The Problem With Drag Race: From a Trans Drag Artist
Someone contacted me on Twitter the other day asking me to share my thoughts about Drag Race’s attitude towards trans drag performers. Me being me I ended up bashing this mini essay out for them.
I really wasn’t surprised by Ru’s comments about trans and afab drag queens. Ru was once very radical but he doesn’t seem to have changed his position and the world has moved on. At the end of the day his goal with Drag Race is to present a form of drag that is acceptable and consumable by the general public. I did find it highly ironic that he said drag “loses it’s danger” when it’d not being done by a man, because a cis man dressing as a pretty/sexy woman is pretty much the safest, most mainstream kind of drag there is. I was very heartened by the reaction of (most of) the community and how it gave an opportunity for the trans and non binary Drag Race queens to speak out and educate.
If you only have cis men dressing as pretty women you only have one viewpoint – as a trans man doing drag my take is going to be very different from that of a cis man because my relationship to femininity and masculinity is completely different. I also know cis women who are drag queens and their experience means they bring a queer feminist rage to their acts which is fucking beautiful.
While there have been queens who have come out as trans on the show and those that have transitioned since we’re yet to have a new queen who comes in openly trans. There are also several queens (including Sasha Velour, Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme) who are non binary, but this has never been mentioned in the show. This could have been a decision by the queens themselves but I suspect it has been edited out – again, Ru and the producers are trying to make something that will be easily consumable for a mainstream audience, and men dressing as beautiful women is an easy, simple narrative.
The drag community I’m part of in Bristol looks nothing like a drag race line up – we have afab queens, drag kings, non binary performers of all kinds. One of the best nights is Brizzle Boiz, a drag king night run by non binary kings. It’s also punk as fuck, with performers who are more interested in doing their own thing than following a script of how to do good drag. I go by the motto “if you’re following someone else’s rules, you’re not doing drag”.
Personally I’m unlikely to watch Drag Race again, I’m more and more just finding it really dull and predictable and there is much more interesting stuff out there. my message to everyone would be, support your local drag scene! Or if you’re thinking of doing it yourself, don’t worry about not being perfect or not being “right”, just fucking do it! I’ll certainly be cheering for you <3
