Tag Archives: drag queen

RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio tells Carmen Carrera to “stick whats left of your dick in your mouth and STFU”

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Again, I have to ask the people who defend either RuPaul or the use of the word “tranny” – are these the ponies you want to bet on? Really?

In a video which was unashamedly originally posted on the Facebook page for RuPaul’s Drag Race (the link below will take you to another copy), recent Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio takes to the microphone to tell what she really thinks of us in the transgender community:

“And let’s face it, we wouldn’t know who the fuck Carmen Carrera was if she didn’t fuckin’ get on Drag Race. Maybe she should take what’s left of her dick and stick it in her mouth and shut the fuck up.”

Absolutely no apology has been made, nor even an attempt by RuPaul to distance himself from the slurs and hate speech posted by his protégé.

It’s long past time for the community of transgender and transsexual women to stand up and shun RuPaul. Send him to Coventry, and stand up to anyone who idolizes him and ask “how can you do this?” For all that people can argue that RuPaul raised awareness for LGBT causes in the past, his flurry of recent capers and antics show that at best he’s a woefully clumsy dinosaur, unable to comprehend a world where transgender and transsexual women finally take their rightful place at the table.

RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio tells Carmen Carrera to “stick whats left of your dick in your mouth and STFU” ~ Planetransgender.

Highly Interesting Photos of the Kansas City CD/T Scene, and an Upcoming Local Event

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PrivateBirthdayParty0Unknown, 1958

I was pointed to an article in New York Magazine by an acquaintance, which highlights something which I think is very cool. The subject is the discovery and a project to exhibit an incredibly rare collection of photos of the crossdressing, drag, and transgender scene in Kansas City in the 1950’s and 1960’s. From the original article:

In 2006, artist Robert Heishman was poking around a Kansas City salvage yard, looking for material for an undergraduate documentary class, when he stumbled upon a slide carousel labeled “Jack’s Slides: Chicago and Kansas City.”

“The first image I looked at was this picture of a man in a kimono that was incredibly colorful — it was just a stunning image to behold,” Heishman told the Cut. “There were family photos, and then I hit this line of images that were all people dressed in drag, predominantly standing in front of this beautiful mosaic outside a bar.” Intrigued, Heishman purchased the slides — for $2. “I didn’t really know what I was purchasing, but I wanted to have time to sit with them a little longer,” he explains.

Two years later, Heishman’s longtime friend Michael Boles was helping a friend move into a new house in Kansas City — which, as he describes it, was right around the corner from the drag clubs that were vibrant in the ’50s and ’60s. He came across a shoebox of slides that turned out to be quite similar to the ones Heishman had found at the scrapyard. “When we got them together and paired them up, it was kind of amazing,” Boles reflects. “Some of them are even from the same parties.” The resulting collection — titled “Private Birthday Party,” after the signs that used to appear on club doors when drag balls were taking place — includes over 200 images and provides a vivid glimpse of Kansas City’s early drag-ball culture. Heishman and Boles have since brought on Emily Henson to help with background research; together, the three believe they’re close to identifying the photographer.

PrivateBirthdayParty1Unknown, December 1964
PrivateBirthdayParty3Unknown, December 1964

A first peek at these rare photos can be found on the project site, Private Birthday Party. I confess that when I saw the wonderful old photos complete with their classy kitsch I let out a squeal of joy which raised my wife’s eyebrows.
PrivateBirthdayParty2The Colony, 1959

What’s more, there is a debut party and fundraiser for the project which will be held on April 17, 2014, at the Guild in downtown Kansas City. Yours truly is intending to attend, and I hope to be able to ask some questions directly of the folks involved in this project. If anyone reading this wants to say hi, show up and look for the funny little lady with her camera.

PrivateBirthdayParty4The Colony, November 1968
Click here for a direct link to the photo gallery in its current form. I very much hope that they will be posting all of the photographs soon, and in higher resolution as well.

Anti-Trans Slurs and Drag: Who Exactly Is Transgender, and Does It Matter? by Dana Beyer

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Rupaul PerformsThis is an essay by Dana Beyer at the Huffington post, which I read twice, and which I confess does not really reach any conclusions nor really take any hard positions, but does cover a bit of ground and raises some things to think about. Most specifically:

The schism that is uncovered by this debate is between the gay male and trans female communities. It arose very recently in the wake of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor being given to Jared Leto for what was viewed by many as a very drag-queen-like portrayal of a trans woman, Rayon, in Dallas Buyers Club. These communities have never really been politically comfortable with one another, and some of that discomfort is now erupting publicly.

(The pedantic professor in me does object a bit to her relying upon Wikipedia as a reference for the etymology of “drag” and choosing what she refers to as a “folk etymology.” The earliest references to “drag” both appear in 1870 (Reynolds’s Newspaper  and the London Figaro), and neither they nor the 1887 and 1927 references in the Referee and the Sunday Express respectively, let alone the other 7 historical references,  make any reference to drag meaning “dressed as girl.” (source: Oxford English Dictionary). It is almost certainly an ex post facto acronym.)

Anti-Trans Slurs and Drag: Who Exactly Is Transgender, and Does It Matter? | Dana Beyer.

Opinion: Two and a Half Men Introduces Transwoman Character. Is this a Good Thing?

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Personally, I’ve read other reports from around the net which tend to vary from lukewarm to poor reception among the transgender community who aren’t paid contributors to websites. I mean come on, it’s Two and a Half Men, one of the most sexist and crude shows at times on prime time. On the other hand, they have treated some LGB subjects with sensitivity, such as when Charlie’s mom had a lesbian affair. Perhaps a crucial step towards mainstream acceptance is to not get too offended right away, unless the offense is blatant and unavoidable?

Recently I saw a drag performance with a cisgender woman and a transsexual friend, said performance being done by a gay man. The cisgender woman thought that the performance was entertaining and not offensive. My transsexual friend was torn – she did find the performance entertaining, but was also nonetheless bothered about “why is a man dressed as a woman supposed to be funny? Doesn’t this cause people to view transsexual women as drag performers, and thus not take the fact that our entire lives are uprooted and changed during transition as seriously as they should?”

As a transsexual woman myself, I was torn. My opinion was somewhere between the two – on one hand, I can see where my trans friend was coming from. On the other hand, the performance was done respectfully and well, and was entertaining. The focus of the humor was not on “look at me! I’m a gay dude wearing a dress!” but rather the gay man was simply playing a role which happened to be female.

Context and delivery is everything, and from what I can tell from the clips I’ve watched, Two and a Half Men didn’t do such a bad job. If nothing else, it’s worth waiting to see how the story develops.

Op-ed: Two and a Half Men Introduces Trans Character, Manages to Stay Respectful | Advocate.com.

Drag Queen Lady Bunny Shares Her Opinions on LGBT and Especially T History

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LadyBunny

A choice quote from the article:

“I say, guess what, the gay rights movement was not started by people who wore a pink T-shirt one day on gay Pride day and went back to a closeted office job. It was started by drag queens, transsexuals, and street people who were totally flamboyant and lived their lives flamboyantly and didn’t have a conservative place to retreat to and got shit on all the time,” said Lady Bunny. “Don’t ever try to subtract drag queens from gay rights history; you will fail.”

I mostly agree with her. Any thoughts?

Lady Bunny Bounces into San Francisco :: EDGE New England.