Drag Is Male Supremacy, And I'm Not Sorry for Saying So.

I’ve always railed against rigid sex role stereotypes. I wore Nikes and basketball shorts under my mandatory dress at my private elementary school. At church, I always gravitated toward the theological debates in the men’s groups rather than the decorating tips and recipe exchanges at the women’s events. I’m direct and assertive, not gentle and fluffy. I don’t particularly care for cooking or homemaking or playing dress-up, and the little make-up I own is stored inside a massive green ammo can.

I know what it’s like to be harmed by the stereotypical expectations placed upon my sex both inside and outside the church, and I’m often frustrated at the realization that much of what is popularly framed as “biblical manhood and womanhood” is not actually biblical at all but rather, a thinly veiled attempt to spiritually bully people into compliance with a system that creates really wonky power dynamics, usually benefiting the men at the top of the proverbial totem pole.

To put it succinctly, trying to cram people into gender boxes for which they were never created and then shaming them when they fail to fit is like whipping your horse when he disobeys your command to fly. It’s a recipe for disaster, a surefire way to keep people from fully embracing their true identities in Christ.

So when one of my gay friends came to me one day and insisted that I, of all people, should really understand the motivation behind drag as a rejection of odious sex role stereotypes, I really had to give it some thought.

I had always personally disliked drag, but I was sensitive to the way I had seen so many mild-mannered or gentle men be bullied into performative masculinity, so I was willing to temper my distaste with a degree of empathy for the struggle. Overcorrection is a profoundly human phenomena; once you realize that much of what you’ve been indoctrinated to believe is false, it’s not always easy to define where the healthy boundaries ought to lie.

But sensitive as I may be for the struggle, I ultimately had to reject the premise. Because regardless of what any man in drag THINKS he’s accomplishing, the reality is that 99% of drag displays scream covert “misogyny” any way you dice ‘em.

A little history lesson for you:

American drag literally began as part of blackface minstrel shows, where white men found entertainment out of denigrating two groups of people they considered inferior- black people and women.

People may be offended by the comparison of drag to blackface, but it’s an objectively, demonstrably fair comparison- they have the same dehumanizing root. Google Francis Leon or Eugene d’Ameli, or drive to the local library and check out Robert Toll’s book entitled “Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteeth-Century America.”

You can’t shed your own oppression by wearing someone else’s like a costume and then congratulating yourself for doing it better than they do. Modern day drag is grotesquely demeaning to women, whether you want to call it “womanface” or something else. It’s a bunch of men feeling powerful and deriving laughs by performing sexed-up caricatures of the roles that get actual women killed.

If we want to go back even further to Shakespearean days, where men dressed in drag for stage performances, we can analyze that, too, because even that was rooted in a sexist decision to exclude women from participation in this form of public life, which was arbitrarily declared to be “indecent” for the womenfolk. So even in that context, men dressing up as women were eclipsing women for their own gain.

Now at this point, someone is bound to interject, “You do know women perform drag, too, right?” While technically true, it’s a largely irrelevant point because none of these women are getting even a fraction of the limelight their male counterparts are receiving, nor are they responsible for even a fraction of the problems.

And can we talk about how sexually degrading most drag is these days? I’ve got an activity for you. Look up your local drag queen story time and find out who the performers are. Now go find those performers’ Instagram pages and tell me what you find. I’ve done this probably close to 50 times, and without fail, these men’s accounts are full of some of the most degradingly pornographic content. And these are the guys they’re paying to read to kids. Drag is sexual. Sex is for adults, therefore, drag is not for kids.

• Anna Bortion

• Farrah Moan

• Penny Tration

• Tess Tickle

• Lucy Stoole

• Pussy Tourette

• Olive D. Cox

• Vaginal Davis

• Phallic Cu*t

• Avery Goodlay

• Malestia Child

These are just a few of the names of famous drag queens. What do these names reveal about their views of women? Did you notice they’re all inherently sexual? Are we okay with the fact that these men refer to other (particularly beautiful) drag queens as “fish,” a reference to actual women’s genitalia. So they’re essentially saying, “You look so feminine you could pass for a real woman,” but instead of saying “real woman,” they say “fish” because they’ve reduced us to our vaginas.

If you ever want a masterclass in misogyny, I dare you to publicly criticize drag on a social media thread that champions it. The last time I did this, I was swiftly pummeled into submission by throngs of angry men on the internet. Here’s a random sampling of some of the responses I got:

“You’re a miserable cu*t with a stick up her ass.”

“You’re disgusting. Jump out a window head first.”

“Bum ass bit*h.”

“Your kids are ugly as f*ck just like their parents.”

“From the looks of it, your husband left you for a man.”

“Suck a d*ck.”

“Fix your eyebrows.”

“Your husband probably married you for your masculinity.”

“Gag on barbed wire.”

“Your husband fu*ks drag queens and transwomen.”

“You’re probably mad you don’t have the right equipment.”

“You’re ugly as fu*k.”

“Shut your co*ksucker.”

Notice how quickly and how frequently these guys go after my physical appearance. It’s like clockwork; it never fails.

So basically, if I’m not willing to embrace their chosen avenue for rejection of the sex role stereotypes placed upon them, they’re going to punish me for failing to meet the sex role stereotypes they think women should meet. Do you see how absurd this is? They get to defy their boxes at my expense, but I don’t get to defy my boxes at all. That’s drag in a nutshell- a bunch of incredibly self-focused men congratulating themselves for being even better at womaning than women.

Express yourself on your own terms. Wear what you want to wear. If you want to be a man in a dress, that’s your privilege. A hundred years ago I would have been arrested for the indecency of wearing pants; I’m glad people push the envelope on fashion standards once in awhile.

But for the love of mercy, stop wearing my sex like an offensive costume and punishing my resistance.

If that’s not rebranded male supremacy, I’m not really sure what is.