HOUSE OF SWANN

 His name was William Dorsey Swann, but to his friends he was known as “the Queen.” 

 It was recently discovered in the last couple years that "the Queen" may have indeed been the first drag queen in the US...dating back to slavery times. Both of his names had been forgotten for nearly a century before they were rediscovered. William Dorsey Swann, a former slave, Swann reigned over a secret world of drag balls in Washington, D.C. in the 1880s and was the leader of possibly the world’s earliest-known LGBTQ liberation group...way before that of even the Stonewall and Compton riots. Swann was born approximately 1858 in Maryland.  He lived through hellish slavery and the Civil War. In 1896, after being convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail on the false charge of “keeping a disorderly house” — a euphemism for running a brothel — Swann demanded, and was denied, a pardon from President Grover Cleveland. Swann’s crime? He hosted a drag ball. Swann’s action also was an historic act — Swann is the earliest documented United States’ resident to take direct legal and political steps to defend the queer community’s right to gather without the threat of criminalization, suppression, or police violence, according to the site, Nation. A nice read, but you will have to join the site, or buy a day pass for $1.00 for a 24 hour pass, to read the article.

From Fashion and Race Database- On a spring night in 1888, the Washington police raided a residence near the White House. They arrived into a scene with dozens of Black AMAB people dancing together and wearing women’s dresses in the latest fashions. Most of the men scattered immediately, struggling to remove their garments, wigs, and accessories as they leapt out of windows and escaped through backdoors. However, William Dorsey Swann, the self-declared “queen” of the party, which was held in honor of his thirtieth birthday, refused to leave. Filled with anger, Swann stormed towards the police to prevent them from entering the room and causing further damage. The National Post reported that “the queen stood in an attitude of royal defiance,” he told the police “you is no gentlemen,” all while dressed in “a gorgeous dress of cream-colored satin.” Swann’s defiance marked one of the earliest documented instances of resistance in the name of queer rights. After the brawl, Swann was arrested for “being a suspicious character” along with 12 other African-American people. Although this surprise raid led to the arrest of several drag queens, some reports claimed as many as 17 escaped, and without the documentation from the scandal, Swann’s story would have been lost in history.  

During his enslaved life, Swann endured the hardships of forced labor and lived through the tumultuous Civil War. Yet, after emancipation, Swann managed to thrive in a racist, discriminatory society. Despite experiencing various injustices such as police surveillance, brutality and public slander, Swann was an unapologetic activist for queer rights. As one of the first recorded drag queens and gay right’s activists, Swann created organizations for queer liberation and safe spaces for self-expression.  His bold views and celebratory drag balls would lay the foundations for queer activism and the future ballroom scene. The House of Swann’s balls parallel modern ballroom culture, vogue balls and beauty contests today. Could the House of Swann have created and started the whole lifestyle? Pretty cool if it did. At the balls, people would dress fully in women’s clothes and use feminine stage names much like modern drag queens today. Ballroom participants were divided into family-like houses, led by “mothers” and “queens.” The competition would be centered around cake walks, a form of dance enslaved people invented to mock their captors (so-named because the winner would receive a cake). Dancers would parade around the floor and use exaggerated hand gestures, perhaps establishing a precursor to Voguing. 

Swann's activities and achievements are quiet remarkable considering the day and age. In the late 19th century, Swann's drag balls came with grave risks to his guest' reputations and livelihoods. People who were arrested and jailed had their names printed in the newspaper and were target of vicious scorn. By the early 1900's Swann had retired from the drag ball scene, and left the House of Swann to his brother Daniel J Swann.  Swann's actions then helped set the stage decades later for gay celebration and protest like The Black Cat Uprising and The Patch protest in Wilmington that would pave the way many years later for the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement.Swann’s amazing and little-known life was uncovered and explored by Channing Gerard Joseph in his article for the Nation. Joseph is a journalist and historian, who also is writing a book on Swann’s life, The House of Swann: Where Slaves Became Queens, set for a 2021 release. In  his extensive research, Joseph didn’t find any photos of Swann. The pictures in this post are of very early American Vaudeville duo, Gregory and Brown, who caused quiet the sensation in Paris in 1902 by introducing the Cake Walk.  If any photos do exist, they haven’t yet been found. Joseph says his research on Swann began 15 years ago when he stumbled on an article from the Washington Post dated April 13, 1888 with the following headline “Negro Dive Raided. Thirteen Black Men Dressed as Women Surprised at Supper and Arrested.” Joseph writes that headline caught his attention and the rest uncovered slowly. I very much look forward to getting the book for my collection of drag biographies. This is simply amazing.

A huge hat tip and four French kisses to handsome tall glass of water, Mr. DeVice for emailing me this excellent info and bringing it to me attention. Report to my boudoir at 11pm your time. We shall dine on copious amount of Ferrero Rocher.

ALL HAIL THE KINGS

With January coming to an end, it also brings Drag History to yet another year of installments. And to close the month out. I's be remised if we didn't feature some Drag Kings, who I feel never really garner the notiety and space given like us drag queens. And their history, is just as long as ours, but didn't reach it's main stream till much later. If you ever have a chance to catch a show, go see them. One of my favorites is the talented and funny Murray Hill, I adore his style.

Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of an individual or group routine.They may be lesbian, bisexual, transgender, genderqueer, or otherwise part of the LGBT community. They may also be straight. A typical drag show may incorporate dancing, acting, stand-up comedy, and singing, either live or lip-synching to pre-recorded tracks.Drag kings often perform as exaggeratedly macho male characters, portray marginalized masculinities such as construction workers, rappers, or they will impersonate male celebrities.While the term drag king was first cited in print in 1972, there is a longer history of female performers dressing in male attire. In theatre and opera there was a tradition of breeches roles .

Actress and playwright Susanna Centlivre appeared in breeches roles around 1700. The first popular male impersonator in U.S. theater was Annie Hindle, who started performing in New York in 1867; in 1886 she married her dresser, Annie Ryan. British music hall performer Vesta Tilley was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a male impersonator. And of course there was Stormé DeLarverie, who performed in male drag along with female impersonators at the Jewel Box Revue in the 1950s and 1960s, as documented in the film Storme: The Lady of the Jewel Box.DeLarverie was also a veteran of the Stonewall riots.

Adam All

Goldie Peacock

Crimson Kitty

Rocca D Amore

Unlike drag queens, who pride themselves on making individual names for themselves and creating a "lineage," drag kings tend to form  performance groups. While they may join houses and maintain a solo persona, this is increasingly rare in the drag king community. Many troupes are created out of the desire to forge a cohesive unit in order to book shows and performances. However, there are more and more drag kings now branching away from the troupe stereotypes, and performing individually. Drag king shows are becoming easier to find finally,  and individual kings are getting bookings outside of the 'king shows' and finally sharing the stages with their drag queen counterparts. But's it's taken a long time. 

Drag kings are largely a phenomenon of lesbian culture and can most often be seen at lesbian bars or festivals. However, not all drag kings are lesbians, and some participants in the drag king subculture are not otherwise involved in lesbian culture, society, or politics. Drag kings are a diverse group, making difficult to find something universal that all drag kings have in common. 

Buddy Bing

Elvis Herselvis

Landon Cider

Murray Hill

According to drag kings Lee VaLone and K. James the divide between queens and kings is a problem that pre-dates the age of RuPaul’s Drag Race and has badly damaged drag culture. As members of Switch n Play, a Brooklyn drag alliance committed to “creating safe space for drag, burlesque and other gender-based performance,” VaLone and James are well versed in the city’s drag history. In the 1990s, kings were very strong in New York,but then there was so much shaming from the drag queen community that the king movement stopped and moved elsewhere When queens gained power and popularity in the early aughts, they began to dominate queer spaces.. As a result, the king community in New York today is so small that it has been rendered nearly invisible. Of course, there are still a few highly successful New York kings like Murray Hill, but the rich community of kings behind them has all but disappeared.

It’s disappointing to hear about drag queens creating unwelcoming queer spaces, especially when they make such a fuss about celebrating diversity. Older friends of mine tell me that New York nightlife used to be a potluck where all kinds of drag and burlesque came together without all the segregation. Crimson Kitty has become a poster child for what she calls “drag equality,” and the infinite diversity within the drag world. I like her vision for a unified drag community, in which creative energy is freely exchanged among kings, queens, and everything in between. She imagines a drag culture where gender performers see only what they have in common. “Drag performers should realize we’re all doing the same job—nightlife...and it is our job, and our makeup is our uniform.”  

And I believe she would be right.  

Here's a fascinating video with three talented kings talking, not to mention some of Murray's funny commentary.

ROSA PARKS OF GAY RIGHTS

The Widow Norton and the Imperial Court played a huge part in drag history.

By the 1950s, police had begun cracking down on gay-friendly establishments and enforcing anti-cross-dressing laws; in New York, for instance, men were legally obligated to wear no fewer than three pieces of male clothing in order to not be arrested for drag. Amid intensifying anti-gay hostility, in 1965, the Imperial Court System was founded as the first drag queen organization, and that kind of community building among drag queens would ultimately prove to be a valuable resource within the broader gay community that had begun making itself more publicly known. Even in the face of legal repression and social ostracism, drag queen communities began to organize more formally in the mid-1960s. In response to the police shutting down a string of gay bars, José Julio Sarria, and better known as  Absolute Empress I, the Widow Norton,  San Francisco's first openly gay political candidate and local performer, founded the Imperial Court System that united the drag queen and gay community at large for annual drag balls and other events. Chapters now exist in cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico and largely serve as philanthropic organizations that help support HIV and AIDS prevention and research.

Sarria was the only child of a Colombian mother; his father was a San Franciscan who had no role in his life. As a young man, Sarria served in World War II, becoming a staff sergeant. When he returned to the United States, he trained to become a teacher, but a morals charge closed that career path to him. Eventually he took a job as a waiter at the Black Cat Cafe in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. There he began singing while waiting tables and shortly thereafter started his long career as a drag performer. Soon his campy one-man versions of notable operas, peppered with local references and humorous commentary, changed the Black Cat from a bohemian venue into a world-famous gay bar and a place of community for gay men. As the political remarks in his shows increased and became more pointed, Sarria was revealed as a pioneer in gay political theatre and a full-blown political activist, outdoors as well as indoors. During a time of significant police harassment of the LGBT community, Sarria encouraged his followers to stand up for themselves and to reject second-class status. He was known for the slogan “United we stand, divided they arrest us one by one.” He encouraged his friends and admirers to fight back against police harassment—to demand a jury trial rather than seem to admit to guilt and pay a fine.

In the mid-1960s, at San Francisco’s first public drag ball, Sarria was named the Queen of the Ball, but, declaring himself “already a queen,” he preferred to claim the grander title “Empress” and the broader territory of San Francisco. He also appropriated the legend of the Emperor Joshua Abraham Norton, an eccentric 19th-century San Franciscan miner and rice baron who in 1858 had proclaimed himself the Emperor of the United States and Canada and Protector of Mexico. When he passed on 2013, it was one of the largest funerals in some time in San Fran.  His legacy was honored by the city of San Francisco with the renaming of a section of Castro Street  as José Sarria Court. The city also placed a plaque that notes Sarria’s contributions in the sidewalk in front of the Harvey Milk Memorial Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, located at 1 José Sarria Court

Because of Sarria's founding of the Imperial Court System, today it governs approximately 70 kingdoms in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Today, the International Court System is the largest LGBT organization in the country, second only to the Metropolitan Community Church. The biggest night for the court is the famous Night of A Thousand Gowns, where it is a must to donne huge hair and gowns, or come in black tie. The event is incredible. The Court is a social, fundraising organization which has raised millions of dollars for social service and health support organizations. In addition to their own fundraising, they often lend their support and talent to other organizations in their ventures by performing, volunteering or just adding beauty and style! The members are people who have chosen to make a commitment, get involved and make a difference in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. And the membership is broad and varied: lawyers, carpenters, therapists, ministers, stockbrokers, hairdressers, marketers, performers, accountants, teachers, florists, antique dealers, jewelers and more.

Our very own Regent Lady Finger and husband royale.

Maybe one year I'll go as the Empress Madeline Borghese I, theTemptress of peace, art and seduction ?

GENEROSITY AMID GLITTER

Doris Fish was the stage name for Sydney-born and Sydney and San Francisco-based drag queen, artist, actor and writer Philip Mills. As Doris Fish, Mills wrote and starred in the cult movie classic Vegas in Space. 

Art and performance
Sydney

Mills began performing as Doris Fish in Sydney in 1972, as one of the three core performers of the political drag group Sylvia and the Synthetics, along with Miss Abood (Danny Abood, Daniel Archer) and Jacqueline Hyde. In 1975 Mills visited San Francisco for the first time on holidays before moving there permanently the following year. Doris regularly returned to Sydney, Australia in the late 1970s, comparing shows for Cabaret Conspiracy performing in the Sydney Gay Theatre Group's production of Noel Greig's As Time Goes By, or performing at venues such as Garibaldi's along with the Doreen's. During 1978–1979 Mills as Doris was also the American West-Coast Correspondent for Campaign, a national gay and lesbian newspaper in Australia. With the development of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras Workshop in 1983, Mills would return annually to volunteer in the Workshop building community floats and creating costumes for Doris' individual and group floats. Doris also continued to host events, including the first Mardi Gras Awards at Kinselas in 1987.

San Francisco

In 1976 at an audition for the rock group The Tubes, he met fellow drag queen Tippi, and they became roommates. In 1977 San Francisco gay leaders urged no drag on Gay Freedom Day. Doris and many other drags turned out in force. Also in 1977, Doris was cast in the James Moss directed feature-length film Magazine movie, a magazine format film about San Francisco, playing herself, "a fake woman from Australia who has won the heart of San Francisco". At a come-as-your-favorite-Fellini-character party in 1979. Mills met Miss X who wasn't yet serious about doing drag, but by the end of the year Doris Fish, Tippi and Miss X were performing as Sluts-A-Go-Go. Contrary to popular belief, Sluts-A-Go-Go is not a group featuring Anne Marie, Duchess Deedles and myself. 

Throughout the 1980s Doris Fish was one of the more prominent drag queens in San Francisco. On stage, Doris Fish performed for over 10 years in San Francisco with Miss X and Tippi as Sluts A-Go-Go.  Sluts A-Go-Go performed in venues like Club 181 with shows such as Marc Huestis' Naked Brunch, Nightclub of the Living Dead, along with other performers such as Sandelle Hebert and Tommy Pace. In 1986, Doris and Tippi did a weekly cable news show about the gay community, although some viewers complained that Doris was a negative stereotype.  As a visual artist, Mills painted hyper-realistic canvases depicting of drag queens, although as he once said, "If I could, I would paint my eyeballs."

Mills' major legacy to date is the cult camp classic film Vegas in Space, which he co-wrote and starred in with Phillip Ford, not to mention the endless hours of charity work and monies raised for various foundations.

Poor Doris is no longer with us... she died from complications from AIDS in San Francisco in 1991.The last performance by the great drag performer Doris Fish- in a benefit performance at SF Victoria Theatre -shortly before she died.

DRAG HISTORY- UNSUNG HEROINES

The Stonewall riots, as we all know by now, were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the LGBT)community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. 

They are widely considered to constitute the most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights. It's been said since then, that the bar was mafia owned, and that it's clients were actually a mix of middle class white male gay men and various parts of the gay community from lower class to poor. There are many different stories as to it being a drag hang out and not, but there is no denying, that night, there was many from the community present in the drinking hole, and that many of the drag queens and cross dressers were not taking shit that night. A straight male friend of mine always said if he is ever in a fight, he hopes one of his drag queens friends are present because they don't take shit, and I have to say they don't! But that night were some brave souls that must be remembered.

Marsha P. Johnson was a transwoman who became an important face to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in New York City. She was recognized by being herself and fearing no judgment of the harassment and ridicule of dressing and living as a woman, while having the masculine features of a man. The hardships of a transgender individual were nothing new to Marsha who herself was living on the streets of New York without a permanent home or financial and living arrangements. This tended to be a normal struggle of  drag queens and transgender individuals. Marsha P. Johnson felt these people who wanted nothing more than to be their selves deserved support from the growing LGBT community in New York. Along with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries to help others out there facing the struggles of an unaccepting society.Marsha was an eccentric woman who was known for her exotic hats and jewelry which stood out to the public and attracted attention to her. When she was wearing these items or any female clothing she was Marsha P. Johnson. But there were times when she went back to her male persona of Malcolm. Along with STAR and GLF activism, Marsha posed for a collection of artist Andy Warhol’s paintings and photographs. “Ladies and gentleman” was the title of one of Warhol’s works that Marsha posed for in 1975. In the painting Marsha is not mentioned by name, or any of the male to female transgenders, which was to protect them at the time.Marsha passed away on July 6, 1992. Her body was found in the Hudson River in New York. Police and investigators ruled her death as a suicide, but people who knew her and were close to her insisted she was not suicidal. Witnesses saw Marsha being harassed earlier in the day and wanted a full investigation of her death as a murder. There has been no criminal investigation to the death of Marsha P. Johnson.

The name Stormé DeLarverie may not ring a bell, but it should. Some have referred to her as “the Gay Community’s Rosa Parks.” She fought the police during the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 and has been identified by many – and has identified herself – as the legendary “Stonewall Lesbian” whose assault by the police became the pivotal moment in the street disturbances that spurred the crowd to action. She was also a singer who toured the country as the cross-dressing emcee of the famed Jewel Box Revue, in which she was the only female performer. Radio City Music Hall, the Apollo Theater, and the Copacabana are a few of the venues where she has graced the stage, either with the Jewel Box Revue or as the frontwoman of various bands. She was the subject of at least three documentaries, including Stormé, which was produced by her friend Sam Bassett. She passed away at 94 years old in her residence which was a sparsely furnished room on the sixth floor of a nursing home in Brooklyn.

And most people do not know her name. She was Sylvia Rivera, who occupies a unique place in LGBT history. Rivera helped lead the charge on the night of the Stonewall riots in New York City, considered the beginning of the LGBT rights movement. As drag queens fought back against a police raid at the gay bar, it is said she was heard shouting “I’m not missing a moment of this – it’s the revolution!”While Rivera’s presence at this landmark event has been disputed, there is no denying that she was an LGBT civil rights pioneer. Yet she remains little known, even within the LGBT community. Rivera lived a turbulent life. She was born in 1951 in New York to a Puerto Rican father and a Venezuelan mother. Rivera’s stepfather threatened to kill her and her mother when Rivera was three. Shortly afterwards, Rivera’s mother killed herself. At ten years old, Rivera was on her own in Times Square, eking out a living as a sex worker. It was an unbelievably dangerous existence, not only because of the drugs and violence on the streets, but because of the continual threat of police brutality.Yet living on the street also gave Rivera great empathy for others in the same situation. After the Stonewall riots, she became part of the nascent gay rights movement – at a time when transgender people were not necessarily welcomed.With her friend and fellow activist Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and opened a shelter for homeless transgender youth. She was also an early member of groups like the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front, which were the forerunners of today’s LGBT advocacy organizations.Rivera passed away in 2002 from liver cancer. She was 50. Since then, she has been recognized with a street bearing her name in New York City, and tributes from LGBT community organizations. New York is also home to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project,, an organization that works to secure the rights of gender non-conforming people.

And this year in  New York City, the  State of New York is to host Stonewall 50/WorldPride, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and  it is believed that 2019 will be the largest international LGBT pride celebration held in history.