{"id":20250,"date":"2015-07-31T07:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=20250"},"modified":"2015-07-30T19:45:32","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T23:45:32","slug":"not-all-women-the-targets-of-contemporary-drag-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2015\/07\/31\/not-all-women-the-targets-of-contemporary-drag-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Not All women: The Targets of Contemporary Drag Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo taken<\/a> at the Napoli Pride Parade in 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Content Note: This posts discusses various forms of transmisogyny and TERFs<\/em><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Lisa Wade posted a piece<\/a> to the Sociological Images blog, asking some important questions about drag- Is it misogynistic? Should it be allowed in LGBT safe spaces? How can pride organizers\u00a0enforce drag-free pride events, if such an idea is\u00a0useful? The good news is that many of these questions are already being asked in some circles. The bad news, is that outside of these circles \u2013where specifics are unknown and the cis experience takes centre stage\u2013 such questions can lead to some harmful conclusions.<\/p>\n

First some basics. Wade contends that a recent Glasgow Free Pride event \u201c\u2019banned\u2019 drag queens from the event, citing concerns that men dressing up like women is offensive to trans women.\u201d The event didn\u2019t ban drag queens, but rather decided not to have any drag acts perform on their stage, but even this decision has now been reversed. In any case, the initial decision to go without drag performances was not made because of offence caused, as Wade says, but rather because the Trans\/Nonbinary Caucus of the event felt that it would \u201cmake some of those who were transgender or questioning their gender uncomfortable\u201d. Wade\u2019s misunderstandings seem to come from having used the Daily Beast article<\/a> on the matter as a source rather than the actual press release from free pride<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The title of Wade\u2019s essay, and the repeated references to \u201cgirlface\u201d in the essay itself, not only misunderstood the critiques levelled at drag, but also conflated blackface and drag. This misconception is appropriative of black struggle- it stems from conflation of the two separate histories, one of which was a major tool in the subjugation of black people across America and another which grew as part of queer (then, gay) liberation in a diverse, working class environment, led by women of colour. Comparing the two of them is highly disingenuous.<\/p>\n

It is an argument that is about as novel as it is accepting of trans people\u2019s existence. Sheila Jeffries, among many other TERFs<\/a>, is infamous for using this line of argument<\/a> to capitalize on the widespread condemnation of blackface in her efforts to attack trans women. Wade is, whether she intends to or not, using this dog whistle<\/a> in her essay.<\/p>\n

Getting a few facts wrong (Which is understandable if you are not part of these conversations. The Daily Beast got it wrong too and this is why allies are usually asked to take a seat in these debates.) and using terminology that is usually reserved for deeply transphobic arguments are somewhat superficial problems that lay on the surface of a much bigger problem: the centering of cis feelings on trans issues. Wade seems to think that the biggest problem, with the Glasgow Free Pride decision is that drag parodies femininity and womanhood.<\/p>\n

While this is true in the general sense, drag is understood in the trans community to be oppressive because of the central conceit of the parody: that the performer, while affecting womanhood, is \u201cactually a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about the bulge in the dress, the errant chest hair and the deep voice from the sculpted body. The fact that they\u2019re \u201calways PMSing\u201d is a joke about how they don\u2019t have uteruses. Their stage names, often punning on genitals (\u201cConchita Wurst\u201d), act to center not their femininity, but the \u201cfailure\u201d to produce a cis femininity. This was the drag that the gay media was insisting be\u00a0reinstated, and that Glasgow Free Pride allowed on their stage again when they reversed their decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Drag is not monolithic –both historically and sociologically, different drags have and do exist– which is why Glasgow Free Pride specifically critiques \u201ccis drag\u201d (drag performed by cis people) as making people uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Many of the drag queens of color who led S.T.A.R.<\/a> and Stonewall were not people who played a woman on stage or in a bar for a few hours a week, but people who lived their lives as women, and their drag is fundamentally different from that of people who perform in televised competition today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe these drags belong on a pride. Maybe there are decolonised drags<\/a> which would be welcome. But contemporary western cis drag isn\u2019t about femininity, it\u2019s about the drag queen\u2019s \u201c<\/em>failures<\/em>\u201d<\/em> to produce an impression of cis womanhood, the upshot of which, also produces a caricature of trans womanhood, seen by society as a flawed womanhood.<\/p>\n

Given this, it is possible to see drag as an attack on transwomanhood first and foremost, and cis women more as collateral damage in a long controversy within LGBTQIA+ communities. Glasgow Free Pride understood this, and this is why the call came from their trans caucus, not their women\u2019s caucus.<\/p>\n

Writing a post which centers the debate on cis women while spending a minimal time on trans women derails a conversation that should be about the transmisogyny of contemporary drag. It is an issue which is actively causing damage by perpetuating stereotypes and, yes, making pride parades unwelcoming for trans women and other maab<\/a> trans people.<\/p>\n

Wade should rest assured that the \u201cconversation\u201d she calls for is, actually, happening. It happens in trans communities all the time. It bubbled over into the mainstream for a few days, and trans people lost a safe space in a radical pride alternative in the process. What she\u2019s actually asking is that the conversation become permanently legible to cis women by focusing on the minor issues that effect them, rather than the transmisogyny of drag.<\/p>\n

T.Walpole is on twitter<\/a>.\u00a0More info at\u00a0drcabl.es\/awesome\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Content Note: This posts discusses various forms of transmisogyny and TERFs On Tuesday, Lisa Wade posted a piece to the Sociological Images blog, asking some important questions about drag- Is it misogynistic? Should it be allowed in LGBT safe spaces? How can pride organizers\u00a0enforce drag-free pride events, if such an idea is\u00a0useful? The good news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1512,"featured_media":20252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967,10006,10695],"tags":[1598,10351,2702,2721,55,1434,26621,10758,779,700,407,306,190],"class_list":["post-20250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-author","category-response","tag-community","tag-controversy","tag-experience","tag-femininity","tag-gender","tag-lgbt","tag-misogyny","tag-pride","tag-queer","tag-racist","tag-stereotypes","tag-transgender","tag-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2015\/07\/4790474933_bbee861156_z.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20253,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250\/revisions\/20253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}