Honestly I told myself this would be the first post I would make as it seems even in our own community ALOT of people are still bit confused.
Many confuse the term Drag Queen with Transgender, Transsexual, or Transvestism. While all listed are realistic assumptions to the uninformed the former three represent very serious aspects of a sexual and genetic field. You must first understand what a drag queen is not.
"What is a Drag Queen?" This is the most common question asked of DRAG performers, the difference between Drag and Transgender. The simplest form of a much longer explanation is that drag is typically the art of performing or appearing as the opposite gender, or “Gender Illusion”. Although not every Drag Queen is a performer, we have a much broader term for people who dress as the opposite gender as a lifestyle; these people are referenced to as transgender. Those transgender individuals who choose to go through sexual reasignment surgery to become the "opposite", their true gender, are referred to as transsexual (post and pre operation). There are individuals, generally Heterosexual who dress as the opposite gender simply for personal or sexual pleasure, this is where the term transvestite come in. There are many different reference points for these discussions however in this forum we will be focusing on the art of DRAG, more specifically men transforming into women for performance purposes DRAG QUEENS.
The term ‘DRAG’ originated through the Elizabethan era, around the end of the sixteenth century, when women were prohibited from appearing in theatre. William Shakespeare who would write in the margins ‘DR.A.G’ next to the name of the male cast member appearing as female, stating simply this character as appearing “DRess As Girl.” Since this time we have come to describe any man dressing as a woman on stage to be in “DRAG”. The term Drag King, a woman who appears dressed as a man, came much later closer to the late twentieth century and supposedly there was a term “DRAB” referring to “dressed as boy” that never caught on, I wonder why?
1 comment:
As far as I know, the "dressed as girl" abbreviation as "drag" is a folk etymology. In general most acronym etymologies are fake unless otherwise documented.
From http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=drag
sense of "women's clothing worn by a man" is said to be 1870 theater slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor (another guess is Yiddish trogn "to wear," from Ger. tragen); drag queen is from 1941.
Cheers! --Charles
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