GateKeeping in the Drag Community

Every year, The Los Angeles Convention Center takes a break from its typical food and wine events to welcome 40,000 people to  RuPaul’s  DragCon for a three-day immersive, sold-out, energizing, event. Fans ignore the center’s “no running” rule as they break through  a pink ribbon to be first in line to meet their favorite drag queens and LGBTQ Youtube personalities. The entrance fee is $300. Aquaria, the most recent winner of the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race, also called simply RPDR, sits at her booth inspired by glitter and glamour, as fans pay an additional $15 meet and greet fee for a quick selfie with her.  Daniel Franzese, who played the beloved Damian in the movie Mean Girls, sits behind a table at the entrance to the main hall and charges $25 for a photo opportunity. This is a sum of money people will gladly pay if it means meeting one of their favorite gay actors at one of his infrequent Los Angeles appearances.

    RuPaul Charles, the most iconic and celebrated drag queen in the world, attends the event named after him. He is only there to give a keynote speech, take some press photos, and otherwise stay in a private area for a lottery meet and greet.  Doing anything more would cause too big of a commotion for the assembled fans.

    DragCon celebrates drag queens and other LGBTQ figures who are prominent in pop culture, but it also educates the public and inspires others to express themselves.  Some young gay boys show up to the convention center in drag with their parents. LGBTQ and straight folks alike wait in line from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. hoping to get into panels featuring drag queens and transgender people. ABC News considers DragCon sufficiently newsworthy to send a crew to the press room to interview these figures who have become mainstream celebrities. Some of them are more in demand than actord and recording artists.

      Gender is more fluid than ever. One by one, transgender people and drag queens that used to be damned, shamed, dismissed and hated, are becoming celebrities. In 1998, transgender female Rita Hester was brutally murdered in her own apartment and the killer has yet to be found. Back then, the only way to experience the life of a drag queen was to go to a gay bar. In 2015, Youtuber Gigi Gorgeous documented her life transitioning from male to female and earned millions for it in ad revenue and brand deals with  CrushXO Makeup. In 2019 the show, RPDR, is a television phenomenon that people in 1998 would never have imagined.

     All this visibility and acceptance has come with a price. “The mainstream success of TV shows and movies that claim to tell trans stories, do not always mean more safety and acceptance for trans people in real life,” said Reina Gossett, a resident director at Barnard College, to The Nation Magazine. In fact, the mainstream success of RPDR in particular has only featured one “out” transgender person, Gia Gunn, who was painted as a villain and was voted off almost immediately. Gia’s story was not of progress and acceptance. Many viewers dismiss Gia’s story. Since Gia was a transgender woman--and not a gay man -they thought of her as not a “true” drag queen.

     Visibility is a double edged sword. It can increase understanding, acceptance, and equality.  But, it also exposes a community’s every move to the scrutiny that comes with being a focus of pop culture and mainstream media.

It is 2012 and RuPaul’ Drag Race contestant Monica Beverly Hillz is on national television. “I've just been holding a secret in and trying so hard,” she said. “I'm not just a drag queen – I'm a transgendered woman.” This confuses many. If someone is a transgender male to female - and the definition of a drag queen is a male who dresses up as a female SOLELY for temporary entertainment -  how can Hillz claim to be a drag queen?

     Sonique, another former contestant on RPDR, announced in 2010 that she wanted to transition into identifying as a female. “Trans queens have always been around and part of the drag queen community,”  she says to me in an Instagram private conversation. “It’s everyone else that’s just now catching on because RPDR fans only know about drag because of that show. I think that what is happening now is progressive but it is something that has always been there and successful.”  RPDR fans are just now realizing that transgender drag queens exist, and exist largely outside of their television screens.

     Blair St. Clair, season 10 queen on RPDR, says the show has created and excited an audience that “craves drag. People want drag everywhere and often,” she tells me in an Instagram message. RPDR has given the drag industry “more clout and credibility which generates more opportunity and demand” for  Blair St, Clair and local, less popular queens. But has the show also created an unfairly restricted view of what it is to be a drag queen?

     “Gender is learned. Gender is a construct. As we grow up we are ‘taught’ gender.  You can play with that construct or you can break that construct, says Queen Sateen in the Netflix documentary “On Top." She challenges the restricted  view of drag queen that RPDR shows. Like Gia Gunn or Hillz, Sateen identifies as a female.

     Drag queens are using their platforms to disrupt  the construct of gender so much that gender is, in a way, being undefined. “Drag is a way to emphasize the idea that just because you were born with certain genitalia doesn’t mean that anyone gets to tell you to live your life any way prescribed by the genitalia you were born with, ” Jinkx Monsoon, winner of RPDR in 2012, said to Billboard last year.

     Drag queen pageants are another venue where gender is being bent and broken. While some pageants do find the “best” drag queen based on who appears the most “biologically” female, most pageants put that category as very low on the list of ideals. First comes talent and overall charisma.

    RuPaul is credited with bringing drag to the mainstream. But, he has also been criticized for creating division.  “You can take performance enhancing drugs and still be an athlete, just not in the Olympics,” RuPaul tweets, shocking millions, as way to say that you can be transgender and be a drag queen, just not on his show. He is implying that if someone is a transgender women and a drag queen, the advantages they have are too astronomical. If Peppermint (an RPDR contestant in 2017 who had not yet completely transitioned to female) had completed her transition with the effects of a softer voice and permanent breast implants, RuPaul would see this as cheating. And, because RPDR is the only widely consumed drag show in America, many viewers would also see this as cheating. But RuPaul has CROWNED  some gay male drag queens on the show, even though they too have transformed themselves through plastic surgery.

     “Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it, because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture,” RuPaul tweets in response to transgender females wanting to be drag queens in mainstream culture. But, the irony is that men STILL are dominating the culture if they are the only ones participating in drag.

     “Trans women have always contributed to the wonderful art form of drag since the beginning of time. This is not new,” Peppermint says to BuzzFeed News. RuPaul should be a mentor and an inspiration to ALL drag queens. But his transphobic comments have polarized the LGBTQ community-- gay males versus transgender female drag queens. There is a danger in a single story. There is danger in RuPaul being the only spokesperson for all things drag. There is danger in RPDR being the single drag queen show consumed by millions. There is danger in viewers of RPDR NOT recognizing that RuPaul provides only ONE definition of a drag queen.

     RuPaul’s infamous tweets about transgender drag queens have spread across the nation.  Some gay men who perform in drag NOW bristle at the idea of mixing this identity with the trans identity. A transgender female cannot possibly also be a drag queen, they say, because the very definition of drag is rooted in a male to female transformation. This is the definition of a drag queen that RPDR has perpetuated and reinforced. No other show in America exists right now, or is consumed widely enough, to give us a definition of drag that is more inclusive. There is danger in a single story, a single spokesperson, a single show being circulated that becomes representative of an entire phenomenon.

     Many gay men who do drag also feel like the “transformation labor” is taken care of if someone is transgender women. Carmen Carrera, from RPDR, started transitioning to be a women after her time on the show.  She already has hair that is long and wavy, already has makeup on when going about her day. All she has left to do is put on an extravagant dress and she can  call herself a drag queen. For some gay men who do drag, this seems unfair.

     The newfound visibility and fascination with drag queens has allowed ONLY a select few transgender women to express themselves through drag on television.  It is no coincidence that a majority of contestants on RPDR are gay and white, gay and wealthy, gay and college-educated, gay and attractive. To be transgender strays too far away from RuPaul’s narrative of “cis-centric” drag culture. RuPaul thinks “if cis men are not the ones doing drag, then it doesn’t matter. Only men can have a say in how patriarchy or misogyny gets destructed,” says Jimmy Hamill, doctoral student at Franklin and Marshall. It doesn’t matter how far drag culture has come. The most famous drag queen has a show that has created a definition of drag that centers on men and patriarchal culture.  It fails to recognize the origins of an art form that transgender females pioneered.

     Transgender women drag queens may feel like they don’t live a “double life” in the same way that gay male drag queens do. However, up until recently, the only way you may have seen a drag queen “out of drag” would be if you were close friends with them or waited outside their dressing room. Lady Bunny, a 56 year old drag queen, has no photos of herself out of drag on the internet; no photos of her “as a male.” This contributes to the fantasy of drag. It says “Wow, that’s a woman!”But, this fantasy is non existent for someone like Monica Beverly Hillz, who no longer lives in a feminine fantasy. She lives in a feminine reality.

    Even images of RuPaul out of drag did not surface on the internet widely until 2009. Again, he wanted people to forget that fact-- that he he was a male. RPDR includes segments in which we see drag queens out of hair and makeup and  in male clothing with facial hair. The feminine fantasy has been discounted. No longer do we wonder about what a gay male drag queen does in their “other life.”  The other life is immediately presented to us. There is danger in a single show telling us that drag queens are just dudes in wigs.

     There is a danger in  a single story. There is danger in RuPaul being the spokesperson or token for all things drag. There is danger in RPDR being the single drag queen show consumed by millions. There is danger in viewers of RPDR NOT recognizing this, not understanding that RuPaul provides ONE definition of a drag queen.

     RPDR’s format and concept have not changed in ten years since its premiere. However, what was relevant for people in 2010 is different that what is relevant for people in 2019. A show must evolve to keep up with the times. Even the Disney Channel for kids features a multi-racial cast AND a gay character. Queer culture has been breaking through boundaries and rebelling against societal stereotypes for decades. Gender has become so fluid that it isn’t even a spectrum anymore. It is a constellation. Yet RPDR’s bias against female transgender drag queens is contributing to the restrictive binary of male and female.

     “We’re so comfortable with drag queens. We KNOW that’s a dude.” - Katya, from RPDR in 2015, says on her podcast in reference to people not being phased when men are performing as females. When gay male drag queens talk, we know their voice is deep and their Adam’s apple might be slightly noticeable. They are DUDES and have come to enjoy a certain mainstream “norm.”

     We’re so uncomfortable with transgender people. We KNOW that this person used to be a different gender. People are uncomfortable with Gia Gunn from Season 6 of RPDR (who transitioned to be a female last year) because she is no longer a man dressing up. She’s a woman “full time” with still a deep voice and an Adam’s apple. Gunn, as a result of comments made by the one spokesperson of drag, RuPaul, is actually erased from the drag scene.  Audiences who only watch RPDR may not grasp the fact that Gia and other drag queens live as women “full time.” They will keep perceiving her as someone who only appears feminine temporarily when on stage. However, “Gender identity is a CONSISTENT expression that you hold closely and consistently, and that gets lost in this conversation a lot,” the father of a transgender girl says in “The Most Dangerous Year” documentary.

     Ten years ago, when RPDR premiered, it brought drag queens out of small sweaty gay nightclubs and onto television screens. It exposed TV audiences to one concept of a drag queen-gay men who dress up as flamboyant women. TV audiences are ready for more. This year, RPDR Thailand, in its second season, crowned a transgender female drag queen. The popularity of RPDR Thailand has defined for many Thailand viewers what a drag queen is - someone, whether a gay male or transgender female, who plays around with gender. RDPR, in America, has also defined for many Americans what a drag queen is - almost always a young, attractive gay male who plays around with gender.

     “Equity should not be diminished when shared,” Hamill says. We can change our thinking about drag queens and transgender people. We can change how we think about the fascinating yet confusing intersections and parallels.  Pride in LA is just a couple months away! It will feature both cisgender male drag queens and transgender people, whether also identifying as drag queens or not, in the same space for miles and miles. LA Pride’s FIRST value is to “never forget our past.” This Pride Season, let’s strive to remember the origins of drag as an art form that was inspired by and realized by LA Pride’s last value: Be our most authentic selves.” The Carmen Carreras and Gia Gunns of this world feel most authentic when they are transgender females and drag queens. The Lady Bunnys and RuPauls of this world want to find love in homosexual relationships while also being drag queens. Maybe Jinkx Monsoon said it best--that drag should be a way for gender to be messed around with as many times over as necessary until everyone feels accepted.