This magazine, as you have no doubt noticed, is dedicated to drag queens and the transgendered. As you also will have noticed, I myself am not a drag queen. I am a gg (genetic girl). But I find drag queens so intriguing. Why the fascination with drag then? That, girlfriend, is a very good question.
I saw my first drag queen several years ago, when I was in college. My roommates and I were trying to decide where to go out one Saturday evening. A gay couple who were friends of one of my roommates was visiting. Their names were Scott and Scott (honestly!). They suggested the local gay dance club and bar, The Pink Hippo. I had no objections, in fact I was kind of curious, so we all piled into my roommate's friends' car and headed downtown. When we got to the bar, there was a male hustler on the streetcorner. Naive little me didn't realize this until one of my roommate's friends pointed this out to us! (Boy, if nothing else, a college education sure gives you an education about life when you can get away from the folks at home!) We went into the club and started dancing. The effect of the freedom that the haven of the Pink Hippo provided was immediate as I Scott and Scott were now able to hold hands without embarrassment. My friends and I started dancing and having a good time amidst the diverse crowd. There were diesel dykes, lipstick lesbians, leather boys doing poppers, and yes, transvestites. Well, one that I noticed anyway. She looked convincing enough, but not completely like a woman like some transvestites and drag queens do. Although it was the first time I saw a transvestite (at least the first time that I was aware of it!), I was not shocked or horrified. I was fascinated. I wanted to go up and talk to her. About what I had no clue. Alas, I had no courage either. I never did go up and talk to her. I just looked at her from time to time, as if to keep making sure that it was a man and not a woman.
Which brings me to the question Why the fascination with drag? Before I answer that, I should make it clear that there is a difference between drag and transvestitism. Drag Queens are primarily part-time women, those who dress up in women's clothing for entertaining or performing, or to go out on weekends to go to clubs and such. Transvestites dress like women more often, as if they live their lives like women. Then there is the issue of transsexuals, pre-operative and post-operative. Transsexuals are those who undergo a sex-change operation. Pre-operative transsexuals have undergone the preliminary stages of the process of becoming a woman. They take hormone shots to grow breasts, but they have not yet undergone the operation to change their male genitals to female genitals. Post-operative transsexuals have undergone the operation. Though this magazine is called Drag Hag, I am including all transgendered people. I will try to be politically correct and not lump in the transgendered under the category of drag queens, but please forgive me if sometimes I fail to make the distinction.
Apart from the fascinating transformation that drag queens undergo, I also love drag queens for the sheer glamour of their world. I love the wigs, the makeup, the campy clothing. Just as playing dressup as a child was a means of fantasizing about life (and I'm sure many of today's drag queens played dressup as children), doing drag today is living that fantasy, making it a reality. In many ways they have more courage than most of us. While they have the courage to come out, to be what they have always felt themselves to be, the rest of us are too afraid to deviate from society's conceived notion of "normal". We try to conform to that notion, we care too much what others think of us. Drag queens, perhaps being ostracized anyway, are saying "Who gives a fuck what other people think?" They are truer to themselves then perhaps many of us are.
I went to a gay bar in Manhattan once. I went with two gay (male) friends, and my sister. When we got to the entrance, the bouncer let my male friends in for free, but charged my sister and me $10 each! I felt like a victim of reverse discrimination. I vowed to return one day, in wig and makeup and vintage clothes, not merely to cheat and get in for free, but to be a drag queen for an evening. Maybe one day I will get the "Who gives a fuck" attitude that so many drag queens already possess and waltz right in. Until then, I am perfectly content to sit on the sidelines of the field of drag.
So finally, to answer the question "Why the fascination with drag?" For me, I am intrigued that some men can put on a wig, some makeup, and women's clothes, and look more like a woman than many women. I am jealous of drag queens like RuPaul, Candis Cayne, and Miss Guy when their waists are smaller than mine, when their legs are shaplier than mine, or when they do their makeup better than I can. There is something fascinating and yes, strangely alluring about men who make better women then some women do. Drag is about transformation. They can escape into the world of femininity, of high heels and makeup and the glamour that they so long to be a part of but can't during much of their life. When these men dress up in drag they command attention from both men and women, both gay and straight. Drag queens take on a new personae when they don women's clothing. An average man by day can become a glamourous diva at night. Thus drag can be very empowering. Like the feeling of confidence that I get when I put on a wig and false eyelashes on Halloween, drag queens are glamourous all the time. For drag queens, to borrow a phrase from that 1980s club hit by Ministry, "Everyday is like Halloween." Isn't it fabulous?
