Hi and welcome back to The Gender Reveal Party. I'm your host Jay Pryor and today we're talking about drag. You can't talk about gender and the queer community without talking about drag. In fact, if you don't know this, the queer movement was started at a bar in New York City called Stonewall. Stonewall was a riot that happened when the police had continually broken and busted into this bar and arrested people over and over and over again. These people were being brutalized back then; you couldn't even wear a piece of clothing that was the opposite gender without possibly getting arrested for that and so finally these people decided that they had had enough and they fought back. The people that fought back were trans women, drag queens, and butch women. You see, back then the people that were out were the people who couldn't hide so gender played a huge piece in that when you have an already really effeminate man or a man who likes to put dresses on they can't hide and so those people that were the ones that were out in the world and those people who were the ones who lost their lives and put their lives on the line for this movement. We honor our trans women, drag queens, and butches every year when we celebrate Pride, when we celebrate the beginning of this movement but all the time drag is something that's important to this community and has a rich, rich history. The first time I ever experienced a drag queen I was 19 years old. You want to get what I was like you might as well think of me as like a bumpkin or a hayseed, right? I'm coming out of a small town in Kansas, I've never even - like it's hard for me to even deal with my own gayness, let alone like have exposure to all the queerness that I have now or the loveliness that is queer. So I'm 19 years old and it's 1985. I'm in Topeka, Kansas and this drag queen - I'm at a drag show and this drag queen has just got the audience in the palm of her hand. I mean, she is just working this crowd and I am gobsmacked like this woman is gorgeous and she's dancing and she's lip syncing and she's got the crowd going. I don't know what the look was that I had on my face, but at some point she comes over to me, nudges me, and winks and says, “don't forget what's under this skirt, honey.” I had forgotten! I'm not gonna lie, she was a beautiful woman and it embarrassed me, obviously it shocked me. I'm 19 years old and you know, my face got bright red. The point was I fell in love with drag queens right then and there. And throughout my life, of course, again, you can't be queer without experiencing drag queens. So I've done, well I've known a lot of drag queens, I've been to a lot of shows, I know about the pageantry. I've had friends involved and friends in high levels in pageantry and I've even done drag. I did a drag king show before I transitioned and that's a whole other story, but I'll tell you about that some other day.
These weekly stories are about gender reveal. I hope that you will soak up the stories of our guests and share them with an intention to educate others and love the differences. It’s been my calling for years to love the transphobia out of our human systems. Thanks for sharing in my purpose.
