Who invented drag queens

As true drag queens came out of the shadows, mainstream media continued to paint more portraits of female interpretation. But there was a notable shift. The drag queen wasn't quite as much of a punchline, or a garish creature to shine a spotlight on. New films, like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert , depicted drag queens in more flattering light. There were documentaries in this time, too. These balls marked a safe space for individuals to express themselves and find escape.

But Paris Is Burning offers so much more than that. These subjects, once again, prove what it means to be a drag queen. To be self-assured and to wholeheartedly have an unshakeable faith in oneself. This film offered glimpses into drag culture: we were getting iconic quotes left and right. And for those children who can't take the fact that I still look youthful?

No bags, no lines. Reading came first. Reading is the real art form of insults," a drag queen named Dorian Corey says in another part of the film. I don't tell you you're ugly, but I don't have to tell you, because you know you're ugly. And that's shade. After all, even RuPaul's Drag Race has a "reading" challenge every season.

There was also Wigstock: The Movie in , which similarly gave us a look at a safe space for art, love, and self-expression. Here, we could see drag performers truly expressing themselves in a secure and unencumbered way. It marked a new kind of liberation in the drag community, one that drag queens specifically hadn't experienced before. Then, of course, there's RuPaul herself. Perhaps the most well-known drag queen in history, RuPaul has built an incredible empire.

RuPaul was hot on the New York scene , but her big break is largely thought to have been the "Love Shack" music video with the Bs, which was released in From there, it was a steady climb with 's "Supermodel" video , which positively exploded. But it was also Ru's ability to stay in the spotlight that ultimately helped her stay relevant. After all, she's racked up a whopping 65 acting credits over the course of her career.

In , everything changed. With the premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race , drag queen culture was able to mount a new, more exposed platform.

Drag queens were no longer something you had to seek out; no more did fans have to hunt around for local drag shows at gay bars in their cities. RuPaul's Drag Race gave us a place to see queens in the comfort of our own homes, on a weekly basis. And these weren't just any queens: they were some of the best America had to offer. In the near-decade since the series premiere, we've seen nine seasons, two all-star seasons, and more than queens.

The third season of All Stars is here. Season 10 is right around the corner. If VH1 can keep up the momentum, we may find ourselves in a space where some form of the show is almost always airing. Can you imagine 52 straight weeks of Ru?! We'll keep our fingers crossed. It's not just that RuPaul's Drag Race gave fans a better opportunity to witness drag. There's an educational aspect of the show that's almost impossible to miss.

Those who aspire to do drag learn about so many facets of drag culture. Each of these unique queens is helping to establish a broad range of drag styles, aesthetics, and characters. These lessons are not confined to the drag community. In season one, Ongina revealed an HIV diagnosis. In season eight, Kim Chi talked about how she'd kept her drag persona from her parents.

In season nine, Sasha Velour and Valentina got real about their struggles with eating disorders while Peppermint came out as transgender. Over the years, it's become clear that RuPaul's Drag Race is not just a reality competition. It's a wacky, dramatic microcosm that, all too often, speaks to the human experience. Each of their unique perspectives helps to paint the picture of a modern drag queen. But they also clued me into something else: Yes, drag is a collective movement, and there is a sort of traceable history.

But as soon as drag went underground, as soon as it began to develop into the fierce culture of drag queens we see today, there is no one specific way for drag to manifest. Every city has its own drag families, its own drag culture, and its own drag history. These three queens gave me insight into their own experiences with drag in Chicago, Dallas, and Brooklyn, NY. But drag, I've realized, may be a vast ocean that can never be completely mapped out.

Down in Louisiana, Kennedy Davenport was introduced to drag about 20 years ago. When we spoke on the phone in January, she recalled a memory from just 16 years old: "It was my first time I ever saw it. Snuck in a club, saw a drag. I think it was the combination of seeing my first female impersonator and the immediate love and attention I got the first time being on stage that got me hooked.

They were being rejected by their families, and really had nowhere to go. So the people, the queens, would take them in, give them a place to stay, and that's where the origin of drag family and mother came in. Luckily for Kennedy Davenport, drag was not a family dealbreaker. The popular "werk," "queen," and "yas" are all ball-derived slang.

Even though the terms have been largely stripped of their linguistic origin, they still carry connotations of self confidence. They empower the individual, often femme persons, to own their identity with the help of beauty and fashion. Even with rampant discrimination against Black queens, and marginalization within the queer community itself, the icons of the drag scene have helped modern linguistics shape a more empowering and confident culture for many feminine-presenting people.

Non-trans drag performers also helped open doors for the discussion of gender fluidity. Today, drag kings, drag queens, and non-binary drag performers all dominate the ball scene.

The Black and Latinx performers who shaped the Harlem Ball scene reinterpreted and elevated bold elements of s fashion, even shaping our modern conception of the female pop star. Gaultier often used fashion to explore notions of gender and oft-worked with androgynous figures like Grace Jones and David Bowie.

Drag still effects female pop stars today. Drag culture has also influenced fashion and beauty. Drag queen Violet Chachki—who is white—has closed two Moschino shows. But, perhaps more powerful than these singular explicit nods to drag culture is the entire aesthetic movement of camp. As the Met Gala reminded us, camp is king or queen, or non-binary performer. Drag, after all, is about the self, not external labels. Waithe demanded that the fashion world credit the queer black artists who made camp.

Through generations of innovation and sacrifice, drag performers created a movement. Drag is a culture and a community, a group of people who dedicated themselves to finding freedom and salvation through unapologetic joyful expression and performance.

Historically, Black drag queens faced oppression in Black spaces for being queer, and in queer spaces for being Black. Get the best of what's queer. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here. The drag and trans communities were once closely allied. What happened? By Samantha Riedel. Pose actress Angelica Ross breaks down the history and evolution of the term "transgender. By them. Contrary to popular belief, the term "agender" did not come from Tumblr. It is quintessentially drag.

But this success has been hard-earned: the story of drag, especially in America, is not a brief one. It is a history of the city, of queer cowardice and courage, of racism and resistance, of marginalisation and community. The practice of female impersonation has deep roots on the stage. Before women were allowed to act, men cross-dressed to perform their roles. Dressing as a woman, however, does not a drag queen make.

Artists we would now call drag queens were chiefly forged in the 18th and 19th century when, as gender roles became increasingly rigid, cross-dressing started acquiring a distinctly provocative identity, moving from a game of dress-up to a cutting commentary on the constructs of gender and sexuality. Stella Clinton and Fanny Park , for example, shocked Victorian England by dressing as women at parties or in the streets, leading to a well-publicised trial in which nebulous charges of conspiracy were levelled against them.

Though the charges were dropped, cross-dressing clearly started striking some nerves. Unlike common knowledge could suggest, American drag queens were not born out of the s cobblestones of Stonewall [the riots which are a key milestone in the US movement for gay rights]. In New York, when prohibition banned the sale of alcohol during the s, an inherent sense of transgression suffused nightlife, and the semi-hidden space of clubs and bars became ideal spaces for social norms to waver.

By the mids, moralist Fiorello La Guardia had dislodged Walker as mayor, prohibition had been repealed, and the spaces in which queer life thrived became increasingly policed and stigmatised. In a final turn of the screw, in , New York City banned female impersonation. But all was not lost: there was still San Francisco.