Queens

I don’t know why many trans people have aversions to Drag Queens, I have some thoughts about why… but more on that later.

Trans Performer Chilli Pepper: What I Learned from Decades of Entertaining
Chicago's iconic Chilli Pepper reflects on winning trans beauty pageants and appearing on sensational talk shows in the 80s, and the three decades she's spent performing at legendary clubs like The Baton.
Vice
By Zackary Drucker
Dec 3 2018

[…]
Chilli’s iconic on-stage persona, which she refers to as her “cartoon,” is soulful, unapologetic, and disinterested in anyone else’s judgement. In 2015, I encountered the electrifying presence of Chilli Pepper in the flesh for the first time the same way millions of people before me discovered her: on the stage at the Baton Nightclub. Living up to her name, she looked to be on fire, pantomiming, shifting through emotions. Her fluid movements seductive and self-possessed––an artist in her zone.

In Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria, author Baim Keehnen quotes Chilli analyzing her own stage persona:

“Any description of Chilli must come from the audience, from you. Chilli is a response. Chilli is a mirror. This is my art, this is what I use to perform. I’m not naked. That’s not what I’m selling. This,” gesturing to her face, “this is what I use. I make an expression and I see how they react. The key is seeing yourself through their eyes. If you judge me because you think I care about this or that, or judge me because of who I hang out with, I don’t care. It’s taken me years to get acceptance. That is going to be handed down to other people. That is another and maybe a larger way of being kind.”

I think that the reason a number trans trans people do not like Drag Queens is that they are afraid of being labeled gay. I think a lot of trans folk come from the straight community and avoid anything that might associate them with being gay. Is it homophobia or is it internalized transphobia?

Personally I have a very wide transgender umbrella.

When I say that I am trans I mean that I am under that umbrella, I consider Drag Queens and Kings to be under the umbrella, and crossdressers, and post-op, and non-binary people also. I believe that anyone who crosses the gender norms to be trans if they so identify because after all it is the person who put labels on themselves, we don’t get to labels other people.