Nothing Faux About Me: Does Mother Really Know Best?

In light of the recent comment RuPaul made on Twitter, we decided to ask our readers; is this something you agree with? As we expected, you all voiced a very different opinion..

When I met Michelle Visage at NYC Battle of the Seasons in March 2015, I told her that she was the biggest inspiration to me as an aspiring faux queen. She took my hand and looked me in the eye and said "Don't use that term 'faux queen', what we do is DRAG. It's real. There is nothing fake about you." I wish Ru and other leaders of our community felt the same. First and foremost, this is RuPaul's Drag Race we're talking about. It's her show, she can cast whoever she wants. However, she has said in the past in regards to being on the show that the only requirements you need to have are Charisma Uniqueness Nerve and Talent. So, one would think someone of any gender could be a sickening drag queen, right?

Honestly, I get why Ru, Logo, and WOW would want to keep the show how it is, as sad as that sounds. Female drag queens do not need to be on RPDR anyways! Where the problem lies though is the simultaneous invalidation of women in drag, comparing it to the likes of Miss Universe. Miss Universe is only for women who fit Donald Trump's extremely narrow standards for being a desirable woman. To say that it is a place, or there is a place in existence, for women of all different identities, races, religions, sexualities, and body types is completely asinine. 

Across the page of drag groups, social media accounts, and blogs dedicated to community, people took to the internet to state their differing opinions. A common misconception of drag is that the sole purpose of it is to impersonate/dress as women. Drag is more than just female impersonation. Doesn't 'just dressing up as the opposite gender' sound quite binary? It sounds a little familiar too. Drag is comprised of many different styles, forms, and is ever-evolving. Performers of many different genders, including RPDR winners Jinkx Monsoon and Violet Chachki who identify as genderfluid, have made incredible strides in the community and have demonstrated that drag can be done by more than just cisgender men. Drag has been stated to be a celebration of femininity, so why are women being pushed out of the fun? Creating a heightened persona, a character you can perform through, is drag, and women have been slaying the game for years.

This who feud brought back painful memories to me. I was a pre-medicine student a few years ago with hopes of becoming a doctor. Every time I told a professor, a coworker, or a friend my aspirations, they would tell me how hard it would be and I should switch to a career like nursing instead. To me, there is no difference between what happened then and what is happening now. When I came out as queer, discovered this whole art-form, I never expected to face the same backlash because of my gender as I did before. Telling women that they have no place in drag because they are women is sexism. Period. It is mirroring the exclusionary society we were kicked out of for being drag performers and LGBTQIA+ people. We can still love and appreciate what Ru has done for drag, but I think a lot of people who are siding with her are doing so just because they idolize her. Let us not forget that it is okay to disagree with your idols and not accept the exclusionary things they do. Personally, I am tired of having this conversation, but it is something we need to keeping having until it sticks. Women in drag are equal, there's no other way to put it.

Check out this documentary by Broadly, Can't Drag Us Down: Meet London's Female Queens