When Prejudice is a Drag Queen: The Loss of a Transgressive Art Form

How is drag representative of our queer community?

1. Is it acceptable for a drag queen to make jokes that are racist or transphobic?
2. Old school drag needs to change with the times and learn how to express our more inclusive values as a community.
3. Has drag lost its transgressive nature now that it has become an acceptable capitalist enterprise?
4. Social change is coming quickly and often with fury. Pushing too quickly for change is difficult because humans don't like to change. We need to approach this challenge with patience, compassion, and teaching in a what that helps those who are stuck in the past to listen, and to understand how their words hurt and harm, even if that is not their intention.
5. What about Drag Kings? Why is it that men still get to dress as women and get all of the glory? Even when exploiting the feminine men seek to control and dominate social space. While drag is still an affront to heteronormativity, it still expresses male dominance so that even if not wholly accepted, it is perceived (by gay men and society) as better than a woman doing the same.

Read the post on Th-Ink Queerly

When Prejudice is a Drag Queen: The Loss of a Transgressive Art Form.

Cover image by heather buckley