrying gay people while they got on with their very straight heterosexual fetish.

Someone can probably date the original graphic, I think it originated with Stonewall, showing all the definitions.

But they were appropriated, as all groups have been appropriated where and as they are useful, and for the furthering of the political agenda. It was not as if there was any kind of poll, or all members of that defined group knew, agreed and put themselves on that graphic.

There is no one source of unbiased impartial and wholly accurate information. The best approach is to look for a wide range of sources and judge the validity and accuracy of each, before drawing a conclusion.

Eh? Drag being part of gay culture did NOT originate with Stonewall.

"Trans" (not drag) was not part of Stonewall activism until 2015.

Drag being under the "trans" umbrella refers to a graphic that was created by Stonewall. Obviously drag has been around for a lot longer than stonewall's interest in transgender ideology and activism.

I'm not sure what you mean by drag being 'under the LGBTQ umbrella'? I've never seen it referred to as a sexual identity, which is what I take under the umbrella to mean. It's been a part of gay culture pretty much since time immemorial, but it's not an identity.

It may well be that others can help pin it down more precisely but as of 1993 it definitely wasn't deemed enough...

as of 2016 it apparently was
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/get-help/who-is-included-in-the-transgender-umbrella/

this is from 2013 - I think this was the first time I saw anyone say drag = trans

https://thegenderbook.tumblr.com/post/41848208449/the-transgender-umbrella-page-from-the-gender

but the 2013 version seems to have been based on this 1994 version, so the ideas were certainly around in the 90s but far from mainstream in lgb groups

this was definitely niche that drag was under the umbrella of 'transgender' normal usage still had LGB societies / LGB policies etc.

Of course a number of people were both gay and into drag, but they weren't part of the LGB because they did drag. The clothes you wore were seen as irrelevant / secondary to your sexual orientation.

Drag was always predominantly, part of gay culture and has a very, very long history of being so. So of course it was always going to. But it was always gay men.

I remember seeing Les Dawson in drag a few decades back. I don't recall him being that much of a homosexual.

Does dressing up as a woman for comic effect always equal drag? I wouldn't have called Les Dawson's comedy sketch characters drag acts.

What happened is that after a very long period of being abused and oppressed, gay people were brought into the mainstream and, even more, there was so much guilt over how they'd been treated that they became a sort of protected group. Once that happened, loads of very different groups rushed over to the space they occupied to be perceived as being gay-adjacent in order to benefit from the penumbra of protection. Not all of these groups were that similar to gay people, and not all of them were well-intentioned.

Do a Google search on Les Dawson and drag fedupandstuck.

I dont have dates for this but of course in theatre men depicted women for years, and then after women were allowed to perform, men playing women in pantomime became another tradition.

Drag as part of gay culture is part of a time when both gay men and lesbians were influenced by traditional mainstream culture that many conformed to the idea were either butch or femme. So the fact the some gay clubs had men performing as women both as a sort of homage to women with over the top female clothes and make up and an opportunity to be feminine was and still is nothing to do with saying you are the opposite sex to the one you were born. Any more than a lesbian wearing a man's suit is a man.

And in the 70s when Women's Liberation was challenging gender norms, to dismantle them not to entrench them, drag acts were sort of applauded for doing that. ie challenging gender norms because they clearly weren't saying this is real, it was about performing gender roles in an exaggerated way.

The big change was when queer politics coopted gay and lesbian culture in order to undermine it, in the same way as it had done with women's liberation / feminism. (There are lots of threads about this, but because mumsnet technology doesn't allow tagging or categorising it takes a while to track down.)

At its simplist queer is about dismantling anything that was or is seen as being the norm.

So this queer gay culture that has led to Pride parades, far from showing that every day people are gay and lesbian (ie no dressing up) has been turned into a vulgar over sexualised display of predominantly men wearing S&M style of dress and fluanting body parts. This meant that drag queens were / are comparison more acceptable, and building on the pantomime Dame tradtion, opened the door to Drag Queen Story Telling.

And also turned what used to be about a small group of people with gender disphoria into a trans cult because queer politics expanded it to coopt and colonise the idea or feeling that people could claim they were the opposite sex.

So as the (usual well researched) earlier posts on this thread have shown, when stonewall was what it was set up to be, Gay Liberation, this whole "umbrella" approach didn't exist, because is Gay Liberation was about same sex attraction.

Identies or "changing sex", had nothing to do with it, because of course if sex isn't fixed then there cant be gay men or lesbian women. (which is why I always find it so strange that some gay men and lesbians happily associated with a politics that actually says you dont exist).

JUst think if the 70s gender benders had only grown and expanded so it became the norm to wear clothes that previously had been said to be the "uniform" of one sex of the other, how none, well at least some of this, would never have happened.

Why?

Theatrical cross-dressing is a tradition which includes the principal boy in pantomime being played by an actress.

Because it will help you see that the current meaning of the word drag is only several years old and that drag meant much more for more than 100 years. If you look you'll see that things were going on before RuPaul's Drag Race.

@nauticant why would you assume that I am unaware of that?

Drag used to just mean a man in women's clothing. So Les Dawson dressing as his woman character was a "man in drag".

I think in UK culture there has always been a difference between a drag artist and comedic cross dressing as per Les Dawson and others. Also a difference between pantomime dames and drag artists.

I get that people use the term drag to mean in general any man that cross dresses for the purposes of entertainment, regardless of the form of entertainment. My point is that there is a difference between drag shows and drag artists performing for an adult audience in clubs, and comedic or pantomime cross dressing.

I think in UK culture there has always been a difference between a drag artist and comedic cross dressing as per Les Dawson and others.

No one is suggesting that Les Dawson was a “drag artist”.

What is also true is that no one would have ever described LD as indulging in “comedic cross-dressing” - they would have said he was “in drag”.

Same with Monty Python, Hinge & Bracket, The Two Ronnies, Danny la Rue and many others who “dragged-up” all or part of the time as part of their performances/sketches.

The term was also normally “drag act” rather than “drag artist”, ie. An entertainer (job) who used drag (technique) for their act (performance) - rather than an individual limited, as some are today, to presenting a grotesque parody of womanhood as a “performance”.

Also a difference between pantomime dames and drag artists.

Agreed.

"No one is suggesting that Les Dawson was a “drag artist”. " - I didn't suggest that they had.

"What is also true is that no one would have ever described LD as indulging in “comedic cross-dressing” - they would have said he was “in drag”." - also never suggested that, in fact I specifically stated that drag was the usual term.

People seem to be picking apart every tiny aspect of the wording of my previous posts and picking fault as if I was attempting to argue something else. I don't know why.

My apologies that I misunderstood some of the points you were making 🙏

You were making distinctions that, on second reading, I realise that I missed.

One of the associated changes that has happened in the UK is that “Drag Queen” and to an extent “Drag King” have become common parlance and that these are also “identities” under some of the “trans umbrellas”.

Unlike “drag artist”, “drag act” or Pantomime Dame, which are jobs/roles/gigs/performances in the entertainment industry.

It’s as if Stage Hypnotists were shoehorned under the Queer Umbrella by reverting back to the term Mesmerists and claiming that learned skills are actually innate attributes.

It seems part of the whole “Trans are Sacred” thing (big in the USA), with “Drag Queens” having taken over from your common-or-garden “trans” as better candidates for Shaman than Seedy Sid nicking his sister’s knickers off the washing line.