Now, I was going to save today’s conversation for a special occasion—the Season 15 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race, of course—but my hand has been forced by Emily For President’s newest Public Enemy #1: the Tennessee State Legislature.
I didn’t think it was going to come to this. I thought I would have more time to ruin a joyous celebration with a demoralizing conversation about the history of violent discrimination as this newsletter is wont to do. But alas…
That is why today, I am talking with the Michelle Visage to my RuPaul (think about it), Christian Harvey, about the history of drag, how the increasingly prevalent anti-drag bills are also anti-trans bills, and why this is all seemingly happening now.
Readers, start your engines. And may the best fan of E4P win!!!
Hello? Hello, hi!! Christian, proudly born and raised in Jersey with the big dream of wanting to make it in NYC, can be found currently cosplaying the Mad Men advertising dream of working on Broadway! When Christian is not chatting your ear off about why the Spongebob Musical was actually kinda good, he can be found chronically online deeply investing in cringe content about any of the Real Housewives, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and strangely enough pro-hockey (he’s a closeted hockey stan…shhh).
His favorite food? Sushi. His current obsession? Las Culturistas. His hottest take? Every floor can be a dance floor.
A Brief Herstory of Drag
Back in January, as we watched the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 packed like sardines into our favorite gay bar, I told Christian that I was desperate for someone to write an exhaustive history of drag and its influence on culture.
This isn’t that, but we tried our best and that’s what matters.1
Before we dive into the general, I wanted to take a second to ask Christian about his personal history with drag:
Emily: What role has drag played in your life?
Christian: I really got into watching and engaging in drag culture my freshman year of college, when my roommate and I would watch the newest episode of Season 10 of Drag Race each Friday morning, and then wander our way over to take one of our musical theater classes. Since that season, I have been watching a new episode almost every single week religiously (thanks to the monster that is now the RuPaul Charles empire).
Watching this program for the first time was really one of the only times that I felt like my spirit was authentically represented in a TV program I genuinely enjoyed. Watching Drag Race, engaging in various types of drag content online, and attending drag shows is an escape for me, and they are places where I genuinely feel safe, supported, listened to, and embraced for the theatrical, sensitive, passionate, anxious person that I am.
Even as someone who is both a fan of drag and almost annoyingly into history, it tracks that I would combine the two. I asked Christian:
Emily: What are some significant parts of drag history that you think are getting left out of the current discourse?
Christian: Drag is such an interesting art form to me because unlike other styles of art where an origin point can be tracked, I don’t know if we can explicitly trace a specific moment in history to when it began. I don’t know if dinosaurs were playing with gender performance, but Cleopatra dressed up and did her makeup more masculine to assert dominance in Ancient Egypt, and women were not legally allowed to perform in Shakespeare’s plays so the men had to play the female parts…as females, and those powdered wigs George Washington wore (look at this picture. Like OKKAAYYYYY diva!)
Drag, in some way, shape, or form, has always existed. I know at its root, drag is a play on portraying gender in a heightened way, but what I think people often forget is that it explores so much more than gender. It analyzes societal roles and gives the performers autonomy to explore societal taboos. It's a form of self-expression (gendered or not), and an outlet to express and try and make sense of political and personal thoughts about the fucked up world we live in through a wildly creative medium.
I think that is a big part of the art form that people don’t understand, and a BIG reason why it's now being seen as a bombastic criminal offense. With gender politics being such a prominent issue in today's politics, drag is an easy thing to blame because it’s viewed so narrowly in that specific category when it is SO much more than that. I’m not sure that this necessarily helps the argument given that it is an unapologetic and really powerful F*CK YOU to our current governing system, but I do think that its versatile spirit is a big part of the conversation that gets left out.
Most historians trace the origins of drag as an art form to Shakespeare as Christian mentioned—meaning drag is older than the political theory of conservatism—and from there, the history of drag has continued to grow even more interesting, especially in America. Some of the earliest known reports of drag in the US were at balls hosted by a formerly enslaved man, William Dorsey Swann, beginning in the 1880s. According to historian Channing Gerard Joseph, who is the foremost expert on Dorsey Swann and his life,
Dorsey Swann is the first known person in history to have self-identified as a drag queen—hosting balls in often secret, private formats, decades before they’d gain more visibility in the Harlem drag ball scene of the 1920s and 1930s. Joseph says the term “drags,” used in reference to cross-dressing balls, existed before it was associated with “queen,” a word which, during Dorsey Swann’s era, was a term of honor and respect used for the leader of the ball (X).
The balls were primarily attended by other formerly enslaved men, and the form of dancing at the events—the cakewalk—is said to have had “improvisational movements and subtle expressions of communication resemble voguing, the style popularized in Harlem’s ball scene.” During a ball held in celebration of his 30th birthday in 1888, Dorsey Swann was arrested but resisted and, as a result, a fight broke out in what is now “considered one of the first examples of violent resistance for LGBTQ rights” (X).
What makes this specific kernel of history all the more interesting and powerful is that the gender-play aspect of drag is primarily credited to vaudeville, an art form that grew out of racist minstrel shows. As a result of this, early mainstream drag in America “was seen as something for the straight white male, and any deviation was punished” (X). Yet, as drags continued and expanded into ball culture, the art was first reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community and then largely by Black and Latinx performers in Harlem, which has shaped the drag we currently consume.
Although drag was never something straight people, white people, or men people ever truly controlled, once they lost the illusion of power, it became something to criminalize and ostracize.2 This is why the crux of most anti-drag arguments comes from the age-old fearmongering tactic that anything associated with queerness is inherently wrong because it was historically something hidden away ostensibly for the safety of straight society which, as we just covered, isn’t exactly true.
This then might lead you to wonder why drag suddenly makes those on the right so angry. Which is exactly what I asked Christian:
Emily: Why does drag suddenly make those on the right so angry?
Christian: To outlaw drag is a massive win for the conservative far-right to entirely erase LGBTQIA+ people from existing. Drag is a visible celebration of the freedom queer people have fought to feel and to now criminalize it pushes it back underground to again be unseen.
The broad and exponential increase in visibility of LGBTQ people and the passing of legal protection of these individuals—be it marriage or Title VII protections—leads the historic oppressor to believe that their inherent privileges that they’ve taken for granted are somehow now being taken away. Just because someone else gets something, doesn’t mean that something has to then be taken away from someone. There is an infinite amount of freedom to give out!!
It really is leaning into the grand culture war the far-right is obsessed with feeding because they have no real ideas or desire to actually make the broken system better.
I would be remiss not to share this clip from The Daily Show. At 2:46, a Trump supporter argues this exact point, claiming that it’s not fair for a gay couple to have the same rights as “the regular couple,” which unfortunately is a good segue for the next section of our conversation:
Thank God for Drag
There are a lot of reasons why someone would spend precious hours of their life advocating for violence against drag queens, but none of them are very good. A lot of them seem to come back to religion and Christianity in particular which is funny to me because every depiction I’ve ever seen of Jesus either has him in a dress or far less clothing than a drag queen would wear.3
I digress…a little.
Organized religion, to my knowledge, was not created to advocate for the discrimination and marginalization of social groups. It was invented to answer questions people had before technology could catch up with the answers: how did we end up on this floating rock and where is it going? What happens when we die? What should we do when our neighbor is a bit of an asshole but we don’t want to get smote?
Religion was not meant to be a weapon until people realized they could make it one by hawking bad interpretations of a book. Listen, as we’ve discussed here, I was an English major so I know a lot about making a claim and having to stick to it for 2,000 words even when you realize there’s truly no proof for your point. But, funny enough, not once in my paper about why Wide Sargasso Sea should be read through an eco-feminist lens because of how much time Jean Rhys spent talking about trees, did I justify violence against drag queens.4
And yet, here we are. Why? Because, in case you haven’t realized it yet, the real problem is not religion or belief systems or children or drag. Shockingly, the problem is also not specifically men or capitalism either—a first here at Emily For President.
This, if you imagine me frantically waving my hands around, is all about power.
I asked Christian:
Emily: How does drag stand at the intersection of everything conservatives appear to stand against?
Christian: I think the far-right fears drag so much because it's a threat to the power that they once had complete control over. The exaggeration of femininity is a direct attack on the straight white male aesthetic that they all love to protect. It's a cowardly attempt to retain control and hang on to the past instead of trying to move forward and govern under modern circumstances. My lord, they love to cry wolf and try to become the victim to pass “cancel-culture” legislation.
Something I think about a lot is the argument of far-right politics wanting the government to have less control, but then go around and tell people what books they’re allowed to read, what specific history teachers are allowed to teach, and how people have to live their life. Drag is a direct attack on the traditional familial values that the far-right fixate on having control over, and the only way they can hold on to that is by erasing the people they think are threatening their power.
Last month, the Tennessee state legislature passed a bill “restricting drag performances in public or in front of children, putting the state at the forefront of a Republican-led effort to limit drag in at least 15 states in recent months.” However, the language of the bill is so vague that it doesn’t explicitly apply to drag queens but rather to “male and female impersonators.”
A couple of things are at play here: the first is the out-and-out hatred for drag that we laid out but remained confused by in the last section. The second is that if you read between the lines of this bill, it is actually codifying anti-trans bias. Lest you think I’m being dramatic, the Tennesse state legislature also passed a bill “that bans doctors from providing gender-affirming medical treatment such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery, for transgender minors.” Ironically, Tennessee is ranked 44th in healthcare across the country, but gender-affirming medical care…
The Tennessee GOP’s defense for both bills is that they will protect the childrenunless they’re trans in which case they can’t get gender-affirming medical care nor be around their peers, but this seems like a bit of a cop-out.
I wanted to know:
Emily: Why do you think a big part of the argument against drag centers around "protecting children"?
Christian: People automatically lose their minds when “kids,” “drag,” and “LGBTQ” are used in the same sentence in any context. It’s a misguided notion that when kids are exposed to queer or non-heteronormative media, it’s going to rub off on them and indoctrinate them to become gay sex robots when there is ZERO evidence of any sort of thing happening (but…shall we look at priests and the grooming of children in church?).
Exposure to queer art certainly allows queer kids to prosper and provides them with valuable language to express how they feel, but it certainly doesn’t make hetero kids suddenly want to move to Hell's Kitchen, sing show tunes, and do poppers.5 They see drag as an explicitly sexual thing, though I can’t really see how a person dressed as a princess reading a story about mermaids, and dancing to the ABCs is sexual and threatening, but alas.
What is so interesting about anti-drag-storytime protests is that these people are arguing that drag is “grooming” the kids through sexually explicit performances and how we need to “protect” them from this sexual deviance, but there is no alternative solution provided. They bitch and moan but they choose to ignore the real problem of gun violence being the leading cause of death for children. HELLO, HI?! THEY LITERALLY BRING GUNS TO PROTEST DRAG STORY TIME?! Like what?!
Drag is a scapegoat for these conservative minds who don’t have any real solution to the real problems that will effectively kill us all. That was a little morbid, but it's true—they just simply don’t have an argument against protecting kids against drag when they themselves are choosing to prioritize the very thing that kills them!
Guns kill kids, not drag queens.
An Associated Press piece from last fall covers what drag is and isn’t in a very matter-of-fact tone. When discussing what and why opponents attack, the piece states that
opponents of drag story hours and other drag events for audiences of children often claim they "groom" children, implying attempts to sexually abuse them or somehow influence their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The term "grooming" in a sexual sense describes how child molesters entrap and abuse their victims. Its use by opponents of drag, as well as by protesters in other realms of LGBTQ opposition, seeks to falsely equate it with pedophilia and other forms of child abuse.
Perpetrators of the false rhetoric can then cast themselves as saviors of children and try to frame anyone who disagrees—a political opponent, for example—as taking the side of child abusers.
Activists online have started to use a new tactic to push back on this argument, compiling the national arrests for “sex crimes involving children” across the country and looking at the perpetrators. You’ll all be shocked to learn that drag queens and trans individuals have routinely clocked in at zero weekly cases of abuse while youth pastors stay leading the charge.
You mean…there’s not a factual basis….for this argument????
Nevertheless, I had to ask:
Emily: What is currently happening in Tennessee with the passing of a recent drag bill? What do you think this could mean for drag around the country?
Christian: Emily, there’s a very real possibility that it won’t be possible, under law, to perform in drag in roughly 30% of the country by the end of 2023. 30%!
It’s increasingly clear that banning drag shows has never been about saving the children but about the creepy 80-year-old lieutenant governor (baby GO RETIRE!) fiending to pass the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation that they’ve always wanted and now feel empowered to do. Why people feel comfortable being so openly discriminatory in this economy is absolutely bananas to me, but it’s where we are. Drag is merely a muse for them to do what they’ve always wanted.
However, if I know one thing about the people who do drag is that they are brave. They are fighters, and boy do they have NERVE (for good and lawful evil). It’s going to be our job as allies to be even more protective and take care of this community since the discourse around these bans is really promoting a very dangerous reality for these folks. But these bans are not going to stop drag from existing—it’s going to empower the community to be even louder, and live even more unapologetically in their own right.
The girls are RESILIENT, and you can’t keep a good Queen down.
Yet, while the right might not be able to keep a good queen down, they’re certainly trying their best to destroy the trans community.
I’m Dramatic? Have You Read a State GOP’s Party Platform???
I know I have a reputation for being dramatic—I’m the oldest daughter who is an Aquarius and has an anxiety disorder—but I feel like I can’t overstate the danger this kind of legislation poses to the trans community.
As more and more people are coming to terms with the growing wave of blatant violence against trans individuals, the term genocide has entered the chat. While this thread from writer and trans activist Brynn Tannehill is as bone-chilling as it is essential to read, I wanted to pull one Tweet in particular:
After the recent CPAC—at which a call for the eradication of the trans community was honestly de riguer—many activists noted that we have passed Stage Four of the Ten Stages of Genocide (dehumanization) and are dancing on the line between Stages Five and Six (organization and polarization, respectively).
Earlier this month, it also came to light that all of this proposed legislation banning gender-affirming care is part of a highly concerted, multi-year effort from religious organizations. It should be noted that all of this is taking place against the judgment of the medical community, as
gender-affirming care is supported by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, and other major medical organizations. And studies have found that it is associated with better mental health outcomes over both short and longer-term periods.
Understandably, the battles to protect the trans community and to protect drag as an art form have become almost entirely intertwined—which is not to say that they weren’t before, only that now you cannot fight for one and not the other.
With that in mind, I asked Christian:
Emily: How do the current conversations around drag also tie into the growing wave of blatant transphobia?
Christian: They go hand in hand. The drag bill bans are another way for conservative far-right legislators to attempt to erase trans people from existing. The policing of gender is not a new issue. It’s been around for decades in America even in the most unsuspecting of places—in 2021, New York repealed a 1976 law that became known as the ‘Walking While Trans’ bill which prohibited loitering for the purpose of prostitution. This law effectively lead to decades of harassment and discrimination of trans and queer individuals by law enforcement.
What is so scary about what is happening in Tennessee and beyond is a.) the vague language of banning “male and female impersonation” which creates the opportunity for more discrimination and harassment by law enforcement and “law-abiding civilians” towards trans people for just existing, and b.) the laws that are being passed in tandem with the drag bills banning gender-affirming hormone treatment, surgeries, puberty blockers, and healthcare at large.
It takes away the right for a trans person to even live.
Emily: What can allies—or literally everyone who is not a bigot—do to help protect the trans community?
Christian: This is coming from a cis-white male perspective, but considering myself a trans ally as well, these are some things that I have tried to do to dismantle my own implicit bias and work to support the trans community.
Join protests, and reach out to government representatives to express outrage over these bans. On the opposite end amplify pro-trans politicians, campaigns, and marches! SPEAK OUT!
Stay informed, and center learning from trans individuals.
Purchase tickets to trans performers’ performances. Buy trans authors’ books. Support small businesses run by trans individuals!
Donate if you have the funds to! Any amount is helpful.
Emily: What can those who profit or enjoy drag do to help protect performers and the art form?
Christian: GO SEE AND SUPPORT YOUR CITIES LOCAL QUEENS!!! BRING CASH!!! TIP THEM!!!
Drag exists in SO many ways outside of your TV screen on Fridays at 8 pm, so GO OUT, WALK THAT F*CKING DUCK, AND SUPPORT SMALL QUEER BUSINESS (DRAG)!!!
This conversation is hard and sometimes uncomfortable and can be challenging to have, but we have to keep having it anyway. Someone asked me last night why this conversation matters so much to me because it doesn’t impact me.
But doesn’t it? Isn’t there that whole poem about how not standing up for the most marginalized members of society comes back to literally kill you? Was there another message we were supposed to take away from that?
Yes, I have trans and non-binary friends I love and want to protect. Yes, I love drag and support all queens—even the one who read me for filth because I wore overalls to brunch one morning when I was hungover. But this all, to me, is so much more than my personal relationships with drag and gender and transness: what this all comes down to is caring about other people.
I do not want to waste my life harming other people. I do not want to spend my days consumed with thinking up ways to ruin people’s lives. Genuinely—not even Ted Cruz’s!!! As much as I do not like that man, I do not want to waste even a second on codifying legislation that makes it legal to egg him on sight…or whatever form of violence would take down Ted Cruz.
Last year, Roe was overturned. This year, over 300 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have already been proposed. Whether we like it or not, we are once again living in that poem and I, for one, would rather go down with my waist snatched and face beat to the gods than sit idly by.
Thank you so so so so much to Christian for having this chat with me and for sending me the funniest Tweets in the world. I don’t like much from New Jersey but I do like you!!!!
As someone who spent years researching Trumpist conservatism, I still don’t necessarily know when in history we would return to if America was made great again but I feel like it might fall somewhere in the ironically-named Progressive Era when anything discarded by white supremacist culture was instantly demonized.
I did, however, attach a photo of Liz Lemon saying, “Another cool part was…the trees” when I submitted it because literature teachers love grading papers based on their comedic value.
I know Christian did just describe me in shockingly accurate detail, but I go to Hell’s Kitchen, sing Grease songs, and single-handedly supply everyone in a 10-foot radius with poppers by choice. Watching drag is just an added plus!
