The Stage Is Ours: Trans Women in Drag

I received the following comment on a post of mine, and I feel my response is worth publishing in isolation:

“I have to confess I do not understand how a trans woman can be a drag queen. Trans woman = a woman. Drag queen = a deliberate OTT caricature of a woman. I think the two things are mutually exclusive and, for me, drag is a huge trigger because it re-enforces the idea that we are just men dressing up. 😢😢😢”

Historically, drag was invented by trans women and trans men. Clearly, drag and transness are not mutually exclusive because there are plenty of trans people who perform in drag and do it very well. We are the forebears of this community, and everything cis men and women do as drag performers is well informed by what trans people created for them and the community spaces we foster with our art.

Drag is a queer performance art; it’s a style, a makeup technique, a way of thinking about outdated gender norms, cruel social expectations, and, most importantly, it’s representative of a rare platform for queer people who might otherwise not have a space to perform in.