As a new member of the Oakland Board, I hadn’t yet experienced the perception problem that is associated with the drag genre; it wasn’t part of my context, until recently. I stopped at a few businesses in the community seeking donations for the Fabulous Chinese Auction that is a part of our annual How the Drag Queen Stole Christmas fundraiser, and at one place, the business owner’s reaction was so disproportionately mean that it truly shocked me. As I was driving away, I realized, “Oh, it must be the drag thing.”
I was 18 when I saw my first drag queen. I was visiting a friend whose family had relocated to the New Orleans suburb of Metarie , Louisiana. Kate took me into the French quarter where we listened to the street musicians and drank hurricanes and as night crept over the quarter, the air became more naughty and festive. I rounded the corner and saw three amazingly tall and glamorous women walking along the street in some of the highest heels I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t help but stop and stare. Having been raised in the typical American homogenous, heterosexual family, I had no context for gender-bending.
It’s no surprise then that that night in New Orleans, I was stunned still when I nearly ran into these enormous, glittered, stunning women who strutted so confidently down the narrow street, clearing the way with their very presence and calling out “Hey Sugar.” I must have been a sight, too, 18 years old and clearly, clearly out of my element. One of the women stopped. She was pink from top to bottom, curly pink wig, pink teddy, pink toe nails, pink eye shadow. She bent over me, ran an courser-than-I- expected palm down my cheek and whispered, “Such a beauty, cher, do you like our city?” I nodded my response. She smiled into my eyes, and returned to her companions. I watched the women as they continued down the street with exaggerated swinging hips, and there was something different about these women. Kate leaned over and whispered in my ear “those were men.”
Drag isn’t new. Men have been performing as women, as any high school sophomore knows, since the days of Shakespeare. Drag is not merely playing dress up. Drag is an art form, and the best drag queens will take the audience’s disbelief and tease it, like my pink friend, in a way that engages and entices.
Perhaps this is why the “Fundraising is a Drag” events at the Oakland Center for the Arts, are the hugely popular sell-out shows that they are. Curious? You still have time to get tickets for the premiere holiday show of the season, How the Drag Queen Stole Christmas. Click the link for the official press release, show dates and details. Tickets are going fast.






Jason Van Hoose

