The drag queens I know are gay men rather than trans.
That issue came up this weekend in the death thread.
The divergence of definitions of drag quickly became evident. I would like to say it was surprising to learn that a common decades-old public perception of drag had been supplanted with a politically corrected one, and one that makes little sense when examining its precepts.
The "magic" of "drag queens" is the convincing presentation of men as women. That's it. Most often, it has been accomplished with clever fashion, makeup, "tucking", and prosthetics. The more complete the illusion is, the more successful the performer can be IF the entertainment is still such as people want to see or hear it. Sometimes the act may be to present a character who is intentionally garish, bizarre, unconventional, or even intentionally ugly, if the act is schtick.
The beatification of drag is an odd vestigial bit of dogma with some parts of the LGBTQ population. It somehow becomes integral or foundational as a presumed cherished value of the entire group when it has only ever represented the identity of a portion of the group, arguably now becoming less defining as out gays of every stripe are allowed to speak for themselves rather than be constituents of some bar culture advocates.
For my part, I don't question that there are now trans persons who are also drag performers. There is an element of defiance of social mores that is fundamental to drag, and I am certain that it has now been swept up in identity politics. Somewhere along the line, drag became synonymous with gay instead of the art form that was once peopled by straight, gay, and bi men, and very rarely, women (but without the intent to appear convincingly as men, only to wear masculine clothes.)
The melange, potpourri, or goulash of changing components and redefinittions is exactly what much of the straight population is up in arms about against "woke" politics when it comes to sex and gender. The result that almost nothing, including sex itself, is fixed or knowable or constant, is anathema to the larger society. Misguided and self-appointed martyrs for "the cause" have attempted to push the margins to the end that it is triggering a backash against gay rights.
In an era in which the centrists and moderates were increasingly accepting gays and gay rights, the absolutists and redefiners have managed to raise the ire of people who previously had more-or-less a live-and-let-live mentality about sexual behaviors and equal rights. But then, the thought police began condemning everyone everywhere of whatever prejudice du jour was useful in self-victimization and the blame game. Just as in this very thread, exaggerations and hyperbolic accusations have replaced reality, and straw men have been put in front of real men in this discussion. This isn't new to radical advocates, and has been present on JUB from the very start, as I recall. And that is accurate, as it represents the diversitty of gay men and their political and social views.
As long as orientation was a matter of private acts, there was an increasing acceptance by the dominant heterosexual population. Now, activists have pushed extrermes, intentionally attempting to force straights to make significant cultural changes far beyond simply creating a children's book of "my two mommies" or whatever. Drag is almost universally associated with burlesque for the simple reason that it is. RuPaul hosting a show on TV doesn't change the essential nature of drag queens appearing in burlesque acts in every city where they entertain. Bringing ANY burlesque element to children is an aggressive move. It isn't about gay rights. You could host a reading time with a buxomous fishnet stocking wearing woman, not indecently exposed, but it would be nonetheless treated as sexualized content. But, in the perverse mantra of the hyper-activist, evincing a "homophobic" or "transphobic" response is evidence of their presence, intentionally ignoring that the reaction was artificially invoked.
Further, elevating cases where younger children are experiencing gender confusion when it appears to be the actions of a parent who denied binary sex has justly worried the larger society that a social view may be creating the confusion rather than it evolving independent of that view. Society rejects that possible inducement of gender confusion in child-raising. The result is now that multiple states have required the use of hormonal inhibition of puberty to be illegal for a pre-pubescent minor. In other words, society isn't convinced that a boy who feels he identifies as female might feel differently once he undergoes natural puberty. The concept that it will cause irreparable harm is not accepted. This is the same society that allows adult sexual reassignment surgery, so it isn't an absolute taboo against transexualism.
We are told that unless the absolutes advocated by the extreme are allowed, then we have become some dystopian society. Society rejects that reduction. We are seeing it over and over. All change is not progress. There are limits in the culture wars. We are finding them now. The true believers have to contextualize everything in terms of bigotry. Harris lost the election because she's a black woman, not because the DNC has become obsessed with gender politics, provoking a mainstream backlash against woke dogma.
And the US isn't alone in these social convulsions. Europe and the UK are undergoing their own catharsis.
www.nbcnews.com
supremecourt.uk
