DRAG IS EMERGING

In the book Drag, Baker says cross-dressing remained a pervasive part of theater culture until the late 19th century, when it began to take a new form. Female impersonators developed their own vaudeville acts, wherein they created caricatures of women. Some of the first queen were the likes of Julian Eltinge, Barbette and Marcel Dunchamp, who started their own highly entertaining shows and became popular acts in the numerous vaudeville theatres across America from the turn of the 19th Century until the late 1930s. 

This moment in time birthed such mocking personas as the "wench" and the "primadonna." But in order to find the first iterations of the "drag queen" as we know her today, we have to pinpoint the moment drag culture became inextricably linked with the gay community, which some believe  didn't really happen until the 1930s. Before then, the scientific field of sexology was forming and began to talk about the 'third sex, The third sex was discussed as a feminine man or a masculine woman who desires members of the same sex. By the 1930s this scientific conversation had worked its way into the popular culture and linked drag with homosexuality. This connection marked the switch: drag culture no longer belonged to straight, white men. Can you believe that??? In this moment, we witness the emergence of the first true drag queens. It was then in the mid 30's that different kinds of drag queens occurred at the time. While other female impersonators existed, the drag queens were integral to the new, gay-friendly spaces that began to pop up. Queens like Jackie Jackson, Gilda, April Stevens,  Jose Sarria and the girls of the infamous Jewel Box Revue, were among the first to start all drag revues and shows in little hidden clubs and taking  drag in a new direction. 

The modern iteration of the drag queen developed in these underground clubs over the next handful of decades. Meanwhile, in the public eye, female impersonation was given a comedic edge; cross-dressing was portrayed in film and TV as a punchline, or an object of strangeness. One classic example is Some Like It Hot, which follows a farcical, almost Shakespearean story of two men posing as women. In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Norman Bates is a deranged man who dresses as his mother before killing people. Who could forget the eerie shrieks of the score as the shower curtain pulls back to reveal the poorly styled wig on Norman Bates's head?

Now  venturing into the late 20th century, we can see how drag queens finally began to become a more visible part of arts and culture. Drag was a powerful movement in NYC during the 1980s and 1990s, due in large part to the explosively experimental East Village performance scene, and its products such as the Pyramid Club and the annual Wigstock drag festival. At this point, drag queens were amassing large followings. Some of the first drag icons emerged: Divine was a legend out of Baltimore who frequently worked with director John Waters. 

There was something striking about a 300-pound drag queen who gave no fucks — Divine's incredible presence even served as inspiration for Ursula the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid. According to the story, none of the character designs for Ursula worked, until an animator named drew a vampy overweight matron who everyone agreed looked a lot like Divine. And speaking of Wigstock, Lady Bunny is the founder and creator of the event.

 Lady Bunny once told the story of her first performance in NYC, which speaks to a drag queen's complete willingness to make a fool of herself. A drag queen challenges you to laugh with her, and laugh at her. That's what makes queens so alluring and captivating.  Lady Bunny and Wigstock were what got me inspired into drag... as they captured the fierce, unyielding spirit of someone who is so sure of who they are and what they're doing that nothing can drag them down. RuPaul, who also came from Atlanta with Lady Bunny, both swung open the doors of drag in New York in a big way.

 There are many more historic queens: Australia's Dame Edna, Pepper LaBeija ,often referred to as the Queen of Harlem Drag Balls), and Flawless Sabrina. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't also say that Pepper La Beija and the ball culture didn't also bring about some new style of queens and performance style.

 Paris Is Burning, chronicled the aforementioned Harlem drag balls, where Pepper LeBeija reigned supreme. As we descend into this unfamiliar world, we witnessed the true artistry of a drag ball, which was like a sporting event for the LGBTQ+ community. It is also where the term reading, shade, and spilling the t came from. These balls marked a safe space for individuals to express themselves and find escape, I also firmly believe indirectly it also helped slur the "club kid" where the like of the legendary Leigh Bowery, Richie Rich and Amanda Lepore were bore.

DRAG NOSTALGIA II

Picking up where we left off was the beginning of the early 1900's . It was a mainstream lark for a straight man to put on a dress and “play act” as a woman. It was not always associated with "sexual deviancy."

Julian Eltinge was even so popular, and gaining more notice... that he launched his own magazine full of wardrobe and makeup advice for biological women. And his performances were being sold out.

Florin, pictured here, was another well renowned “female impersonator” in Paris, where there was also a flourishing drag scene.

1916: Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald performed in drag during a college performance of a musical he co-wrote.

1920: Drag becomes more closely aligned with the LGBT community with the advent of “drag balls,” which were enormous LGBT parties where most men dressed in drag.

As the 1920s progressed, the drag balls gained more and more cultural attention, eventually starting a period called the “Pansy Craze.” New York, Berlin, Paris, and London embraced the Pansy Craze and performers like Rae Bourbon (pictured below).

This period lasted from the 1920s through the end of prohibition.

Noted drag queen Harry S. Franklyn was another popular performer during the Pansy Craze of the 1920s.

Vander Clyde, or “Barbette,” was a huge vaudevillian sensation. She traveled around the States and Europe with her infamous aerial act, which featured death-defying trapeze stunts in full drag. At the end of her act she would remove her wig and strike a masculine pose. I have read her story in Barbette...what an entertaining read.

Mainstream society was still enjoying comedic drag queens such as Frances and Lonas though balls were emphasizing more glamour and lifestyle.

 By the time the 1930's hit, Female impersonators, such as Billy Richards, had to keep up their styles and trends as much as any other woman. It could be an expensive career.

Drag's place in society continued to evolve as the '30s turned into the '40s. This infamous photo of a drag queen being arrested shows how the mere act of cross-dressing could still be a punishable offense.

Though the perceived threat of homosexuals was becoming more and more taboo in society, female impersonators still had a place in entertainment.

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During a time when gay people were viewed as abhorrent subversives and a threat to society, two gay lovers, Danny Brown and Doc Benner, created and produced America’s first racially inclusive traveling revue of female impersonators. It was staffed almost entirely by gay men and one gay woman and was known as the fabulous Jewel Box Revue. In many ways it was America’s first gay community.

1940s: Drag balls went further and further underground to avoid police harassment. The days of the “Pansy Craze” were no more. By 1941 however, as long as the cross-dressing was done for the purpose of entertainment, the public could handle men in dresses.

DRAG NOSTALGIA

Because of our forefathers, we in the LGBTQ community are fortunate enough to live in a more tolerant world. “Queens,” or men who defy gender norms and dress as women, have always been present in the LGBTQ community and pop culture, even as far back as Roman plays: Straight men like Flip Wilson and Milton Berle used them as punch lines in their humor; Divine created a media sensation when she burst onto the scene; and RuPaul began to break down barriers with her mainstream pop hit, “Supermodel (Of the World),” and a cheeky VH1 talk show. RuPaul’s popular reality competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race helped bring drag queens further into the mainstream consciousness. Starbucks even had a LGBTQ-driven commercial featuring drag queens; the Tony-winning musical Kinky Boots, about a factory that manufactures shoes for drag queens, is a popular Broadway show; and even Ru herself calls drag “mainstream” now.

While all the men pictured below  might not acknowledge being a “drag queen,” and that there’s a big difference between a transgender person, a transvestite, and a drag queen: A transgender person is someone who does not identify with their assigned sex and would most likely not want to be referred to as a “drag queen.” A transvestite is a cisgender male who enjoys wearing women’s clothing. A drag queen tends to be someone who dresses in women’s clothing more so for performance or entertainment purposes, or as the character Noxzema Jackson said, "When a gay man has WAY TOO MUCH fashion sense for one gender, he is a drag queen." I tend to agree.

Late 1800s: The etymology of the phrase “drag queen” is debatable, but many scholars believe that the phrase was coined in the 1800s as a reference to the hoop skirt. As seen in this photo, hoop skirts would “drag” along the ground.The term “queen” was used as a derogatory slur towards homosexuals.

 Brigham Young’s son, Brigham Morris Young, made a career in drag performing as Madam Pattrini. Supposedly, his falsetto was so convincing that many audiences did not know he was a man. It’s hard to believe early LDS audiences responded so positively to such a concept, but it was quite popular at the time.

Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton shocked Victorian London when they dared to leave their home as “Fanny and Stella.” They were the first men to openly walk through the streets in women’s clothing and shocked society so much that the police launched investigations that were normally reserved for extreme criminals.

In the 1800s, the term “drag queen” becomes more specific, referring to any man who dresses as a woman in a theatrical and professional setting.

Because no law specifically forbade “cross-dressing,” men found in women's clothing were usually arrested for “the abominable crime of buggery” or for prostitution.

1883: Drag was perfectly acceptable as a theatrical device. In fact, it was still more respectable for a man to play a woman in drag (such as these three Yale students) than for a woman to pursue a career as an actress.

This photo features a 19th-century student dressed in drag for pure amusement.

You may think that he’d have been punished for such behavior, but this man went on to become a well-respected Estonian judge and held rank in the Livonian Knighthood.

 And times started to change a little when in 1915 around the turn of the century, drag performance became its own phenomenon with the likes of one of the most famous vaudeville performers Julian Eltinge, who would eventually change things up.

DRAG HISTORY..A SLAVE TO FASHION

The Slave of Fashion--Francis Renault

All of the photogrpahs in this post happen to be of renowned Female impersonator Francis Renault... who was the featured model in a number of women's fashion shows and burlesque performances. Francis Renault was an active and popular ‘femme mimic’ from the early 1900s to the 1950s. He was born Antonio Auriemma in Naples Italy on September 5, 1895. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, where, after a show, he reportedly met and was inspired by the great Edwardian female impersonator Julian Eltinge. Francis made his vaudeville reputation impersonating Lillian Russell, the great American beauty whose career and pulchritude spanned decades before and after the turn of the twentieth century. Like Lillian, he wore gorgeous gowns. His investment in gowns was extensive, tallying in the tens of thousands of dollars. At some theatres like the Palace, his costumes were displayed in theatre lobbies, where women could get a closer look at their richness and craftsmanship. Unlike Eltinge, Renault was in the habit of wearing his female costumes on the street of the various cities and towns where he toured. This created a great deal of publicity for his show, but frequently incensed local authorities. He was arrested and released on several occasions for female impersonation, notably in Dallas and Atlanta.

 Out of costume he was a masculine man, like many drag queens and female impersonators, with many male admirers, one of whom was the young Archie Leach before he changed his name to Cary Grant. In his last years, Francis sang at Carnegie Hall billing himself as ‘The Last of the Red Hot Poppas”. In 1945 he was crippled with polio, and was paralyzed for two years. He overcame this and returned to performing at Carnegie Hall for several more years. Just another fabulous queen to pave the way for the modern day queens we have. I also find it interesting how elegant they were, and very seldom dropped the standards and their attention to detail was very impressive.

DRAG HISTORY IS HERE

        The House of Galore from Amsterdam

Drag has always been near and dear to my heart. I can remember starting drag at 22 and only just retiring from the arena in 2004. I'll still do the occasional show, or show up full regalia to support the other girls at a show, or just show up as my cute little self to thrown in some doe for the cause. But I still have many , many friends and acquaintances who are queens. I can't imagine the gay community without them. They add such high camp, glamour, and comic relief to a otherwise cookie cutter "cute boys" night out at the club. Not to mention they are hard working for oodles of great causes. Many queens won't mind when asked to do a show for charity, and break in those new 6" heels. Those high heels are why I have muscular legs, I swear! And at the end of the day, if you raised any money for anything, or made someone laugh, it was all worth the hours of getting ready. And to mention it take balls to do drag, even once!!!!

 

Drag shouldn’t be confused with transvestism, which is very similar, in the sense that involves cross dressing and switching gender roles. Most transvestites do not cross dress to be seen, as drag queens are, but to feel like a woman. Transvestism can also be a sexual fetish, whereas drag rarely is. There were many nights a straight guy would hit on me, to only find out I was a guy and still wanted to have sex....huh, no thanks. There are, however, some men, and women, who like to sleep with drag queens.

Men dressing as women in performance has always been around. In Shakespearean and classical Chinese theatre men would play the parts of women as women would not be permitted to appear on stage. We can see early forms of traditional drag appearing towards the late 1800s and early 20th century.

Julian Eltinge began performing in Broadway shows from the age of 10, appearing as a girl, and by 1910 reached the height of his fame going on a national tour of America and even producing his own magazine. After the two world wars, under Joseph McCartney, national paranoia in America was rife. Anything deemed ‘subversive’  was also deemed a national risk. In the 1950s the US State Department decided that homosexuals were part of these ‘subversive’ groups. The FBI and police kept records of ‘known homosexuals’, and printed their photographs in local papers. Cities performed sweeps of bars and nightclubs to ‘rid’ neighbourhoods of gay people. The wearing of opposite gender clothes were banned, and gay men and women were often publically humiliated, harassed, fired from jobs, jailed or institutionalised in mental hospitals.

Jackie Jackson

Small pockets of activism grew throughout the 1950s and 60s, however the gay rights movement is often though to have begun in 1969 at the Stonewall Bar in New York. It was the only gay bar in New York at that time. It was owned by the Mafia and on June 28th, 1969, the police conducted one of their raids. Raids were common at the time, and if a (gay) women wasn’t wearing at least three items of ‘feminine clothing’, they were arrested. Those in gender opposite clothing were submitted to humiliating ‘gender checking’ and arrested. This raid, however, did not go as planned, and many, particularly the lesbians and drag queens and twinks, began to fight back. Many believe riots were instigated after drag queen Sylvia Rivera threw pennies and quarters at police. Three nights of riots ensued, which included another drag queen, Marsha P. Johnson smashing a police car window with her hand bag.

It was the first time gay people had come together as a community, and the events at Stonewall ignited widespread, worldwide LGBT activism. On the other coast line, one well-known Amerian political activist was José Julio Sarria ,also known under her drag name Empress José I the Widow Norton, who was a drag queen and went on to found the Imperial Court System.

 During his performances, he supposedly warned people of police entrapment schemes through his song lyrics. In 1961, he was the first openly gay person to run for public office. He campaigned for San Francisco City supervisor, the same postition that Harvey Milk would win 16 years later. He didn’t win, but came in 9th out of 32, which was significant for the gay community at the time. In 1970 the first ever gay Pride happened. It’s because of these drag queens, and these people, that we have many of the freedoms we enjoy today. Drag has finally come into it's own in the late 80"s and 90's with the like of some high profile queens, and for the most part are being accepted pretty well. And the scene has burst with all types.

 

Bermuda Triangle 

 

But more on the later. Just remember don't piss off a drag queen! They wear those high heels for a reason.