10 things in my daily life more dangerous than a drag show
protect trans folks and drag queens at all costs
When I was a freshmen in college, a friend talked me into coming to a drag workshop with him (in case it isn’t obvious, I went to a very liberal liberal arts school in the Northeast. Shocking, I know).
At first, I was skeptical—not because I didn’t like drag, but because I wasn’t sure what I could learn. Wasn’t drag just putting on women’s clothes and make-up and wigs? Wasn’t it just for gay men?
The answer: absolutely not. The workshop was a paradigm-shift for me.
Drag was not just about trying to put on clothes to “pass” as a woman. Instead, I learned that everyday, I put on drag. We all put on drag.
For many of us, we’re happy to put on the drag that society has assigned to our biological sex. But for many of us, the way we present ourselves to the world does not align with those traditions. Yet everyday, we get to make choices about how we express ourselves to the world, and how we wish to perform our understanding of ourselves. Drag is about performance, yes, but also freedom.
Nowadays, none of that is particularly new to anyone who lives or has some affiliation with queer life, communities, and activism. But this was the year 2008 and I was an 18-year-old baby.
My conception of what queer culture is or was? Let’s just say it was veeeery different than now. I’d never heard of the trans community at that time. I had a lot to learn (and I still do). But I had to start somewhere.
Now let’s be clear: many drag queens are trans, but not all trans folks are drag queens. Those communities overlap but not entirely, and that distinction matters.
Drag is a genre of performance art that is wide-ranging. But drag is currently being weaponized politically as a means of restricting the rights of trans, non-binary, and queer folks nationwide. The fact that not all drag is family-friendly doesn’t make it a bastion of pedophilia or grooming as many would like to tell you. This is merely a means to try and restrict who can express themselves fully in public. Because won’t SoMeOnE thInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn.
Tennessee earlier this month passed laws restricting and banning both gender-affirming care for young people as well as, of all things, public drag shows. And certain shithead personalities are talking about the need to “eradicate” trans rights all together at CPAC just a week or so ago.
To which I say: a very hearty fuck that.
Look, I’m a cis-woman as well as what could be considered a Professional Worrier. I will not sit here and pretend to hold an expertise or lived experience I do not have. But I know what it is like to scan my life constantly for actual things to worry about or consider dangerous. And more importantly, I’ve seen a glimpse of how radically liberating these communities can be for those who need them most. Spaces for drag and queer culture—in public, both family-friendly and not—allow for so many people to explore their relationships to themselves as well as how others perceive them.
I’m a cis-woman who has been friends with drag queens; who has attended drag shows throughout her adult life. I’m a cis-woman who has trans and nonbinary folks in her life that she loves. I’m a cis-woman who teaches young people and wants to give them all the safety and comfort in the world. Cis-folks: this does effect you, even if its indirect or tangential.
And look, it’s Women’s History Month or whatever. Trans women are women. And if you think the history of women is independent from queer history, or drag history, or trans history…you haven’t been paying attention.
As drag queen and RuPaul’s Drag Race superstar-contestant Sasha Colby told viewers earlier this season, it’s not that long ago that drag queens and trans women who worked in bars near Hawaiian military bases were forced to wear pins that said “I Am A Boy”. These were meant to “alert” U.S. Navy members that they were drag queens or trans women, and not “biological” women. Because god forbid they accidentally potentially feel a little queer feeling.
And this is just one of many, many, MANY examples throughout history of where trans women and drag queens were forced to acquiesce to the comfort of straight men, often further endangering themselves.
Drag shows and trans rights aren’t dangerous—they affirm what it means to be alive, and what it means live in a body that, in the words of RuPaul, “was born naked, and the rest is drag.” And if you’re the kind of person bringing your kids to non-family-friendly drag shows, well…that’s your choice.
And friend of mine who brought me to the drag workshop all those years ago? I haven’t seen him in a while, but we follow each other on social media. From what I can see he still does drag on occasion. I love seeing him perform via social media with the persona he’d begun to craft during that very workshop. How lucky I was to be there at the start of it.
But, without further ado, here it is. A list of ten things that might happen in my daily life that are far, far, far more dangerous than drag show:
A paper cut from reading a print book to a small child. Have you ever accidentally picked up one of those board books the wrong way? I would not call that shit childproof. The old generic seltzer bottle I bought from the back of a sketch bodega though? Now that’s childproof.
Accidentally eating a moldy raspberries for breakfast. Because for some reason raspberries have a shorter shelf life than a may-fly.
Putting my airpod back in my ear after dropping it on the sidewalk. Gotta believe that probably means barraging my ear canal with every germ under the sun. Unless the five second rule applies?
Telling a Pedro Pascal fan that you think he’s just ok-looking. Because Pedro Pascal fans are downright dying of thirst (source: I am a Pedro Pascal fan). Also! Pedro Pascal’s an ardent supporter of queer and trans rights! And his sister Lux is trans! He’s an ally, dammit!
My 9-lb chihuahua running into oncoming traffic on a major Brooklyn thoroughfare because he’s hellbent on taking a teeny tiny shit in the middle of the road. Small dog parenthood isn’t easy, my friends. (5a: Prancer the Chihuhua, aka the worst dog of all time.)
Revving up the treadmill too fast during a workout and flying across the gym in front of onlookers. You might ask whether or not that’s likely to happen to me. What that says to me is that you’ve never seen me in a gym environment (which: lucky for you, honestly).
Running into a protester outside the News Corp building on 6th Avenue who is too busy screaming FUCK YOU FOX NEWS and barreling down the sidewalk to notice me. Not that I’m complaining. Fuck Fox News. And yes, this actually almost happened to me recently.
Accidentally getting the prescription retinoid cream my dermatologist prescribed in my eyes and blinding myself. If a dermatologist wants me to continue looking young and feminine, does that make them a groomer? Asking for a friend.
That “Da Bomb” sauce on “Hot Ones.” I’ve never tried it but the idea of it gives me nightmares. Imagine your child accidentally getting into that. Imagine what ideas that will give them about what a sauce is supposed to taste like or feel like? It’ll be the end of family-friendly-taste-bud-values.
Hammerhead worms. Ok no, I haven’t seen one for myself. Yet. BUT. They are invasive, and if you chop them in half THEY GROW BACK double. They can also EAT PARTS OF THEIR OWN BODY and then REGENERATE THEM BACK. (I’ve fallen down a zoological YouTube hole lately, ok?) They are all over the world now! They are horrible! How is this not a major concern!?! But noooo, we have to bully drag queens and trans kids instead, huh?