The War on Drag
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Outward Slate’s podcast about queer life and the.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Festering feuds in the soft touch community.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I’ll get there in just a moment. I’m Christina Cauterucci, a senior writer at Slate.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And I’m Jules Gill-Peterson. I am a queen, but not a drag queen.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I’m Brian Bryan Lowder, and I added some things at Slate.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: So this month, we have decided to go deep on one of the latest fixations of the far right in the U.S. An art form, possibly as old as gender itself, that has brought generations of queer people together to celebrate and exaggerate the aesthetic signifiers we play with when we perform gender. It’s a staple of the gay bar, a favorite of The Bachelorette girlies. It’s produced a proud lineage of mentorship and family making and a wildly profitable entertainment franchise for the most famous fracking magnate in the LGBTQ community. That is a highly competitive and sought after title.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: That’s right, friends. We are talking about drag. Brian is just shaking in his little bit. So in our first segment this month, we’re going to dig into why conservatives across the country are trying to regulate drag shows out of existence and why armed hate groups are showing up at drag events to threaten and intimidate performers and attendees. It’s a real fun little segment in which we will ask why drag and why now? Then we’ll talk to a very special guest, Lil Miss Hot Mess, who, in addition to performing with Drag Story, our sort of the nexus of all of these conservative fears has taken an academic interest in what children take away from drag events. Of course, we’ll also share with you our prize, our provocations and our monthly updates to the gay agenda. But first, Brian, do we have anything in our thoughts and queries inbox?
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Kristina I’m really sad to say that we don’t. This month we did not get anything. I’m going to chalk it up to the holidays. People are busy, people are tired. Yeah, doing all that sort of thing. That’s fine. We understand. We forgive you this time, but please don’t leave us hanging for February. We want to.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: For the love for Valentine’s Day, you know. So please send us thoughts or queries about this episode or about anything that’s going on in your life. You can always do that at our podcast at Slate.com. We especially love to hear your voices. So if you would like to send us a voice memo with your thought or query, we would particularly enjoy that. That email is fine as well. Again, that’s outward podcast at Slate.com.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, it is time for our prides and provocations. So, Brian, do you want to kick us off with something?
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I would love to kick us off with something. I have a pride this month and it is about the film, the masterpiece, the cinematic marvel of our time. Meghan. And I am proud about two things about this film. So if you don’t know the film, I don’t know how you don’t know about it, but if you don’t know about it, it is a movie about a robotic doll that is created to take care of a child who has just lost her parents in a really absurd accident at the beginning of the movie. And she has like A.I. and so she and she’s not trained very well at this, and so eventually does what all A.I. seems to do in movies, which is take her mission of protecting the child a little too far and having to kill a bunch of people and the service of this mission. Great movie. Highly recommended. Like everybody seems to be loving it. So go see it if you haven’t.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: What I am proud of in particular is that the Gays’ made this movie happen. I don’t know if you all remember, but from the moment the trailer dropped back in, I believe was October. The gays were all over this. We were we saw the potential. We saw the camp. We saw the hilarious ness of this robot doing like a tik-tok dance in a hallway and freaking girl Dumbo like costume. Incredible stuff. We advocated for it. And as it as I said, it’s come out now and it has been a box office success at the moment of recording or the time of recording. It’s something over $30 million, which is crazy. So that’s very exciting.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Do you think Billy Eichner is just cheering and stay around watching? It’s like, Oh, the gays supported Meghan Regan, but not me.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And the gays were right.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I guess we’re right now. I saw a vicious tweet that would like point. It was like, Oh my God, like Meghan’s going to get more gay support then president. Which is sad. But I also wanted to just question that.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Moving on.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: You said. So I’m proud of the guys for making that happen. We did good work there. I also just wanted to quickly express additional pride and the gay or gay spirit possessing a straight person because I don’t know which one it was that has in this movie, Meghan the robot sang a lullaby, and that lullaby is Titanium by God and Sia. This is included on the original soundtrack for the film. So we’re just gonna play a little clip of it now so that you can hear what I’m talking about.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Freakish. Is that not the most beautiful lullaby that you’ve ever heard of?
Jules Gill-Peterson: One of the all time legendary songs? You know that that human musical activity has ever produced.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I’m just drifting off to a sweet little sleep right now.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again. Proud. Proud of the Gays’ for making a movie happening and proud of. Gay or gay spirit that made the song happen because it was incredible.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: All right, Christina, what do you have? Well.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Back to SRU form. I am provoked this month shine. So at the top of the episode, it is my provocation. Don’t know if you caught it. Did y’all see the movie Tar?
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Not yet.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Not yet. So it’s a film about Lydia Tar, who is this globally renowned conductor with expensive taste and a closet full of impeccably tailored suits. And she uses her power in the classical music community to buy turns, seduce, reward and punish the young women in her orbit. She kind of like will grant them favor and take it away and sort of gets off on being able to make or break people’s careers and gets whatever she wants. And eventually she kind of has a breakdown when she experiences consequences because of it. There’s like allegations of sexual misconduct. Cate Blanchett is the star. She’s spectacular. She plays a long haired butch. In my opinion, it’s her best lesbian role to date. And as we all know, she’s had a lot of.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: That’s saying something.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I know the plot, I will say, is done with a very light touch, which I think is interesting. So even though people have sort of hyped it up as a movie about cancel culture or whatever, a lot of the plot points are only sort of hinted at. You only sort of hear them as she does, like through little meetings and stuff like that. It’s not particularly dramatic, but does touch on the question of how to deal with a major talent who’s been accused of sexual wrongdoing.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: So earlier this month, Marin Alsop, who is a real live celebrated lesbian conductor and sort of seems like maybe TAR was based off of her minus all of the allegations of wrongdoing. She came out and said in an interview that she was offended when she saw the film. So I’m going to just quote her at length here. I was offended as a woman. I was offended as a conductor. I was offended as a lesbian to have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and make her an abuser. For me, that was heartbreaking.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I think all women and all feminists should be bothered by that kind of depiction, because it’s not really about women conductors, is it? It’s about women as leaders in our society. Blah, blah, blah. There’s so many men, actual documented men that this film could have been based on, but instead it puts a woman in the role, but gives her all the attributes of those men that feels anti-woman. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, Crazy insane is to perpetuate something we’ve already seen on film so many times before. So I read this and I thought.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: How sad.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Isn’t that a sad and shallow way to approach art, good art and bad art, no matter what you think of the film? Like, first of all, if you are down for gender equity, you should want to see people writing roles for women who suck.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: We’re writing roles that are women who suck because it’s more roles for women. It’s more interesting roles for women. And it also complicates our understanding of what women can be. Because what she’s asking for, what Marin Alsop is asking for, is kind of what they call benevolent sexism, where it’s like, wow, women are better than men. You know, women are gentler than men, more nurturing than men. And I actually don’t believe that. We have seen a lot of women in film, in leadership roles abusing their power sexually and lesbian, actually.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: But besides all that, it’s a character. And I think it’s an internally consistent exploration of a character and what she does to the people around her. And I actually hate to think of what it would be like to have a culture that only produces like feel good art about women doing triumphant and badass or, like, generous things. And so I’m not sure she doesn’t like movies or if she was looking for some sort of like, uplifting film about a woman who’s a great conductor and like, brings women along with her on her rise to success.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: But I also saw some other queer responses to the film, not to just lay all of this on Marin Alsop. So some other people were like, Wow, this film is glorifying an abuser, which I don’t know, like it’s depicting an abuser. I don’t think anybody would watch this film and think like, Oh yeah, makes Lydia Tarr look like an awesome person. It makes her look petty and insecure and self-destructive and also, like, sad and joyless. And I don’t know how people are watching this and taking away that it’s glorifying her. But I think it.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: It speaks to this sort of trend in cultural consumption today whereby people have to see their own politics and values reflected directly back at them in the most simplified and explicit way. And if a bad thing happens, there has to be somebody being like, and that was bad, or else, you know, And that’s the only rubric for determining the value of a piece of art.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: So it really bothers me to see that response to a film. Of course, there are valid critiques of it, but I don’t think saying, you know, why did they have to depict this woman as an abuser is a valid critique of the film, and it’s just an approach to art that I am sad to read. And I will say there may be some sort of like unseemly, thirsting after Cate Blanchett within the queer community in this role. I am not above having participated in that myself, but I think that just means we need more powerful long hair which is depicted on screen and abusive or not because we just haven’t seen enough hot people in suits or hot long hair brushes in suits. So I’m excited to see more of that. I’m excited to watch more abusers in the.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Future.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: On screen.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Christina wants only abusers. Christina That’s really.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Nice.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Yeah. Don’t take that quote out of context. Yeah.
Jules Gill-Peterson: As someone who’s so proud to see my politics femme robots who kill people representing.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Just.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: That color, where’s Megan being glorified in that film?
Jules Gill-Peterson: Glory.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I know. Yeah, I know.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Jules, how are you feeling this month?
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, I’m feeling proud. It’s. It’s sort of just unabashed, that moment of appreciation for me. Easy to overlook because the Golden Globes were famously broadcast on, like, a Tuesday, Tuesday night. I don’t know. Whatever. Okay, That’s an interesting decision. But I’m really, really was just blown away, as per usual, but especially blown away by Meg Rodriguez’s Golden Globes look and absolutely stunning. I know podcasting is not a visual medium and I’m not known for my visual description. But, you know, she arrived wearing a stunning butterfly shaped Balmain gown in this sort of rich royal blue. And it’s just absolutely.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Stunning in my.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Kind of mind blowing. Just, you know, to me, you know, the way black trans women do, beauty is just, you know, unparalleled. And, you know, we are should just be so lucky to behold and and find adoration and and of course, maybe a little added kind of, you know, significance because last year MJ worked for you guys was the first trans woman to win a Golden Globe. But that was the year that the Golden Globes was like, well, just not televise it at all. LOL. So she never got her moment. Whereas this year Ryan Murphy in the middle of winning something for whatever, did take the time to shout her out, which was much appreciated. And so, you know, just proud of, of everything that she does always in the way that she served this look.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And you know I’m not usually one to go look at like celebrity is commenting on celebrities comments and Instagram. So it’s weird that I even noticed this. But Laverne Cox left a comment on on MJ Rodriguez’s photo they just think is so apt. And so Laverne said she’s telling a story. She’s letting us into the depths of her humanity, her soul, while serving timeless beauty, elegance, high fashion effortlessly. She’s a superstar, not alien. She’s very down to earth, simultaneously grounded and ethereal, approachable and untouchable. So.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Oh, my.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Oh, let us all just give thanks.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I’m looking at the dress right now. I just looked it up, so. It’s so cool. It’s like so looks like a giant bow. It’s so. But it’s structured. It’s lustrous.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I like. Yeah, yeah, it was.
Jules Gill-Peterson: It’s just a feel good moment. So everyone go. Go take a look at that. If you haven’t seen it already.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Out Superstar and not Alien. That’s how I would describe it. That’s amazing.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: All right. So as we roll into 2023, we’re probably all aware that for the last year or so, there has been a war on drug growing in the United States and emerge from the same parts of the right that had been fixated on critical race theory and banning books in schools. And of course, it overlaps with the conservative anti-trans movement that we’ve been regularly covering on the show for the last year. While it’s been heavily fomented by the expected parties like Tucker Carlson and Libs of Tech Talk, it has not stayed in the realm of rhetoric.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: According to a report by GLAD, that was last updated in December. So keep in mind that these numbers are probably low at this point. 2022 saw 141 incidents of anti LGBTQ protests and threats targeting specific drag events. These occurred in 47 states ranging from Texas and South Carolina to New York and California.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Just so we have a clear picture of what these incidents look like. I’m going to read a few of the examples that glad counted. And so this is a quote from the report In Tulsa, Oklahoma, this October security video captured a person smashing the windows of a donut shop before lighting a molotov cocktail and firebombing the storefront. A bomb threat was emailed to a local news station in South Carolina claiming several bombs were planted at a restaurant, hosting dog brunch and threatening to kill performers at attendees. About 50 members of the Proud Boys extremist group armed with long guns and in helmets, full face masks and flak jackets protested a drag story hour at a church in Ohio. Armed protesters raising hands and Nazi salutes disrupted a drag bingo fundraiser in Katy, Texas, and alleged Proud Boys disrupted multiple LGBTQ inclusive events in Arlington, Texas, blocking the sidewalk and falsely claiming attendees were, quote, pedophiles.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: So these acts of violence are obviously terrifying for the drag performers as well as for the audience members, including the children, ostensibly in need of protection from, quote, groomers who have come to the gatherings and their working events have been canceled. Performers have paused, appearances and town libraries have had to rush to develop active shooter plans all over someone in funny clothes and makeup. Reading a book to some kids or calling bingo for a charity cause on top of that. And as if that weren’t enough, a growing number seven, the last I counted of red and purple.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: State legislatures are considering anti-drug bills this year, generally by classifying drag as adult performance akin to something like stripping with all the untenable regulation that implies, or by banning the use of state funds to present drag at places like libraries where minors will be present. Tennessee State Senator Jack Johnson summarized the push this way in a tweet. Quote, I was proud to file legislation that would ban any type of drag show that is sexual in nature from being performed in any place where kids will be around to see it and quote.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Okay, so we hear it outward are obviously like against the war on drugs. That’s not what we’re going to be debating here. But we did want to take some time this month to try and understand what is really motivating it. So, of course, part of the story is bad faith politics, right? We know that demagogues are using antidrug and trans rhetoric to stir up the conservative base, but I don’t think that explains all of the wild hatred and fixation on drag that we’re seeing right now. So I think it’s a segment we’re going to try to do is put the war on, drag on the therapy couch.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: If we can figure out what in the world she is going through, because she is going through a lot, here’s a starting place, I think. Have you all been surprised to see this turn against drag from the right? I mean, we are into season 15 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I’m a big fan of drag, as Christina alluded to at the beginning. But even I have to admit that this to me, it feels almost boring and mainstream now in a lot of cases. I didn’t see this coming. Like what? What? What do you all think about this? This turn?
Jules Gill-Peterson: I know, right? I mean, it’s I feel like as someone who’s been really trying to keep an eye on and even just keep up with anti-trans political violence, you know, that aspect of it doesn’t really surprise me in part because, you know, it’s really important to anti-trans politics to keep like, you know, to make the idea of trans people, like, incredibly cartoonish and vague for the public. And so this sort of merger of drag or defining drag rather, as like a trans person thing, doing something right, that that part doesn’t totally blow my mind in part.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Also, again, because I’m like a nerdy historian, that is just like a thing that does have precedent. You know, there were laws for, you know, nearly 100 years from the late 19th century to the 1970s that essentially did exactly that. Not only where they sort of nightlife. Municipal kinds of regulations that, you know, essentially construed so many kinds of performance as stripping or as like, you know, sex shows. But they also there were laws that just focused on, you know, what you could or couldn’t wear based on a fantasy of of your, you know, sex on your birth certificate or whatever. So that part doesn’t blow my mind in the sense that like, well, that’s all just kind of been sitting there, right? And in the same way that the grammar stuff is just like Anita Bryant, you know, to point out, as we’ve talked about before, that doesn’t totally blew my mind.
Jules Gill-Peterson: But that being said, I think the thing that you were just mentioning, Brian, that feels very 21st century to me, this sort of like, well, just at the moment that something becomes like kind of banal and mainstream is when there seems to be a culture where about it or the pretense gets used, right? Like the way that woke is really just a way to, you know, be anti-black, but it just like can take up all of these weird ostensible points or like the way people are suddenly like, we should ban pornography. It’s like, well, is that because porn is just kind of banal and everywhere and it’s like not really a big deal that like, you have to push? I don’t know. So there’s something in terms of that kind of, let’s call up mixes, Sigmund Freud and ask, what’s going on here?
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. Like, that part is interesting to me, the sort of push to, in fact, the push to sexualize rape and make as perverse and sort of over-the-top as possible things that are actually just on their face, not really like that. And, you know, I mean that not in the sense of like accusing right wing people of I don’t like all of the accusations, like it’s just projection. You’re the one with, you know, whatever porn on your in your search history. I think those are really bad politics. And also just like not true. But that that coincidence of needing to re sexualize or re scandalize something that otherwise just isn’t really very scandalous.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. And certainly not sexual in the case of drag story hour. So yeah that that part to me, you know, just because it’s such I’m sorry to say like. Like there’s a real risk of overdraft. They’re like, That is a really extreme play, right? So. So it pushes things up to an 11 right away. That, to me is a little surprising. I mean, I just don’t think it’s very smart. I also just think it’s outrageous and disgusting. But yeah, that part really I find kind of bizarre.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I do feel like and Brian, you’ve done the work of calling me in on drag and sort of like educating me a little bit more about its subversive potential and what it can be. But like you said, I mean, it has become really benign seeming to a lot of us and almost like and I think this is part and due to straight says people’s embrace of it is has seemed like sort of one of the more dulled down aspects of gay culture or the most open to straight insists audiences which makes it feel kind of like dulled down or dimmed, even as it’s so flamboyant because it’s everywhere.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: You know, straight people I know are obsessed within their own little like, cute nuclear families. With RuPaul’s Drag Race, I’ve opted out of more than one straight person’s bachelorette brunch drag. The mainstreaming and proliferation of drag is what has made it feel less radical to some of us. But it’s also that mainstreaming that has made it the target of the far right because they’re seeing drag queens on an HBO commercial. Maybe their friends or their girlfriends are posting photos from these brunches.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: And so at first I feel like the fact that the far right is scared by drag made me respect them a little more because they were actually giving attention to like its subversive potential instead of just absorbing its like surface qualities of glamour and feminine parody. Because I think they do understand deep down somewhere that drag exposes gender for what it is, just like a series of practices and signifiers and mannerisms that anyone can adopt and not some kind of immutable quality that you’re born with. And you either have one or you have the other.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: You know, whether they would explain it that way or not is an open question. But I think that’s part of why they find it so threatening and why people have said, you know, there was this guy with a really amazing name, the former speaker of the Ohio House, Larry Householder. What I know, really cool name. Got to give that to him. He said in 2019 that libraries should not be a resource for teenage boys to learn how to dress in drag. It’s funny because he’s recognizing that it takes knowledge and mentorship. You got to.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Learn.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Just incidentally, federal prosecutors are now investigating him for like a major corruption and bribery and money laundering scheme. But they know that drag is threatening to everything that they hold dear, which is like a rigid gendered paradigm. And I think they’re smart in their own way in wording a lot of these bills such that they can apply to trans people because they know they have their biggest super riled up about trans people and they would love to find ways to criminalize trans people going about their business.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: So like the Arizona bill that would ban the use of state funds of facilities, and there’s actually a couple of bills in Arizona trickling through the legislature that would do similar things. They define it as entertainment at which a single performer or a group of performers dress in clothing and make up opposite of the performers or group of performers gender at birth to exaggerate gender signifiers and roles, you know, that could apply to so many trans and gender nonconforming people.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: It’s and so it’s leaving it up to the subjective decision making of cops and prosecutors who may or may not take kindly to the idea that, you know, whether or not the bill was meant to ban, you know, a trans person just standing on a stage and saying something that may or may not be related to drag like that is how the bill could possibly get applied.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah, the legislative side of this is like incredibly diverse, I think. And so that’s worth pointing out since you brought up a text for us to look out. I actually brought another text for us to close three, and I think we’re all pretty good at that. So this is a letter, a quote from a letter that Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, wrote back last year in June when he found out that, A, there was going to be a drag queen story time event at a Air Force base. And in Germany, I believe before I read this letter, which we’re going to sort of break down, because I think I have some interesting things that I do want to have a little disclaimer.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Marco Rubio is almost certainly acting in bad faith. So I’m not taking this like seriously. But I do think this kind of politics works by reflecting like and intensifying fears that he knows the base has. So that’s why I think looking at the actual word choices and language is like worthwhile, right? So I’m not taking him at his word, but I am taking the sort of. Hopes that he’s choosing to raise as Syria’s.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: All right. So he writes, It is completely insane for this Air Force base to use on installation resources for rituals like drag queen story time. These inappropriate events are extremely divisive at home for good reason. In all cases, they place young children in close proximity with adults who are intentionally and explicitly sexualized. As I hope you can agree, decisions over children and their bodies should be left to moms and dads serving our nation and not not mediated through publicly funded propaganda on U.S. Air Force bases. So that’s the whole quote. I want to start with the word rituals. I was I was kind of like shocked to see that. We’re not shocked. I was I was interested to see that word because it’s a specific word choice. Do you all have any thoughts about what what he’s trying to sort of get at with that with that.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: He’s trying to connect it to like a satanic.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Panic. That’s got to be satanic panic shit, right?
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Yeah.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah, yeah. I like, I think satanic panic. And I also think.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: On.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Totally and like and like that the queers have this these like secret L.A. riots that we’re performing at, which is funny because so many of us talk about drag shows, you know, certainly the more adult ones, especially like gay bars at night where children are not present as as like church riot or as a kind of ritual. So it’s like he’s not wrong, but but he’s certainly using it to mean the things that y’all said.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, I don’t know if the Air Force base version is my idea of church, but you know. But point taken.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Absolutely not.
Jules Gill-Peterson: It’s so interesting to me to just, you know, as a very small side, the kind of way kind of magical thinking about language that Canon conspiracy theory has sort of like popularized on the. Right. Right. The idea that like dropping special words into press releases and tweets will somehow do all it’s like when really it just means that like when right wing politicians go on these bizarre rants where they’re like talking about conspiracies, literally, and no one except like five people knows what they’re talking about. Like, that’s such a funny. Yeah, I just have to imagine that the word rituals, whoever put that in the latter was like, Oh, this is really going to, you know, And it’s like it appealed to eight people who read a lot of Breitbart.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Yeah, I think it’s really easy for right wingers to, in bad faith, conflate what you said, like the kinds of performances that happen at night in an adults only space and the kinds of performances that are happening in libraries or brunches where there are minorities present. And obviously none of these people are going to work hard to understand the difference between those two things. And they don’t care, and they’re just using conflating them to their own advantage.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: But I do think I don’t generally think of Drag Queen performances as sexual or erotic. Am I just not watching the right ones? Like when I think of Drag King performances as a lot more like playing on eroticism and sensuality? And it’s interesting to me that none of these people have really latched on to drag Kings as something to be scared of. And I think that’s, you know, you don’t hear about like drag king shows being harassed, maybe because they’re not usually frequented by children or, you know, there aren’t enough of them out there. And they’re not like as mainstreamed as drag queen culture.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: But I think it’s also because and we saw this in the panic around trans people in bathrooms, too, that it’s always framed around like penises, like I don’t want a penis in a bathroom with a little girl, you know? And I think when people are scared about drag queens and they’re obviously making a lot of assumptions here, but they’re thinking about, you know, the the threat of a penis being in a room with little kids and trans masculinity is seen as a little bit more like Desexed, which is its own problem. But I feel that coming through in their choice of what to focus on.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah, I mean, that’s actually a great segue into the next little snippet of this quote that I wanted to look at, which is they place young children in close proximity with adults who are intentionally and explicitly sexualized. Yeah, I’m really fascinated by this sort of slippage between gender like sex and sexuality like that, that you were just saying this, Christina. But it it’s and I think some of it’s willful, right? Some of it is on purpose to to muddy the waters. But I do think that probably for a lot of the on the ground folks that are part of this movement, there is a slippage there. And I and I wonder or there’s a confusion there at least and I don’t know I don’t know what we think about that like because yeah, I don’t think of drag performance as gender in general as sexual at all. But curious for your responses to that one.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Yeah, I mean, I think I think this is the tricky part, right, is, you know, naturally, I think, you know, as people who aren’t right wing evangelical, Christian, authoritarian fascists, it’s like, you know, I think the thing that our eye is drawn to is the anti LGBT animus and the double standard there. Right. Which is like, well, what’s the difference between, you know, whatever was going on at this airforce base, which I’m sure was not, you know, the pinnacle of avant garde drag and probably, you know, it was probably pretty. What’s the difference between that and Dolly Parton playing, you know, that base, Right. Well, you know, aesthetically probably very little, except, you know, probably Dolly Parton had better taste than whatever Drag Queen. They got to fly anyway. I don’t know. I mean, so I mean, about the military bases, clearly like.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: German drag.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Queen.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Straight.
Jules Gill-Peterson: I’m going to be in so much trouble with that community now. But, you know, it occurs to me. Right, that part of part of how, you know, this kind of messaging and ideological warfare or battle works, right, is it’s also just misogynist. And part of what sexualized, intentionally, explicitly sexualized means just means femininity on stage. And there is an element here of of misogyny, right. That just like doesn’t want women or any kind of feminine performances in public at all. Like I you know just every day brings new like can you believe what these Republicans are doing But like apparently you know in the state house in Missouri, like the thing that some Republicans are on right now is they’re trying to pass a rules reform so that women, state legislators like can’t have bear arms when they’re like inside the building.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: And that was the rule in Congress until just a couple of years ago, I guess.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. But I think that’s a really helpful clue. Right? Is it’s like, well, the thing that, you know, the ostensible double standard here, all of that homophobia and transphobia of like recruitment groomers, everything that Gay and Transfield do is a sex act. And they’re just always out there committing sex crimes. Right. That has its sort of point. But actually, it it really only has its full point in that larger kind of ideological constellation, which is that like we want to keep women out of the public sphere. Women shouldn’t have any outward sexuality. Sexuality should be restrained and controlled by men. Right. And I think that children and the relay between children and women, the analogy there. Right. It’s like we have a bad situation here. We’re not only is there a performance of public femininity, but it’s for children. So like both the women and the children are out of control here and need to be brought back within the orbit of men.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. Or I mean, moms, too, because moms can serve that function. But I don’t know that that’s part of how I’m tempted to read that, because, of course, there’s just no where to latch on to this idea that there’s something especially sexual about drag. Like. Like, what are you talking about? Is there something especially sexual about slam poetry? No, I like totally.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: But my God, it’s aggressively unsexy.
Jules Gill-Peterson: In my experience. It’s not sexy at all. But you know what I mean? Like any performance can be erotic or not erotic. It’s like, not a very interesting thing to observe about performance. Right. And so, again, I think I tend to want to often put like homophobia and transphobia, like read it back into the very large project of just like straight up misogyny that often accompanies it because it is hatred of women and hatred of femininity and of expressive femininity and proud, unconstrained femininity and expressivity, right. Which are so often how homophobia is. Police like how many little gay kids are police because what they’re doing is just being expressive, right? Yeah, It’s like, that’s bad. And that gets sexualized, right? And so it gets sexualized by people bullying those kids. Right. And it just seems to me like that same structure over and over again.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: All right. So I think that’s enough about of of analyzing Marco Rubio. We didn’t finish the point, but I think I think we’ve had enough of a time with him.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Let’s move on to a quote from someone that we like, Chase Strangio from the ACLU, who told The Atlantic late last year when when a lot of coverage of this Glide report was happening, what he thought about why, why the right is so fixated on drag right now. So I just I just read this quote. This can be understood in two fundamental ways. One is a simple political opportunism of trying to mobilize voters in the lead up to the next presidential election by steering our sense of fear. So. Right, that’s the that’s the political part we’ve been talking about.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Then he goes on to say, The more you can control people’s sense of possibility of expansiveness and freedom, the more that governments can expand their authority over people’s lives. In general, I think we’re seeing those things in dynamic interaction at this moment. So and he’s talking there elsewhere in the interview, he talks about the rise of fascism, sort of generally around around the world. I. This was like a really smart and scary way of of understanding this. I wonder how you all react to what Chase had to say there.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Yeah. I mean, Chase was always right. But, you know, I think I think that’s actually that is the painful thing to kind of wrap your head around here. Right. Is like, of course, the pretense of these bills and all this legislation is bullshit. Right. And the weird, you know, policy wonk side of it is just weird and, you know, byzantine and labyrinthine and whatever.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. But I think the real prop here, right. Is using like nightlife or even community events as a mode to police and punish everyday life and criminalize the everyday life of LGBT people writ large. And and the and I think, you know, part of what Chase was alluding to there is that is something that has already happened so many times in U.S. history.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. We’ve already seen these kinds of laws before. They use different language. But like in the 19th century, you know, San Francisco passes the first anti cross-dressing law in 1863. It’s to regulate female impersonation in saloons. Right. But what they’re using it for right from the very get go is not really to shut down saloons. It’s to arrest trans people walking down the street in San Francisco and then to reveal their names in the press to try and ruin them and run them out of town.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And then we just see this kind of uninterrupted, long history of using these pretenses, which are disruptive and horrible for performers, don’t get me wrong, but actually have this incredible purchase because they’re defined vaguely on purpose. It’s all part of like public order, public indecency, law, morals, policing. And I just think that, unfortunately, you know, as much as we’ve been kind of invited to imagine that that era is over in the United States, it never really ended. Yeah. But also that means there’s so much infrastructure just waiting to leap in.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. And then. But I think the thing that’s so scary to me, too, as I was just researching a little bit about some of these proud boys showing up, you know, this summer at different drives story hours, I mean, this is not like sometimes they’re armed, but sometimes they’ll walk in, you know, wearing T-shirts with like a picture of a rifle that say, kill your local pedophile and start screaming at children and calling like their parents pedophile. Like, that’s really scary stuff to write, that kind of violence. I think also imagine what that kind of violence is going to do to help enforce. Right. Whether these laws are passed or not. Enforce that criminalization, that terrifying kind of. Yeah, it really has this chilling effect on people’s lives. And unfortunately, I think. Right. Like underneath all the psychology, that’s the thing that we’re left with is like, what are we going to do about that? Because that is having real world effects already on everyone.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: And just on a more micro level, to think about the children, some of whose parents probably brought them to that event to expand their idea of what kind of people live in the world and maybe what’s possible for their own lives to then be met with that kind of abuse and threat of violence. I mean, at the very root of this, it’s people being afraid that children will see that it’s possible to dress in the clothes of of a different, you know, gender than they were assigned at birth.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Mm hmm. Which feels so small, and yet it, like, shakes the very foundation of how they’ve built their entire worldview. And they’re afraid of what could happen if people realize they can choose these things for themselves. And they’re hoping to deny children that vision of possibility that they can choose what they like for themselves, which, as we know, you can only keep children from seeing things like that for so long because, you know, they’ll like, repress it within themselves until they explode as an adult and and either find their way into their own selves or like live a life of, like, sadness and impossibility. And so that part of it really like when I think about the individuals who are going to these events or who won’t be able to go to these events, that’s what kind of like gets to be just.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I also think they’re just scared of the fun. I mean, everything you all said is right and just even maybe more like simpler than that is like seeing a drag queen shows you that there can be delight and fun and fabulousness in the world. And children of conservative people get to see that it’s going to make the children realize that their parents suck. So I think I think there’s like a little bit of just like on top of all the other smart things you’ve said, like fear of that fear of being shown to be the, like, empty, sad kind of person or worldview, at the very least that you are, that you’re that you’re sort of advocating. And I think they hate it. I think they hate that possibility. And that’s that’s where. A lot of this is coming from, too.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah. Well, I think that is all the time we have to talk about that. There’s so much to say here, but we would love to hear from our listeners about how you’re feeling about the attack on Iraq or if you have any local stories to tell us about or any things you think we should be doing to protect our drag queens or our performers. We’d love to hear that. You can always write to us as our podcast at Slate.com.
Jules Gill-Peterson: So as we’ve been talking about in this episode, we’ve seen, you know, a new wave of anti-trans bills and bills targeting drag this year. And while a lot of those bills really focus on this kind of completion of drag and being a trans person, the other main target clearly has been drag story hours. And to better understand kind of what’s going on, but also the real stakes of drag story hour, we wanted to talk with someone who knows it well and has been involved in organizing and advocacy in the face of all of these attacks. So we are so thrilled to be joined by the one and only Lil Miss Hot Mess, a prolific queen who has performed all over this gorgeous country. She’s hosted readings for the Brooklyn Museum, ICA, L.A., RuPaul’s Drag Con, HBO and more. She’s written two children’s books. Okay. The first one is The Hips on the Drag Queen. Go Swish.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Swish, Swish, which was published in 2020. And then if you’re a drag queen and you know, it was published last year, well, Hot Mess also sits on the board of Drag Story Hour, a nonprofit that brings readings to libraries, schools and other community venues to share with kids positive queer role models and so much more. And then, like in total triple threat tradition, she’s also like a professor. I just, you know, it’s like, how do these talented queens do it all these days? Really a beautiful, beautiful message. But I will have as truly thank you for joining us. Welcome. Welcome to outward.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure to be here.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, I was wondering if maybe, you know, to start us off, could you just share a little bit about how you got involved in drag story out in the first place? Like, what brought you to that in particular as a performer? And yeah, what sort of stood out to you or pulled you in in the first place?
Speaker 5: Yeah. So Drag Story Hour started in late 2015 in San Francisco under the auspices of an organization called Radar Productions. And I had actually just moved away from San Francisco just a few months before. And so I was watching all of these drag queen friends of mine basically posting these photos and videos of what looked like just incredibly exciting and wonderful and honestly just very sweet events with children. And so I was jealous. I mean, I wanted to get in on this fun.
Speaker 5: And, you know, I have I have a background a bit in terms of working with children and, you know, afterschool programs and camps and things like that and had dabbled a couple of times in bringing different types of drag to kids. But it just really felt like an idea that was kind of like its time had come or in some ways it had even it was even sort of like past due to to bring kind of the imagination, the play, the kind of like sensorial stimulation of drag to children who I think were just so ready for that kind of engagement.
Jules Gill-Peterson: I mean, a lot of jealousy is the way.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: It’s always like, could I do it?
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, I’m curious because, you know, I’ll admit that like as as a queer person that didn’t really or doesn’t really have like many kids in my life, you know, maybe back around like 2015, 2016, when I first started to hear about, you know, drag story hours, but long before these right wing attacks on them, I didn’t really give it too much thought. I was sort of like, Oh, okay. I guess it’s just another sign of the times. Drag is so mainstream now, like even kids and families want to go to it. But I feel like as I’ve, you know, you know, unfortunately, because of all of this nonsense, as I’ve started to listen more to performers and also people who go to these regularly, I’ve realized how superficial that impression was on my part, that there’s actually clearly something very powerful, like in terms of the experience and the message that story Hour brings.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And I think you are sort of starting to allude to that, to talking about how the kids are really ready. I mean, could you tell us a little bit more like, you know, for you, what do you think that kind of impact and value is? Or maybe also like, you know, when we cut through, like all the bullshit and all the noise, like, yeah, what’s it really like? Because, you know, I don’t know how many people have had the chance to attend one of these before and maybe are thinking about it now, but sort of yeah. What, what’s distinct and special about drag story hour?
Speaker 5: I would say that drag story hour, in some ways it is like every other story hour. I mean, it’s like an adult reading books to kids in a library, singing songs, you know, asking them what their favorite color is or to talk back in some way, except that the storyteller is a drag queen or a drag king or some other fabulous drag performer.
Speaker 5: And so, you know, it’s interesting because on the one hand, I’ve never been. Interested in mainstreaming of drag. You know, I’m always sort of concerned about that aspect of it becoming too popular and, you know, becoming part of this force of assimilation. I don’t know. I also think that there just are so many affinities with children’s literature and children’s programming already in terms in the sense that, you know, so much of children’s literature already is about kind of finding your own voice or learning how to build relationships or, you know, stepping outside of your comfort zone or standing up for yourself or or your friends or things like that. And so so I think, you know, those are the kinds of books that we tend to read as well as, you know, some that that deal explicitly with LGBTQ history or culture or things like that.
Speaker 5: But I also just think that if you kind of read between the lines of drag, you know, it is all about kind of worldbuilding, It’s about tapping into your imagination and using, you know, what might feel like kind of superficial techniques of, you know, makeup and clothing and and performance to to actually create something new, to actually kind of, you know, put into practice the kinds of worlds that we want to live in, even if that’s just in, you know, the 5 minutes of a song or the 10 minutes of a story. I think it is a really powerful way of of yeah, kind of really envisioning and enacting the kind of world we want to live in.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Hmm. Anyone who’s had a relationship with young kids, I think knows how deeply ingrained gender norms can be, especially because, you know, kids brains are simple. They see things as binaries in a lot of ways. They’re also very focused on their own lives. We’ve actually heard that from an educator that we had on the show, a kindergarten teacher, to talk about teaching kids about gender identity and LGBTQ issues. So, you know, what she said was that kids worlds are small, and what they see in their own families is often what they extrapolate to the rest of the world. And so if they see a lot of gender normativity in their families, they might be interested in or sometimes confused by gender nonconformity elsewhere. And so I’m wondering, do kids ask you questions? You know, do you find yourself explaining drag to them?
Speaker 5: I do. And kids are such great questions. I mean, you know, everything from are you a boy or a girl to how do you get the makeup to stick to your face to have you? Have you ever met a dragon? You know what I mean? Like, you kind of go all of these different wild directions. When I explain drag to kids, usually I focus a little bit less on the gendered aspect of it and focus a little bit more on the sort of creative practice. You know, I talk about how drag queens, we love to dress up, we love to wear our fanciest clothes, we love to perform and entertain people. We love to sing songs or dance around or move our lips to other people’s songs and tell jokes. And, you know, we like to lead parades and protests and these sorts of things. So I kind of try to focus a little bit more on the cultural contributions.
Speaker 5: But, you know, I think when kids do ask tough questions about gender, you know, I just I usually try to answer honestly. I mean, I say things like sometimes a boy and sometimes I’m a girl or sometimes I feel like I’m both or things like that. And I feel like kids usually accept that. I mean, they think I do think that kids, they are so steeped in, you know, our cultural norms around gender and gender binaries.
Speaker 5: But I also think that they’re they’re not so hooked into it that I think that they they have that capacity to to take in new information and to to kind of shift their thinking pretty nimbly, which I think is is kind of one of the things that we’re able to do, is it sort of, I think quietly and I think we do is quiet, you know, or subtle, but to to to, you know, kind of get give them that exposure without necessarily having to talk about it with with sort of being able to just embody it and intuit it and experience it without necessarily having to explain it.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Yeah, totally. Because it is has somebody who, as I’ve talked about on this show, once gave a presentation to my nieces Girl Scout troop about like what LGBTQ means. It is really hard to explain unless they’re experiencing it. And so I actually kind of used and abused my partner in this situation where I.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Like basically like this is a woman with short.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Hair, you know, like hair like that. Gender is complex and varied and like, it’s so, you know, kids don’t take in words as well as they take in experiences and images and relationships.
Speaker 5: Right, exactly. But I also do think that kids like having more categories can also be useful for them, like the number of kids who have explained, like what non-binary means to me or that they have a nonbinary sibling or friend or, you know, being able to use words like queen or king or things like that. I think I think helps kind of just open up that space. You know, even even if we don’t necessarily if they obviously know all the words or whatnot, I think it’s still kind of just helps open up their imaginations to the fact that there are. More ways of being in the world.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Do you think of this work specifically with drugs Story hour as a kind of activism? I ask that because I think there’s a little bit of a tendency and this moment in the moment of sort of the attack on drug for us. And I never even did this in my introduction to the previous segment. Like to hand wave a little bit and be like, Oh, it’s just funny. People like people in funny clothes, like reading a book, like nothing going on here. And in fact, as you’ve just been explaining, a lot is going on like a lot of of experience is happening and information maybe is being exchanged and their minds are being expanded or maybe other worlds are being exploited. Like, you know, I guess it depends on where they come from. Is that something that you think about in choosing to do this kind of work?
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean, I think I do think it’s activism. And I think in this moment, it’s it’s almost a little scary to say that because, you know, so much of the the attacks that we experience claim that we’re indoctrinating children. Right. And, you know, my response to that is always that, you know, we’re we’re not indoctrinating children any more than any sort of adults are when they’re teaching children. And, you know, the right wing is so forceful in trying to indoctrinate children into, you know, normative views about the world and about gender and about everything. But yeah, I mean, I absolutely see it as a way of kind of preparing the next generations to to be creative, thoughtful individuals, to understand the value of queerness and kind of the excitement and possibilities that queerness can open up, you know, regardless of their identities or sort of where they fit directly into the community.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean, I want kids to to be raised to believe in equality and justice and freedom and all these sorts of things. And, you know, it feels sort of funny to to say that that’s like activism or that that’s a radical act. But I think in some ways it is so foundational and so necessary for broader political movements to to teach kids and to teach adults and, you know, their families and whatnot, to to, as I say, to be open minded, which again, feels so trite to say, but but to really to to think creatively and to think expansively.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think a lot of the work that I’ve done around Drag Story Hour has really been to sort of situate it as a practice of kind of radical imagination. And I think of, you know, there’s the poet Diane di Prima has this great poem about how, you know, sort of all wars are wars on imagination and all all types of wars are subsumed under that. And I think that’s really true. I mean, I think a lot of the the issues and the challenges that we face in our society right now really are, you know, about being restricted in our ways of thinking and not being able to sort of imagine new possibilities. And so, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit of glitter and and camp and whatnot to kind of open that up. And I think that’s that’s a beautiful thing.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Hmm. I love that. And I think one of the things that at least I mean, I don’t know, you know, I’m always trying to be like I can do tragedy or hope these days is to whatever out there. Right. But but one of the maybe differences that I’ve been trying to think through about this moment of attacks on trans people, on drag, on gender nonconformity in public, on LGBT people is precisely that.
Jules Gill-Peterson: There is like there are other kinds of publics involved now, right? Like, we have seen legislation like this in the past. We have seen, you know, police harassment and other harassment of drag and performance in the past. But in those prior moments, it was generally, even if there were patrons, you know, who come from the general public, things are still understood or framed in a very subcultural way. Like while these are this is this small group of people that we want to keep confined to this neighborhood or lock up or institutionalized or whatever. But it seems or at least I imagine there’s something a little kind of categorically different, right, when part of your constituency is like parents and families.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Right. And I think there is this interesting question for me that is very unanswered in this moment more broadly. Right. Which is like, okay, well, the right is pursuing a very high stakes gambit here. And part of one of the ways that it might one of the ways it might fail, right, is if like there’s a large group of people who are like, well, I you know, I’m like parent. I’m not necessarily I don’t like, do drag. I’m not like, you know, queer trans myself, but like, I don’t like this. I don’t want this happening. And I, I actually am open minded. I actually do believe in equity and justice. I want my kids. Right. And I’m just sort of curious like, you know, as someone who’s like, you know, sort of on the ground, so to speak, are like, you know, actually a part of a part of this work. Like, do you do you have that feeling, too?
Jules Gill-Peterson: I know. I feel like there’s been this tendency as we’ve been catching up to all the kind of inventory and all the bad to be like, look at all these canceled events or. Postponed events. But also I feel like I sometimes hear then greater community kind of outpouring being like, well, now actually, you know, it’s like there was, you know, some proud boys intimidated a three our in the Bay Area last summer and then you know that that local community was like well we’re going to hold pride events every month now right and like.
Jules Gill-Peterson: So I’m kind of curious like what what your sense is like. Do you see that? Does that sound right? Like, is there also kind of an opportunity here to really like, I don’t know what the right word is, but embrace and kind of activate, you know, people who have been sort of a part of drag story our or understand its appeal just in a basic kind of like yeah I need things to take my kids to like, honestly, that sounds pretty great. You know, I don’t know. I’m just sort of curious because that feels different to me than maybe the way we’ve had to like, face these questions of what are we going to do about this in the past? Does that does that make any sense?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think that, yeah, every time we see like a protest or something like that, we almost always see, you know, a greater reaction of support from our extended community, you know, including queer and trans people. But also you’re totally right, including, you know, just straight families who really do love our programming and, you know, are looking for ways to to expose their kids to the realities of the world that we live in and to to bring a bit of that magic into their worlds.
Speaker 5: And, yeah, I think it is also interesting to think about this in some ways, you know, like you’re sort of alluding to historically as as sort of a right to to thrive in public space and to be to be able to to live our lives out in the world. And I will say that, you know, I think one of the things that such a none of it’s shocking, but but it is always a little bit kind of surprising that, like, drag queens are here to have a good time, like with the life of the party. We’re we’re here to entertain. We’re here to, like, build community. We’re here to, like, put a smile on your face and like, all these people just want to sit, like, with their arms crossed, like pouting in a corner or shouting at us. But, like, truly, like some of the sweetest moments that I have in drag, you know, are the ones where when I lived in New York and I was riding the subway and like, you get a wink from a child or from an adult who, like, can’t stop looking at you because of course, they can’t stop looking at you because you’re fabulous. You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Or or those moments. Yeah. Where you’re you’re getting into the story hour and, you know, there there is this kind of feeling of like I’m a celebrity, but also not like I’m I’m of the people, you know, like we’re all here just to have a good time. And and that, I think, is really different than than a lot of the other aspects of kind of like our celebrity culture or activist cultures or or many different kind of subcultures. Like I do think that there is this way in which in yeah, drag has always kind of invited. Yeah. A sense of kind of relishing in that that queer public life.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Hmm. So you actually wrote an article like a piece of academic literature entitled Drag Pedagogy The Playful Practice of Queer Imagination in Early Childhood. What about your experience doing Drag Story Hour made you see the potential for kind of a deeper exploration of of what it means?
Speaker 5: So that article came about because I was doing a drag story hour at Stanford University in partnership with my friend Dr. Harper Kenan, who I co-wrote that article with. And I think originally we just thought it would sort of be a nice way to kind of explain to teachers in training what drag story hour was. And as Harper and I were talking, we realized that there was a lot of depth there and a lot of things that we thought teachers could take away. And we wanted to sort of think about, you know, a lot of what we sort of say drag story hour does is to kind of teach kids about LGBT, CU culture and history and and kind of like the sort of one on one kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: But again, so much of drag is really about kind of reading between the lines and going, you know, deeper below that kind of superficial reading. And so we were interested in thinking about, you know, what could teachers take away from drag performers and kind of incorporate into their own practices without necessarily having to, you know, put on a full face or a wig or anything like that.
Speaker 5: So we thought about how, you know, drag drag teaches kids to kind of understand, you know, distinctions between the everyday or the normative and the extraordinary and just sort of be able to ask questions about the world they live in. And, you know, what it means for something to be unusual or not. We thought about how, you know, there’s power in aesthetic transformations and you know that that’s simply the act of transforming the act of wearing something over the top, the act of, you know, someone sparkly coming into your room kind of.
Speaker 5: Immediately invites the sense of wonder and curiosity. We think about how, you know, drag has a long history of of dealing with with difficult issues facing, you know, our communities, of dealing with shame, of dealing with stigma, of dealing with sadness, but often through humor, through reclaiming these things that have been used against us. So how can we kind of teach kids to, too? Yeah, to kind of like engage camp and add a little bit of silliness sometimes in order to to heal themselves or in order to to process traumatic events. So it’s these sorts of things that’s just kind of a handful of the things that we explore in that article.
Speaker 5: But we really wanted to sort of take a drag seriously and and in some ways also think about how drag is always like kind of a learning process between performers and audiences, you know, whether you’re in a story hour or whether you’re in a club. There are ways in which we’re we’re teaching and we’re learning from each other, you know, and passing on different forms of kind of community knowledge.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: I’d like to hear you speak to the attacks on drag right now. I know. And I know you’ve already done this really well because you were featured last year. We’ve already talked about Marco Rubio on this podcast today. I don’t know why he’s coming up so much. But I do know I had. But but you were featured in a campaign out of has the line in the ad was the radical left will destroy America if we don’t stop them they’ll indoctrinate children and try to turn boys and girls. So first, I want to know what kind of magic you’re using to transform like that. But seriously, how did you respond to that? You know, in the moment. And then how would you say we should be responding to the broader sort of array of attacks on drag right now?
Speaker 5: I mean, I don’t know why Marco Rubio is so obsessed with me. And so so the BackStory hour, which is basically that was my response, was to put out a video trying to clap back and just say like, you know, pick on someone you’re in size. We know that at the end of the day, you work for us. And let me tell you, dear, it’s not working. These are some big shoes to fill. And that’s something that we queens know a thing or two about. And I just want to say to you that you can either stand up for those of us who deserve justice and rights in this country, or you can stand out of our way because we are here to spread joy, justice and a more fabulous future.
Speaker 5: Actually, you know, honestly, my my critique of him is like actually show up and do something. You know, he literally put out that video while there was a hurricane, you know, bombarding his state while we were in, you know, I mean, we’re in the middle of so many crises from, you know, environmental climate change disaster to gun violence and white supremacist violence to, you know, attacks on educational funding and health care funding and all these sorts of things. And so it’s really kind of just this wag the dog moment of, you know, trying to distract from, I would say, Republicans lack of a plan, lack of any sort of empathy or consideration for, you know, working people and any sort of marginalized communities.
Speaker 5: I do think that it is part of this attempt to kind of claw back some of the power that so straight white men and conservatives feel like they’ve lost, which, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with. But but clearly, they seem obsessed with that as well. And I think that they’re they’re trying to use this as a wedge issue to to rile up their base.
Speaker 5: In some ways, I didn’t have this kind of intensified attack on drag story or hour and on drag more generally on my 2022 bingo card. But in some ways, you know, since the very beginning of drag story, our we have faced protests. We face more kind of local city councils and school boards and library boards that have tried to legislate us away or cut funding or sort these sorts of things. And I mean, honestly, I think one of the scariest things that we’re we’re facing right now and that this symbolizes is that, you know, the kind of mainstream conservatives, the mainstream Republican politicians are really looking towards the fringe, towards the white supremacist groups, towards the alt right for, you know, their their policy positions, for lack of a better word. But I think we’re really seeing this creep into the middle. And that’s what feels most scary to me.
Speaker 5: You know, I, I take some hope in in knowing that I don’t think a lot of this legislation and a lot of these attacks are going to actually go anywhere. You know, maybe I’m naive, but I think we have something of a solid foundation as far as, you know, freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and those sorts of things that will allow us to keep being our fabulous selves in public. But yeah, it’s just it’s exhausting at the end of the day to yeah, to again, just being out here to like truly to, to spread joy and, and playfulness. And creativity and to to have such hate thrown our way.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: As a as a member of the board of drag story, our what kinds of conversations are you all having about this moment and how to respond?
Speaker 5: I would say our number one concern is, is of course, the safety of our performers and the children and families that come to our events. And, you know, it is also just so ironic that, you know, the haters are really claiming to protect the children and yet are the ones that are, you know, truly like threatening and instigating various forms of violence and and trauma on children who are at these events. But, you know, so we’ve been engaging in various conversations around safety and safety trainings and and especially looking towards community models of providing safety that don’t necessarily work with law enforcement and things like that, because we know that, you know, oftentimes it is about our own communities looking out for each other and doing the right sorts of planning and any of really kind of being being our own safety presence rather than relying on forces that have not historically been our best friends.
Jules Gill-Peterson: For anyone who’s listening or, you know, for folks who maybe have been to drugs story are thinking about going to drugs story, our just in general feeling moved. I mean what what would you recommend for folks who want to show up you know defend our beloved queens and the folks who and the kids and families who enjoy this, but also just kind of stand up for the importance of of dragging this moment?
Speaker 5: I would say absolutely show up to our events. I mean, I think that that’s the biggest thing that we can do, is to say that we’re we’re not afraid. We’re not going to live in fear. We’re not going to let them rain on our parade. You know, get in touch with the organizers of your local chapter or, you know, at your library or whoever’s hosting the event. And yeah, see if there’s things that they can do. I mean, I think one thing that we don’t want to do is we don’t want to escalate this. We don’t want to get in screaming matches with our detractors. We want, you know, to have that kind of Michelle Obama when they go low, we go high kind of moments and, you know, really kind of stand in our dignity and our grace and and be that kind of steadfast force of solidarity rather than, you know, feeding the trolls what they want. So, yeah.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, speaking of dignity and grace, look, you have modeled that and more for us. Thank you so much for for coming on out there to chat with us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you. It’s truly a pleasure to be here.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Unfortunately, that’s about all the time we have for this month. But before we head off, we have a few updates to your gay agenda. Jules, what are you recommending this month?
Jules Gill-Peterson: Well, I just have a little pick me up for anyone who might need it. I mean, I don’t know about you all. January. It’s a heady astrological season. I think there is Capricorn in retrograde at the beginning of the year. And I’ve just been having I don’t know if it’s the January blues or the the January disorganization, where I’m just like, I can’t do a new calendar year. I wasn’t done with 2020.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And so if you’re feeling that way, too, let me just you know, this is not a particularly topical recommendation. It’s just a kind of evergreen for me. You know, it’s been boppin in my house a lot lately. Is Annie sat by Honey Dijon, that fantastic deejay performer, you know, just legend without parallel. I just love everything Honey Dijon So does everyone.
Jules Gill-Peterson: I think that’s not you know, I’m not I’m not discovering her by any means, but I just want to you know, I’ve been putting on a whole bunch of different set lists that, you know, she has on various platforms. Chris She has her own album as well. And I just feel like I also, you know, maybe a couple of times you have opened Instagram and just seen, you know, videos she’s posted of her like performing a set and just fuckin dance. Like, yeah, just like really why she really gets into it. You know, when one of the dolls does that, like by transwomen plus deejay equals like, pinnacle of the genre apotheosis of achievement, right? I mean, it’s just like nothing resets, my mood, gets me dancing, makes me feel loved and cared for, and lifted up quite in that way.
Jules Gill-Peterson: And so, you know, I just if you’re not already keeping Honey Dijon work in your rotation, highly encourage. Go find a set by her. Put it on sometime this week. When you’re driving somewhere, when you’re cleaning, when you’re trying to get out of bed in the morning and just enjoy, feel, feel the magic and commune a little bit in the way that we only can when we’re dancing with each other.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I love that. What an evergreen recommendation. That should never cross that off your agenda.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Brian, what’s on yours?
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: So I have a a sort of January one as well, although I’m more of the sort to like, you know, want to reorganize my entire life and, like, fix everything at once, which of course fails. But I do.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I don’t believe that it fails, Brian.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: And I can’t even.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Imagine you failing at organizing.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: What’s up? That crazy posters like you shoot for the Moon and Land of the Stars, which doesn’t make astronomical sense, but something like that. So one thing that I’ve been doing that’s been effective so far this January has been trying to cleanse my feet. And by fearlessness I mean Instagram, specifically by just going apply to others. If you’re on other networks or other platforms. I found it like the end of December that mine had become this real hellscape of work out like gay, not even only gay, just like men working out and like giant packs and like, horrible due to body dysmorphic, like things that just make me. We’re making me sad and uncomfortable and like, had moved from like the occasional, you know, bit of titillation to, like, too much like just too much of that.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: And so my recommendation is to take the time to do that. If you find yourself in a similar situation, whatever the infection may be on your feet, take the time to do it. You have to really work to retrain these algorithms. I’ll tell you, you really have to go in and say, I don’t like that. I’m not interested in that over and over and over again and then follow. New things are like new things, and there’s not really a better way to do it. I’ve been doing it sort of a little bit every day, but it works. It’s getting better. Wow. So that’s the first half.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: The second half of my agenda item is a recommendation for something to follow that can add some soothing queerness to your timeline, which is Isaac Mizrahi is Instagram. We all know having a fashion designer judge, that kind of thing. But his Instagram is very homey and cozy and just like some like cooking and like, oh gosh, how do I pack for this business trip is, is very funny. And it’s it’s very like someone there’s a system to someone someone’s filming it. But it is it’s just very chill and like and soothing. I don’t know how to say it. And I find myself wanting to see every one of those videos when they come up. So just a small recommendation for something to replace whatever toxicity was clogging up your feeds in the new Year.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Did you just say he was a judge.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: On Project Runway at the.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Federal District Court edition?
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: You know, I was like, Yeah, On this queer podcast, we don’t even need to stipulate that it’s not an actual judge, judge. And, you know, it’s a.
Brian Bryan, Brian, Bryan Lowder: Yeah. I was going to fact check that, but I’m almost certain of the guy. Well, we’ll let us know about this and let us know. Yeah, he was on that. So was that wrong? Okay, Christina.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: I’m recommending a photo essay that ran in the New York Times recently. It’s titled The Golden Gaze Return to the stage in the Philippines. It’s written and photographed by Hannah Reyes Morales, and it’s about a community of gay men and some trans people in Manila who call themselves the Golden Gays. And it’s a community with a really long history. So the group was founded in the 1970s by this activist and politician who just allowed older gay men to live in his home and, you know, started creating a community around himself. Many of these people had a hard time getting work or accessing social services. They called themselves Lola’s, which means grandmothers. Some of them are now in their eighties and still to make money on the weekends, they all dress up as showgirls and perform pageants and talent shows together.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: It’s a very poignant story because this community was built out of great need, obviously, and then it fell apart when the founder died in 2012 because, you know, they weren’t able to live in his house anymore. So they were scattered for a bit. Some of them were unhoused. Then in 2018, they were finally able to rent a house together and rebuild this community. One of the people, one of sort of the main men who the photographer follows, needs help putting on his heels now because he can’t bend over like he used to. But they all make it work together. The portraits are beautiful and it’s really remarkable to see and read about this just circle of care that looks so much like what queer people do in cities and countries around the world to support each other. What a gift.
Jules Gill-Peterson: Beautiful. Can’t wait to read that.
Kristina, Christina, Christina Cauterucci, Cristina Cauterucci: Well, listeners, that’s it for January for us. As always, we would love to hear your feedback and look over your topic ideas. So if you have things you’d like us to chat about, email us at our podcast at Slate.com. Or you can find us on Facebook or Twitter at Slate outward. June Thomas is our producer and the most expensive wig in our closet. If you like outward and you love us, please subscribe in your podcast app. Tell your friends about it and read interviews so other people can find the show. We’ll be back in your teens February 15th. My brain. Bye bye, Dolls. Oh. Stay gay, everyone.
