I did my very first drag show on July 4th, 2021.
It was a special show for many reasons, not just because it was my first.
I understand so much more about the power I don’t hold in my everyday life as a black queer woman. Gender-fluidity was already a real undercurrent for my life - I’ve never felt comfortable trying to only be one thing everyday. My humanity is so much bigger and stronger than America’s idea of a proper pretty woman.
I feel it all. I always have. Every thought and ideal around femininity and masculinity, I have felt it all. But feeling ‘manly’ in front of a community that supports that side of you while they also know the feminine side of you is powerful and strengthening.
Feeling ‘manly’, as it were, hit different. It was empowering in a new way for me to express in a masculine way - as in, what the world sees and understands to be ‘masculine’. I’ve developed a reputation around red high heels, which I love and always will (everyone has a shtick. this is one of many of mine.) I also like feeling comfortable in my clothing to do the things I like to do, but feel sharp and well put together some days. Others, just feeling loose and free, but still strong. How we clothe ourselves and present ourselves to this world - not the one we WANT, but the one we are IN - does speak to me. I speak back based on how I need to be IN this world on that day. Fashion doesn’t control me. I do.
This experience also exposed to me what it means to be fluid. I have accepted my gender-flux nature long ago, but doing this brought a lot to light about how one presents themselves to the world and when you are not received the way you INTEND to be, what that can do to you on the inside. When people you love cannot accept ALL of the things that make you who you really are, it’s painful. You can heal but it can sometimes take your entire life to try. So much is missed when folks avoid you because they refuse to truly understand you. And as painful as that is, you still have to BE you. You have to find your power while in pain.
I did that on Independence Day 2021 and I have never felt so free.
I hate that this is still even a conversation, but I appreciate that it still is. Lots of people from my background and generation are just learning the language around what we’ve always known we’ve been.
Thanks, millennial friends. You’re labeling helps.
It’s silly to some, drag culture. Why play dress up and walk around as if you’re something you’re not - some may wonder. Why make something like this such a big deal? It’s only theater, right?
It’s more than that.
It’s part artistic expression and part personal discovery.
I discovered how drag culture speaks to and exposes what the world, your family, and your persistent and perpetual conditioning refused to accept in you that you and your ‘found family’ do. That’s bigger than a bad ass stage play - but it can look just as good and it can feel way better. The applause reaches a deeper piece of every human on that stage than ‘just a play’. It means more when people give money and clap and engage and are grateful to be there, giving you so many thank yous for the experience of it all.
It was a small show that sold out in three days, in a little lounge on a common street in New Orleans who always supports our ‘found family’ (The name ALLWAYS lounge and theatre fits all too well…) and people there wanted to know when the next one will happen.
*deep breathing *makes plan *thinks of ways the next one can be better *dons producer hat
Working our way through this means that we are communicating who we really are for the first time in our lives with support coming from persons usually nothing like us. It’s a weird existence and getting it right means talking about it until we understand ourselves. It’s sort of like a baby deer trying to get a good gait. It’s shaky, and wobbly and dorky-looking, but necessary. It’s how we are figuring ourselves out.
Thanks, gen-z friends. You’re acceptance helps.
I’m so proud of how the show turned out. I am happy I had no family there. I’m not ready to talk with them about what this all means and what might change and what needs to stay the same because I don’t know all that yet and I do know that they will expect me to know.
I just know that I feel a power I never have before. I feel stronger in my own skin. I feel like I can be whatever I want to be - not just in the ‘honor student speech’ sort of way or the ‘tell this to your kids’ kind of way. The REAL way. I ACTUALLY can walk this earth how I choose to.
That’s what the world gave men and didn’t ever give me, although it kept saying it did and wanted to.
Through all this, I exposed so much of my truth and I have so much more of it to show the world.
Thank you to all that supported this experience. You will never know what it meant to me. I deeply appreciate every human involved with that and I will never forget it.