For The Love of Drag
Born when being gay was illegal, it took drag queens on TV to show me being gay was not only OK, but pretty fun too.
I was born in Ireland, 1991, just two years before homosexuality would finally be decriminalized in Ireland.
Technically, for a short period of my life, it was illegal for me to be, well, me. The aftermath of this was a society and generation still teetering with the idea on if it really was OK to be gay or not.
They were old times, with old ways and traditions swamped in religion, and with even older Internet. It is non too surprising that growing up, I didn’t have many gay icons, if at all.
Familiar faces to help figure out what in the world being gay was, and more importantly, what it wasn’t. To inspire to follow in their footsteps, on a path they traveled and made more stable and secure.
It wasn’t until April, 1997 that Ellen DeGeneres publicly told the world that she was gay. Someone on that stage, with that career, trying to make that path all the more safer for people like me. But it took some time before that message, and it’s gravity, reached my shores.
And with the immediate backlash to Ellen, I was firm in my belief that coming out was too much. Aged 6, and not really knowing who Ellen was, I knew she was being treated unfairly for simply telling the world her truth.
If this Ellen person was being treated this way, how would I fair?
Nowadays, across every social media, you can find a trailblazer for literally any facet of society.
But back then, coming to terms with being gay was akin to a stormy night with no rainbow in sight.
But the world was becoming more woke. People traveled more. The Internet was growing, and getting faster. And a certain hit LGBT show was beginning to cook up it’s own rainbow storm.
Enter, Panti Bliss, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the era of drag.
It is impossible to mention the word drag without a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race being within earshot. And I understand that drag as an art is much wider than just a TV show.
But when it debuted on Logo in 2009, aged just 17, to say the show had a euphoric impact on my life would be an understatement.
It was the first time I had witnessed gay men feel, and tell the world, how beautiful they felt— a concept I am still trying to replicate.
The contestants shared their talents, which revolved around quick wit, dance, or painting living art on to themselves.
Strangers, whose propulsion to stardom took everyone by surprise, were communicating a message I had failed to receive for my entire life.
That being gay, is not only OK. It’s pretty darn fun, too.
There was empowerment and sharing of ideas. A sense of pride in being yourself. Of making political statements and being unreservedly unapologetic.
And then the reality TV elements of one-liners, cutthroat insults, drama between contestants and judges —at every angle there was wit, passion and eye-candy for everyone.
RuPaul’s catchphrases became staples of an entire genre of TV. How everyone should love work on loving themselves. And with each episode came new vulnerabilities, where contestants turned traditional weaknesses into strengths.
For me growing up gay, the people involved in making a small reality show taught me more about life, and my future life, in 60-minute segments than school or society ever bothered to try.
And then with each season, the message of loving yourself became even more universal, more impactful and more noticed.
Watching the show, off of a dial-up broadband connection, into a screen so out of resolution it would cause blindness today, made realized an important thing.
That there are more people like me, who are interested in the things I like, maybe not next door, or in the same village. But somewhere in the world. And boy was it a big world.
Panti Bliss
The world’s new found appreciation for drag meant media were taking artists more seriously. In Ireland, it led drag icon Panti Bliss became the face of an entire movement to achieve same-sex marriage to Ireland in 2016.
The video below is one I watched on repeat for weeks on end. I made my family watch it, long before I came out as gay.
Finally, an Irish gay icon had materialized before me. What amazed me even more was that it took a drag queen to speak truth to power — shattering the idea drag is paved in gimmickry and smut.
‘Weren’t you embarrassed? A drag queen representing you all…?’ was something a friend asked me during the Panti-gate video. Innocently, I suspect.
‘Why?’ I pondered.
Through drag, it felt like these characters…these people, that I knew them. I felt they knew me. And they had a message to deliver — which was something I needed to hear my whole life.
Is drag insulting?
The purpose of this piece is to explain how drag can transcend many other art forms and media, and be incredibly impactful on a person’s life, despite the lazy retort it is gimmicky and cheap.
From a simple show on Logo, I became a more empowered gay man. Confident. Less anxious. More optimistic.
But what’s even more perplexing, is that the show demonstrated how drag is like a Pick’n’Mix bag of sweets — there is no size fits all. Some queens take part in the show, while others like Panti carve out incredibly achievements without. It is but a snapshot of the level of talent within the LGBTQI community.
There is no one size fits all.
So when I see public commentators taking digs at drag, at role-models who have impacted my life and those around me — for retweets, likes or to become relevant again, I am vexed, to put it lightly.
A recent tweet by Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies went viral for said reason, when there was an attempt to to diffuse the art of drag as something other. The way being gay was made feel back in the day, as something dirty and offensive. Cheap and gimmicky.
For the people who fail to understand drag, their go-to is cheapen drag as some sort of faux-entertainment. That it’s offensive. That it’s meant to divide, not unite.
I’m not a drag queen — surprising, I know! And so it’s possible for me to let comments and debates of such nature go by unchallenged.
But for drag queens, their fans, and a community bolstered by the strong men and women who champion the art, it’s more serious.
For me growing up gay, the people involved in drag taught me more about my life, and my future life than school or society ever bothered to try.
