In Praise of Drag Queens

Clowns Scare Me but Drag Queens Make Me Fierce!

There’s been a lot of smack talk lately about drag queens and how they’re cutting into religious territory by being bad role models for children. You know, because they’ve started encouraging children to read by going to libraries and get this, reading to children. How nefarious! What kind of monster actually reads to children in a library of all places? Drag queens, apparently.

What is a drag queen? Is it the same thing as a cross-dresser? Is either of them the same as being transgender?

The answer to any of those questions is very individual. Cross-dressers trend strongly toward heterosexual men who enjoy the sensation of wearing women’s lingerie and other garments. While drag queens obviously enjoy playing dress-up, it’s not the same thing, nor is it done for the same reasons.

Some drag queens identify as trans while most do not. Most drag queens are gay cismen who are performers in the grand tradition of Shakespeare, Burlesque, and Vaudeville. They are bigger than life, fun, fabulous, and high-energy caricatures of women. Their goal is not so much to blend with the crowd as to stand head and high heels above it and be noticed for the fierce femmes that they are. When you’re trying to distract kids from the flash and bang of TV and gaming systems, novelty is key. Drag queens have it in abundance. Think ChiChi LaRue, Sister Roma, RuPaul, and Tammy Faye.

There appear to be as many reasons to fear and loathe drag queens as there are to love and admire them. It doesn’t always matter which “side” of the ideological spectrum you fall on, either. Extremes on both sides are deeply offended by the idea of people clowning with gender roles. While the majority of objections come from the right and those who believe children and firearms go together well, there are trans and ciswomen who do not feel comfortable with the irreverent manner in which women and femininity are personified. Don’t tell any of them about Uncle Milty!

I have yet to hear that any of the drag queens whose readings went forward, were canceled, or interrupted had done or had planned to do anything inappropriate around the impressionable minds they want to influence by sharing their love of books and reading. The protests by Proud Boys and other rightwing militant groups aren’t about protecting children from a dangerous moral threat. They’re about fear of those they perceive as different or other, and the bullying they justify against those whose generous donations of time and energy do what the moralists are too busy moralizing to do.

Speaking of which, although I am not a practitioner of any of the Abrahamic religions, I do have a certain familiarity with their holy books. In the Christian Bible (New Testament) Matthew 7:16-23 says, “… by their fruits ye shall know them.” Call me porn-addled, but I think an over-the-top representation of femininity that shares the joy of reading with children is a far superior fruit (pun aside) than a heavily armed and poorly organized militia sharing the poison of hate and ignorance.

The fear, of course, is not that a drag queen is going to touch a youth in an inappropriate way or will dress in a manner that is best reserved for a more bawdy occasion. The fear is that children will look at the drag queens and think that they’re acceptable options for role models. As with everyone, that depends on the individual in question, of course, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with being a drag queen except that it’s damn expensive and means spending a lot of time in the bathroom or at the vanity.

But for those who dream of football players for sons instead of wig-styling wizards with puntastic names, the money isn’t what’s important. It’s the expression of masculinity being disguised under the mask of femininity. And we all know that femininity is synonymous with weakness and helplessness, neither of which we want to be associated with our sons. Apparently, daughters are on their own. The moral panic squad doesn’t even mention drag kings or transmen. This omission shouldn’t come as a shock considering how wrong and ignorant everything else they say and do is.

And now it’s not just pockets of so-called “patriots” bravely waving their long guns at drag queens holding children’s books, there are entire state legislatures proposing bills to declare drag shows de facto adult entertainment. Naturally, this would preclude exposing any little boys and girls to the idea that a clown dressed up like a cartoon woman reading a book is a good thing.

Best to send them to church camp where we know exactly what will happen. They’ll be indoctrinated into a repressive way of thinking that they will spend their lives recovering from. And you can bet that some of those church camp kids will grow up to be drag queens whether they were read to by them in libraries or not.