Hi all, I feel like there has been a lot of drag talk here lately and I just kinda wanted to voice some thoughts that I haven’t really seen shared here. All of these conversations sting a little bit more in the backdrop of everything going on the US right now with many states seeking to outlaw gender-affirming care and as an extension, being trans.

I’ve read a bunch of other threads where everyone is just saying drag is fine because it started that way, but a lot has changed in the last 30 years and I feel like that isn’t taken into consideration as much. Growing up in the rural part of a conservative state is an experience I am sure many of you will be able to identify with that’s particularly relevant in the lens of seeing how drag (specifically RuPaul and everything that has followed) has hurt and harmed trans fems.

In my area over the past few years, the whole “trans panic” thing of cis people being mad/afraid/insecure at trans women specifically has gotten much worse. The rhetoric of trans women being seen as “men in dresses” is becoming more popular from conservatives for sure, but now it’s become a common occurrence for liberals to adopt too.

I know that transphobes are gonna be transphobic no matter what, but the popularization of RuPaul has brought that mindset over to otherwise well-intentioned people.

In the same way that NPR today having an expert on talking about the overwhelming medical community support of gender-affirming care for kids was immediately followed up by transphobic rhetoric from the “other side” that was held in a similar regard of being a valid point of view is deeply problematic, I think that how mainstream drag has changed over the past few years without having the vulnerability of trans fems taken into consideration at all is very telling for me.

Like many of you, I’ve been on the receiving end of being called/referred to as a drag queen by people who then refused to acknowledge that I’m actually trans. I know that’s not the majority of the community and I do value what trans performers have to say on the matter. I just can’t stand cis people (especially those who are supposed to be on the same side of the fight) throwing caution to the wind and refusing to be critical of drag.

In the same way that pride has been commodified beyond belief by companies trying to get in on the opportunity from a $ perspective, the way that drag has changed in the public eye over my transition has definitely embraced more of the characterization elements that I know isn’t historically the case. Back when drag and trans were more synonymous at stonewall the term transgender was far from popularized as the word to describe our experience and I feel like in the decades since it’s hard to say that mainstream drag is still something that is considerate of trans folks today, especially with who the biggest face of drag is.

I feel like there’s a reason that a whole wave of new trans women (at least new in the sense that a lot of us have been transitioning for under 5 years) are voicing similar opinions about feeling uncomfortable by it and just want to try and see if positioning it in the context of the ongoing fight for trans rights does anything for the discussion.