The Lessons We Can Learn from Drag

At 13 years old, I went to my first drag show. My mom took me and my younger siblings, 11 and nine, to a local bar to see the queens of Tampa, Florida lip sync and dance. It was unforgettable. The last queen that evening, Adriana Sparkle, had long, curly purple hair, an unbelievably sparkly pink jumper, a furry pink coat, and a full grown beard. She was gorgeous. She lip synced “Money” by Leikeli47 while sashaying and twirling around the bar.

Adriana sang to “Attitude,” snapping her fingers in front of her face.

13-year-old me was enchanted, possibly inspired. What a great way to live life: with confidence, a bit of an attitude, and a fabulous style.

Last year, a video of a child at a drag show in Florida provoked outrage among Republican legislators. As a result, Governor Ron DeSantis threatened to alert child protective services to evaluate parents who take their children to drag shows, which he called “child endangerment.”

Meanwhile, school shootings run rampant in Florida — with an average of 185 child deaths a year attributed to gun violence, and GOP legislators refuse to pass comprehensive legislation addressing the issue.

The attack on drag is just one of many GOP red herrings that divert attention away from issues that actually harm people.

Florida and other conservative-led states are increasingly targeting art forms and education discussing BGLTQ and Black culture — forcing teachers to hide or remove books from their classroom libraries, censoring A.P. African-American History, banning the discussion of gender identity in classrooms, and barring transgender athletes in public schools from playing on athletic teams consistent with their gender.

It's clear that many members of the GOP would prefer to live in a white, heterosexual, cisgender, homogeneous world. They do not value diversity. Thus, they hold no appreciation for art that comes out of decades or centuries of struggles against oppression.

Drag queens are used to being judged and marginalized, but they still remain themselves. Drag queens teach us the importance of self-expression despite the societal push to shame those who are different, and they show us that we can be whoever we want to be.

Based on his views, DeSantis would not consider this type of empowerment a positive influence. Before he signed the “Don’t Say Gay” law, DeSantis said in a press conference that it is “inappropriate” to teach kindergarten-aged kids that “they can be whatever they want to be.”

But biological men dressing like women is not new. Cross-dressing dates back to the first theatrical performances in ancient Greece. Men cross-dressed in every female role until the 17th century with the rise of opera. Women then began to play men as well, especially in roles of young boys, leading to theatrical traditions like a woman playing Peter Pan in the musical of the same name. As theater and performance developed, drag continued to be a way to create something fresh, exciting or comical.

It's a natural form of performance and expression.

On top of this, in many ways, drag is art. Drag performers in preparation spend hours doing precise makeup to create characters. They often wear beautiful, colorful, extravagant clothing. They select music and choreograph dances and break the boundaries of social norms. Of course drag gains an audience — it's amazing to see people not only free and comfortable with themselves, but also impressively multi-talented.

A few years after my first drag show, I had the opportunity to hire Adriana Sparkle to work a music festival. As we walked around the festival to take pictures with fans, we came to the topic of DeSantis’s anti-drag bill. Adriana told me she doesn’t want kids coming to her shows — she doesnt stop parents who bring them — but her shows aren't designed for kids. Still, she said, it's humiliating for a law to deem them dangerous or threats to children in any way, or to assume that drag is intrinsically sexual.

The Catholic Church is fraught with centuries of sexual abuse, Adriana pointed out, but kids aren’t banned from there.

It's clear that these new bills are targeting drag’s connection to the BGLTQ community and promoting stereotypes. These new laws restrict liberty and freedom, the very ideals that conservatives claim to support and expand. This phenomenon is just another part of the large censorship trend surging across the right-wing United States. Conservative governors like DeSantis claim to give parents more freedom to control what their kids hear and experience at school. But at this point it's just hateful, attempting to push heteronormativity and ostracize the already ostracized.

To me, it's a last breath of air for conservatives looking to silence marginalized people. The invention of the internet exposes children to all that exists in the world, and it's nearly impossible to control what a child may see online. But shouldn’t children be able to learn about the world in a real way, instead of being shielded until they inevitably find out about it in an uncontrollable way online?

Ultimately, the experience of watching drag and interacting with drag queens is good for children. The creativity brings joy to performers and to audiences of all ages. It taught me tolerance and empathy. It showed me the value of experiencing, enjoying and celebrating differences. Florida children deserve drag.

—Staff writer Asher J. Montgomery can be reached at asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @asherjmont