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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 1994)
juat out ? M p ta m b ar 2. 1904 T 27 IT’S A QUEER THING T Breaking the meld he politics of boys wearing dresses in public are anything but simple. Al Stepping away from full though this will come as no surprise to drag queens or transsexuals, it never ceases to amaze me how much trouble can be caused by putting on clothes of the opposite gender. In this case, I’m not talking about men looking like women but men being men in women’s clothing— half-drag, if you will. My admiration for drag queens and transsexu als is immense. I think they are fabulous beyond belief. 1 have even done drag (albeit poorly) a few times and enjoyed it. But what I really like to do is one step removed from full drag. Being someone who likes to question the status quo and push people’s buttons a bit, 1 love to don a dress and carry on in public as if nothing were unusual about my appearance. I have always fancied women’s clothes and think men look smashing in them. In the traditions of drag and half-drag, which are as old as history, this kind of costuming brings out the fairy in guys. And it still has power to wreak havoc on the mainstream culture. Men in dresses are a standard comedic vehicle in England. In any British sitcom series, you can be assured of seeing male members of the cast in drag from time to time. In our own early television history, comedians such as Milton Berle also used drag as a way of getting laughs. Drag clubs like Darcelle XV are immensely popular with straight and gay audiences alike, and no one blinks an eye at drag queens in queer clubs or at Lesbian and Gay Pride. These are all acceptable venues for “female impersonation,” which are tightly regulated by societal norms. Cross-dressing is only acceptable when it is kept in context. What causes waves is when people do cross-gender things where they are little off-the-shoulder black dress and a black top not “supposed to.” hat, I created such a stir that you would have I own a number of very flattering dresses which thought 1 was Madonna dropping in to get a quart I occasionally wear to parties or out dancing. 1 do of milk. The seas part for you if you are a boy in a not change my appearance in any way except to put dress. While I don’t recommend dressing up and on a dress, rather than pants and a shirt. The going out alone (because people will beat you up), reception 1 get from people, however, is as differ it can be great fun to create a spectacle in a ent as night and day. Both straight and queer traditionally straight environment. people, regardless of whether they know me or not, Queer folk, who, on the other hand, one would react very differently toward me when I’m in a expect to be cool about boys in dresses, are fine skirt. with the genre as long as it is in an acceptable venue Straight people, especially younger ones, freak as well. But under the glaring light of societal out and don’t know how to take me. Most are so norms, even queer folk get nervous. To be associ used to people conforming to the gender code that ated with someone who is breaking the rules means they are nonplused when someone breaks the rules. that you condone this deviancy and are thereby The most imaginative thing straight men can think “guilty” by association. This guilt can cause a to yell at me is, “Fag,” to which I reply, “What gave person to put up a homophobic barrier between you the first clue?” Standing in line one evening at himself or herself and the “deviant.” It is internal the Safeway on Northeast Broadway dressed in a drag and just being a man in ized homophobia that causes members of the queer community to call for a ban on drag queens (and other groups) in public. This sort of self censorship in the queer community stems from caring too much about what the heterosexist power base thinks and says. I have been with people who were very chummy with me (dressed in half-drag) in a queer bar but wouldn’t acknowledge me out on the street— it was too public. It is also my observation that half-drag is caught in the crossfire of a sexist battle as well. Transsexu als and drag queens are definitely subject to sex ism. But the sexism around half-drag has a twist to it. Sexist behavior is targeted at women because they are women. Sexist behavior is targeted at drag queens and transsexuals because they look and act like women. Boys, on the other hand, who are acting like boys but who are wearing women’s clothes are caught between genders. I n our society’s desire to neatly categorize human beings along gender, race and age lines, those who can be identified can be categorized. Men in dresses defy the categories. People seem unahle to deal with a third category which is neither male nor female and, as a result, choose to force you into a category, reacting to you as either male or female. If 1 am doing half-drag, often when people react to me as male they compliment me on the dress but lament that they like me much better in pants and a shirt. But what happens more often is that people will treat me as “female” because I have women’s clothes on. Any man who has never put on a dress and pumps and gone out in public has no clue what many women go through every day. I cannot claim to real ly know what sexism is either, but I have had a taste of it. Dressing up in women’s clothes makes you vulnerable. Not only are you physically vulnerable, but wearing a little black dress opens you up to verbal and sexist slings and arrows as well. I was at a party of gay men last month where some of the guys had had too much to drink. The fact that I was wearing a dress, coupled with the alcohol, made a number of them feel it was fine to grab me and try to put their hands up my skirt. Rude comments and jokes were made about me, even though the guys assured me that I was the life of the party. The queer guys that were doing this are people I know and who would never have acted this way had 1 been dressed in “normal” clothes. Simply hy wearing a skirt, 1 had “asked for” this rude treatment. This is an extreme ex ample, and not usually the reaction 1 get, but it is indicative of the sexism and misogyny that exists within the queer community. It is my opinion that, as people in the United States, we do not deal with the issue of gender well at all. We are hung up on stereotypes and are obsessed with maintaining the rules. Very rarely do things come along, despite straight men wear ing earrings, that bend these gender rules very much. For the most part, men and women are very restricted i n how we can dress and act. Queers have a long, rich tradition of defying these rules. We can see how the status quo works against us and wants to shut us up. Many of us bravely try on new ways of thinking, acting and dressing. But there are still many among our ranks who would stifle this freedom of expression. Homophobia, heterosexism and sexism are present in each of us and in our culture. To work to change this is an invaluable effort. If each of us could break out of our molds and challenge the norm more often, we would be on our way to a more equitable world. working toward a hate-free Oregon ^