By Alex Lauricio

You’ve seen them on television screens and across pride parades donning flashy gowns and dresses. These drag queens walk with elegance and perform with stunning finesse yet behind their colorful clothing is a long history of hatred and homophobia — and just as their stilettos have marched in the riots of Stonewall Inn, so too do they walk in the contemporary challenges of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Drag’s Colorful Roots

The culture of drag, despite being a largely modern phenomenon, has its historical and performative roots that date far beyond the underground gay bars of the 1950s, and were not an isolated circumstance, as it was happening throughout the world. Taking a page off of women’s history, we can see the slow start of drag culture.

The rights of women in most premodern societies can be summarized as nonexistent. While this left women with the trials that would eventually push them towards their 1950s suffrage movement, it meant that practically all traditionally feminine roles in singing, acting, and any sort of depiction of women were typically played by male actors.

This would mean that essentially all Greek dramas were also portrayed by men. Shakespeare’s tragic Romeo and Juliet were played by two men. The Christian church had acting scenes that were depicted by men. In the east, Japan’s finest makeups were reserved for male kabuki actors that dazzled the audience with their grace and high-pitched voices.

The long dresses and gowns that graced the theater were donned by female impersonators and “dragged” across the floor due to their length. This dragging motion swept the stage and set the precedent for female impersonators, naming their craft as “drag.”

Premodernity may have gatekept performative roles from women, but little did they know that this would give birth to one of the most colorful cultures in society. As many men wore the pink mantle of femininity, it slowly blended with the underground gay culture of the 1900s, bringing the phenomenon into mainstream popularity in conjunction with the rise of vaudeville.

Vaudeville

Modernity brought many changes in society, such as the industrial boom which saw people flock towards cities, and even small changes such as medieval corsets becoming blouses. Nations became centralized, and countries like the United States witnessed the rise of live entertainment, as opposed to its up-and-coming rival, the humble television.

Vaudeville saw its upsurge in the ranks of popularity as a form of live entertainment. It finds its roots in France as a comedy skit performed in theaters or by traveling circus performers. Though some roles slipped through the cracks and were portrayed by women, males who impersonated women continued to dominate the stage.

The development of vaudeville divided the drag community into two: the prima donnas and the wrench players. The latter mockingly depicted African men and women, and would go onstage wearing blackface as an insult. The former, on the other hand, were more similar to the drag we know today — high female roles in the acting industry that were portrayed in an exaggerated way, by men.

Drag flourished in this era, as famous personalities would don their makeup and gowns in the streets and bars of New York, and newspapers would have articles explaining drag culture to the mainstream population. The LGBTQIA+ community slowly became associated with drag, and drag would soon find itself alongside the LGBTQIA+ movement.

Drag kings were also popularized during this time: the masculine counterpart of drag culture, where women and members of the underground LGBTQIA+ community would dress up and impersonate men. While many female impersonators existed before, this was the only time drag queens and drag kings gained positive media traction, although with the undertone of being “live entertainment.”

This openness was short lived, however. As the word became linked with the LGBTQIA+ populace, a community that witnessed severe discrimination in the 1950s, the culture slowly disappeared into underground gay bars, which proved to be the last remaining sanctuaries for gay men and women.

Newspaper clippings featured less and less drag kings and queens, while police raided said bars in the night. Various forms of self-expression, such as cross-dressing, were outlawed; and the stigma surrounding the community, as well as the public’s association of the community as one with “mental problems” and being “against nature” pushed the community into hiding. 

The Stonewall Riots

One of the few bars that offered safe haven to the community was none other than the Stonewall Inn, which would give birth to the iconic Stonewall Riots. The bar welcomed members of the queer community and offered a safe space that allowed them to be who they are. Though the bar was run by a mafia which sought profits, the bar became a known icon across Manhattan in the United States.

The 1969 Stonewall Riots were a six day protest that resulted from a police raid of Stonewall Inn. A landmark moment that changed the perspective and atmosphere surrounding the LGBTQIA+ community, the riots were credited by some to be led by the drag queen and transwoman Marsha P. Johnson. She identified as a transvestite, a person who chooses to wear clothes of the opposite sex; the term “transgender” only became commonly used after her death.

The riots spawned numerous gay activist groups, including the gay liberation movement. Despite the first day of the riots numbering in only a couple hundred gay patrons, the end of the protest numbered in the thousands.

The gay liberation movement was the staging ground for the community to demand and call on the government to abolish sodomy laws, and to put an end to LGBTQIA+ discrimination. While similar gay rights movements have existed in the past and largely failed, the Stonewall Riots galvanized the community to work together. A year later, the first pride march was celebrated in honor of the Stonewall Riots, and was held on its anniversary in the following year — June 28, 1970. 

As political discourse surrounding gay rights evolved, the LGBTQIA+ community soon found themselves in a world where they were largely tolerated though never really accepted. Sodomy laws would not be decriminalized until 2003 in a very important decision by the US Supreme Court, Lawrence v. Texas. The movement still carries on today because the community still faces rampant systemic discrimination across the world.

Contemporary Drag

RuPaul Charles, the maker of the hit drag show of the same name, was one of the people that pushed drag into an era of stardom — not only in being incorporated into popular culture, but also garnering acceptance from the general populace. RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) offered a platform for drag queens to rise to popularity once more.

Drag Race Philippines acts as the country’s counterpart of RPDR, featuring a local cast of drag queens mixed with popular Philippine culture. First aired August 17 of last year, the Filipino spinoff was heavily inspired by RuPaul, witnessing so much positive reception that it was greenlit to have a second season. Con-drag-ulations! 

Over the decades that spanned the gay rights movement and the Stonewall Riots, drag culture has cemented its position as the performative theater excursions for the LGBT+ community, as well as being a fierce tool for pride and protest. As it swings back into modern popularity, it is a solemn and colorful reminder of what beauty has to endure in order to survive the ever-present waves of homophobia, discrimination, and hatred.