First they came for the drag queens
Don't let the false moral panic around drag shows fool you. The goal is to erase LGBTQ people entirely--but we're not going anywhere.
Vol. 20
In This Issue: Essay | Now Read This | 2022 Book & Movie Lists | Final Frame
Last night a drag king saved my life
Drag (noun) - Entertainment in which performers caricature or challenge gender stereotypes (as by dressing in clothing that is stereotypical of another gender, by using exaggeratedly gendered mannerisms, or by combining elements of stereotypically male and female dress) and often wear elaborate or outrageous costumes.
[Writer’s note: Drag can and is performed by people of any/all gender identities and sexualities. Sometimes there’s stripping, sometimes (more often) there is not. Do not get your idea of what drag is from FOX News or anyone other than actual drag performers.]
I saw my first drag show when I was maybe 15 or 16. I performed in my first drag show when I was in my mid-20s (fun fact: my sister got me into it and gave me my drag king name, Caesar Hart). As it has and continues to be for so many people, drag was life-changing for me. Maybe even a little bit life-saving.
Drag has been an essential form of artistic expression, a way to explore and express different facets of my personality and identity, to play, to share messages both serious and silly, to be more than I thought I could be.
Drag means something a little different to everyone who participates. Not all drag is created equally. I’ve seen some truly transcendent performances, acts that made me rethink what I thought I knew about people and the world and how we move through it, about politics, about gravity and the magic of spirit gum. I’ve felt euphoria while performing drag, from the energy of the crowd, from the ability to embody something I usually kept hidden deep inside and to not just show it but flaunt it. I felt more in and at one with my body than I ever had before I began performing drag.
I’ve also seen terrible drag–not because the person performing was an amateur or didn’t yet have great stagecraft or makeup or costuming. We all go through that. No, bad drag happens when someone misunderstands or willfully abuses the art form, when they think it’s an avenue to punch down, or that the humor comes from seeing a “man” in a dress. This sort of thing is usually nipped in the bud pretty quickly when it shows up at actual drag shows. You’re more likely to see it in straight media or at hetero frat parties.
That used to be the worst thing you might encounter related to people who didn’t understand or didn’t like drag as an artform. These days, however, alongside transgender people in particular and LGBTQ+ in general, drag has become the punching bag de rigueur for the bigot rightwing. In the swelling chorus of hate that’s part and parcel of the rising tide of fascism we’re living through nationally and worldwide, LGBTQ+ people have once again become a convenient scapegoat for all that the right deems “wrong” with America and/or progressive ways of being.
In addition to the deluge of anti-LGBTQ legislation being proposed and passed across the country, several states (like Arizona and West Virginia) are now going so far as attempting to return us to pre-Stonewall bans on “cross-dressing.” Nebraska Republicans were hot out of the gate in 2023 with a proposed bill that would define drag as trans people performing, well, anything. It would also bar anyone under 21 from attending drag shows. This is all being done under the guise of “protecting children,” by labeling drag as pornographic “grooming.”
The people originating these accusations are not making them in anything resembling good faith. Most people want to protect children from harm, and so it is all too easy to gin up moral panic related to perceived threats to kids. But rather than point people’s attention to where actual harms to children come from–unchecked authorities like the Church, the Boy Scouts, food and housing insecurity, domestic violence, and so forth–they distract and maintain power by claiming instead that it’s the dirty queers causing all the trouble.
Because to be queer and/or trans is to exist outside of and between definitions and power structures. Our very existence is a threat to the Powers That Be and their means of control. This defiance of easy categorization or white Western hegemony is the greatest joy and greatest risk of being queer.
In 2022 alone, drag shows were targeted for harassment and threatened by violence in at least 141 cases across the U.S. (per GLAAD). Here in Madison, the Gender and Sexuality Alliance at East High School had planned their first-ever drag show for this month, only to have the school postpone it after the event was targeted for harassment by the Libs of TikTok account on Twitter. Worth noting is that the notorious hate machine that is Libs of TikTok was alerted to the drag show thanks to an attorney with right-wing hate group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), which has relentlessly targeted the LGBTQ+ community for years.
The harassment was amplified further by none other than sentient piece of soggy white bread and former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who added: “Let’s be clear: ‘drag shows’ are strip shows. They are wrong. They are particularly wrong at school. They are definitely not ‘family-friendly.’”
I mean, there’s no way Walker has ever been to an actual drag show (and I doubt his soul would survive an encounter with a drag show emcee who knew who he was). But this talking point about how drag is inherently inappropriate for minors, or “strip shows,” is smoke and mirrors attempting to hide the obvious intent of this whole manufactured show of outrage.
What Walker, WILL, Libs of Tik Tok, and most of the modern GOP actually want is to erase trans and queer people from public life entirely.
There’s a word for that.
From bills and policies that prevent young people from accessing gender-affirming counseling or healthcare, to those that make it a felony to be a supportive parent or guardian, and now bills that even target adults as old as 26, it’s painfully clear what the endgame is.
Those of us who know better have to resist the distraction of fighting over the definition of drag, or how young is too young to know you’re queer or trans or even ready to learn about anything other than hetero identities. We’d be fighting over scraps and ultimately stuck operating inside a framework built by people who want to destroy us.
This is not hyperbole. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is filled with fucking knives. LGBTQIA people are under attack and if we’re not at the very least speaking out against it wherever you see/hear it, we’re complicit in the destruction.
Post, write, call, testify, protest, aid and abet, shelter, run for office. Whatever your ability or capacity, the time is now to show up and show out. Feel free to wear your finest sequins and wigs.
And go see a drag show* while you’re at it. It might just save your life.
* My not-entirely-safe-for-work performance as George Michael, from 2016
Now Read This.
“The most important Wisconsin spring election in modern history” [John Nichols for the Cap Times]
We have a chance to restore representative democracy in Wisconsin. This spring’s elections are crucial.
“‘You’re treated like a criminal’: Legislative stalemate stalls fixes for Wisconsin’s emergency mental health system failures” [Erin McGroarty for Wiscosin Watch/Isthmus]
Wisconsin’s emergency mental health system is broken, and it’s breaking people. This is such a crucial issue that needs immediate and compassionate action, but Republicans in the Legislature have opposed all efforts by Gov. Evers to even begin to address it.
“Okay we gotta talk about marriage for a second” [Lux Alptraum via The B+ Squad]
Marriage — by which I specifically mean the state-sanctioned, legal framework governed by the Respect for Marriage Act — has nothing to do with any of those things. Marriage is a legal framework by which the state regulates whose families do and do not count, who is and is not afforded access to legal rights and protections; it’s also a system through which the state coerces people to stay in their relationships (as you may be aware, divorce is a pretty punitive, ugly process). And it’s that government policing of the family and the home, that offering of benefits for people who conform to government-approved configurations in their personal lifestyles — that’s the thing I have a problem with.
"Southwest Airlines' Christmas Meltdown Shows How Corporations Deliberately Pit Consumers Against Low-Wage Workers" [Adam Johnson at The Column]
Our system is set up to create mutual antagonism between members of the working class. Meanwhile, faceless corporate executives remain shielded like mob bosses.
OMG, BERKS!
Here are some books I read in 2022 that I loved (order them from your local indie bookshop):
“Even Though I Knew the End” by C.L. Polk
“How Far the Light Reaches” by Sabrina Imbler
“The Killing Moon” by N.K. Jemisin
“Hild” by Nicola Griffith
“Small Game” by Blair Braverman
“Heavy: An American Memoir” by Kiese Laymon
“Heretic” by Jeanna Kadlec
“The Jasmine Throne” by Tasha Suri
“Nona the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir
“Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage” by Rachel E. Gross
“The Inheritance Trilogy” by N.K. Jemisin
“Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield
“Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Update Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic for a New Era” by multiple authors.
“Libertie” by Kaitlyn Greenidge
“Victories Greater Than Death” by Charlie Jane Anders
“Mao: The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
“Lost & Found” by Kathryn Schulz
“Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” by David W. Blight
Favorite Movies of 2022
Got any recommendations for me? Put ‘em in the comments!
Final Frame.
Thanks, as always, for reading! Please feel free to share this post/email/link and encourage others to subscribe. It’s free! Unless you want to throw some money my way, which is always appreciated, too.