Wow! I think that’s the longest response you’ve ever written to one of my articles. I appreciate your perspective. I debated including something on Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera as well. There’s only so much you can do in one article, so I limited it to my own experience. (Some of my loyal followers refer to me as Breevity because I regularly exceed the suggested six minute limit for Medium articles). I think you may be right however. I suspect Marsha and Sylvia were both transgender women. They were active and visible in an era where it was much harder to be authentic. And there’s no question that in the case of Marsha in particular she was confrontationally rebellious against the standards of the day to create visibility for the LGB community. She led a difficult life.
Drag may be fading away as a form of rebellion against cis normative standards, but I think as a form of performance art, it will continue to have a healthy audience. One of the things I have noticed is that more cis normative people are finding it entertaining and not because they view it as somehow making fun of or demeaning gay and transgender people. They thoroughly enjoy the pageantry and the humor from what I observe, but admittedly my experience is somewhat limited. I certainly hope it continues to be a viable form of performance art. The tradition of men dressing up as women goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. Japanese kabuki is thriving and involves men appearing as women. In Shakespeare’s time most of the women’s parts were performed by men in drag. As you rightfully pointed out, it is hardly a new phenomenon.
I am somewhat surprised that you do not enjoy drag. I am sure you’ve been exposed to more than your fair share and maybe it has become old hat to you. Since I have only recently become interested in it, it is still rather a fresh form of live performance art for me. And I very much like the camaraderie with both the audience and the cast that I have experienced. Interestingly, most of my exposure has been in the city of Sarasota, which is about as radically red in the red state of Florida as you can find. I think something like 75% of them voted for Trump in the last election. I would say that about a third of the audience is composed of conservative older Republicans. They seem to enjoy the performances as much of those who are gender bending. We all seem to get along well.
Finally, a mea culpa. I was originally intending to submit this to Prism & Pen for your consideration. After I completed it, I realized it was not one of my publishing options, though it seemed like it was the appropriate place to submit it since you were the one who issued the original challenge. Perhaps there is something further I need to do to be accepted as a potential writer for your publication. Let me know.
