What Is a Drag Queen?
Maybe not what you think
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In all of this ridiculous trans panic— and now the banning of drag shows — it has come to my attention that millions of Americans don’t know anything about drag. At all.
First off, let’s go over what drag queens are NOT. Drag queens are not:
- strippers
- pedophiles
- trans women (generally)
In general, drag queens are gay men who like to cosplay as women. These are usually gay fellas who spend their days at work as typical gay men, but on weekends, or in the evening, or maybe at the occasional library reading or drag brunch, they prefer to dress up and act like women. If they’re really good at it, they’ll get on a stage to perform in front of other people. Drag is performance art. Not indoctrination.
In order to appear as women, drag queens will spend HOURS covering their faces in makeup, pulling on shapewear and tights — maybe choosing to tuck a little hip or booty padding in there—then a gown over that — often with long sleeves, especially if they don’t care to shave their arms — and finally, they’ll crown the whole illusion with the perfect wig and all the accessories: shoes, jewelry, gloves, etc.
Drag queens’ bodies are most often completely covered from head to toe. Literally.
They’re not going to take any of that off on stage. They spent HOURS getting it all on. They want to create the illusion of a woman. They don’t want people to see any of their manliness peeking through. They’ll often even tape their junk down to make sure there are no unsightly bulges to suggest masculinity.
Drag queens don’t generally twerk or grind or behave in a lewd manner. Since most of them don’t have real boobs, they can’t even take their tits out, and again, that would be pointless, because it would destroy the illusion.
