I'm Not RuPaul's Drag Queen

It’s early Friday evening when Oxford Street begins to take shape. The public are roaming the street in search of a way to end the work week with a high, and fortunately, the bar scene serves just that purpose. It’s the perfect destination for the illustrious Oxford Street drag queens to take centre stage.

Tonight, MamaMedusa has driven up from Wollongong to perform for us at Ching-a-Lings. She is sporting a golden, glittery eyeshadow that surpasses her eyebrows, accompanied by a bedazzled choker, thigh-high boots, and a heart-shaped faux fur red coat to tie it all together. Undeniably, she looks incredible.

When drag is mentioned, you might first imagine the more stereotypical definition: a man who dresses and alters their gender performance to act as an exaggerated version of socially constructed femininity. Such a definition excludes cis-women — as well as non-binary and transgender women — of the LGBTQIAP+ community (like MamaMedusa) who do not believe that their gender should inhibit their desire to perform. As a result, they risk confronting misogyny and prejudice.

It’s that automatic assumption that all drag queens must identify as males that MamaMedusa faces regularly. “When I first started, I would get questions like, ‘Why is she here? Isn’t she a woman?’ It’s difficult for the public to process that I identify as a woman, [but is] especially [so] if they haven’t seen anything like this before.”

Unfortunately, the unwillingness to accept drag performers that identify as womxn boils down to poor education on drag culture and the rich history of its LGBTQIAP+ participants. The misconception that womxn can’t perform in drag is even more narrow-minded, considering that academics like Tim Lawrence assert that womxn have been dressing in drag as far back as the first queer masquerade ball, held in Harlem in 1869. Since then, womxn have only continued in decades past to use drag as a necessary form of self-expression.

Despite efforts to properly inform the general public, there remain members of the drag community who gate-keep drag culture like it is some sort of ‘gentlemen’s club.’ This club holds contempt for womxn for ‘practising performance within their own gender norms.’

Likewise, the rich history of the LGBTQIAP+ community is often overlooked in favour of the more digestible representations found on social media, which have brought unprecedented mainstream success to a small percentage of the drag community. For many drag queens, their experiences are dictated and closely linked to infamous drag queen RuPaul, and his show Ru- Paul’s Drag Race.

Since its beginning, RuPaul’s Drag Race has assisted in the general public’s appreciation for drag culture. Before Drag Race, drag was only really accessible to people who were old enough to attend performances at niche bars, theatres, or clubs. The invention of Drag Race meant that drag became accessible at home, and with interest in the show rising, RuPaul successfully expanded the drag industry and the jobs it had to offer.

Almost simultaneously, RuPaul stripped drag of its artform by dumbing the concept down for the masses through competitive lip-syncing and celebrity impressions. Drag Race has been criticised for its lack of diversity and accused of only promoting a certain type of queen to its audience. The contestants that generally win have a large fan base, expensive costumes, perfectly laced wigs, generic makeup, and padding in all the right places. For most people, this is their first encounter with drag, and therefore they learn to apply the same expectations Ru- Paul has for his participants to all drag queens.

Non-binary drag performer Etcetera Etcetera explains that most of their encounters with people begin with a comparison to the queens from Drag Race. “So, for women, transwomen, and people from the non-binary community, when people meet those [performers] and they’ve been socialised to accept a certain view of drag because of Drag Race, they’re going to […] treat them as objects, or be like, ‘I’ve never seen someone like you before. What do you mean you’re a woman that does drag? That’s weird.’”

In 2018, RuPaul decided to exclude womxn from competing, stating that “drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it.” This dictation by RuPaul and his producers inherently robs drag of its focus on self-expression and inclusivity, while encouraging uniformity amongst its performers. Drag has an incredibly rich history of struggle and marginalisation, and despite this adversity, RuPaul chooses to ignore a whole section of the LGBTQIAP+ community that has advocated for and contributed to, the mainstream success and acceptance that he benefits from today.

As such an identifiable figurehead of drag, Ru- Paul should be exposing his wide audience to diversity within the community. Unfortunately, until he does so, the onus is on the community and his audience to expose themselves to the more ‘unorthodox’ performers that RuPaul continues to disavow. ‘Black-listed’ performers have mentioned that RuPaul’s narrow scope of drag will eventually lead to his demise, as drag is forever evolving. Viewers need to understand that drag performers aren’t constructed by popular authority, like RuPaul, and that with such a vibrant and diversified community, it can only truly be governed by self-expression alone.

Even if the politics within the drag community aren’t black and white, for Etcetera Etcetera, drag remains colourful. “Drag is destroying gender roles and gender construct[s], it’s a point of activism for the community, and it’s a place where people can express themselves through aesthetics.”

The main criticism of womxn and non-binary drag performers is the implication that they are undergoing a perfunctory transformation, especially given the so-called ‘advantages’ that presenting as womxn already provides them. Contrary to this belief, after spending four hours with Geordie McCormack, better known as SpaceHorse, I observed first-hand the great lengths she goes to assume her drag personality. “I’m wearing four hundred pairs of stockings, I’m cinching my waist with a corset, I’m wearing a wig and lashes. I’m doing the full gig. You try doing that in the middle of summer in Australia.”

Sydney offers an array of spaces and events that act as safe havens and judgement-free zones for members of the LGBTQIAP+ community. However, regardless of a venue’s best intentions, the reality is their safety can never be guaranteed. Even events like Mardi Gras or

popular drag bars such as The Imperial, still witness bigotry and violence. Not only are these spaces threatened by prejudice from outside of the community, but also from increasing divisions within the community created by this hierarchy of power.

Some members of the drag community have the repertoire to turn their passion into a full-time career. However, the prospect of being booked for exclusive events or regular gigs has allowed drag to become increasingly competitive. This means that despite the promotion of inclusivity, some spaces for members refuse to give performance opportunities to smaller, unconventional queens. For Sydney drag bars to stay relevant, event holders must welcome more diverse voices into their spaces. If they don’t, these places will inevitably become toxic and lose income over their lack of inclusivity.

Jacob Merchant, CEO of the Dragnation Australia competition, has witnessed the decline of attendee’s support in exclusive drag bars. “If you limit something, it lacks the ability to progress and grow and change. If you don’t let it do that and don’t support it, it’ll disappear, it’ll fade away. Because of that, all of my events are open to drag performers regardless of their gender or persuasion.”

Despite bystanders’ best efforts to diminish, fetishise, or discriminate against womxn and non-binary people in drag, these performers refuse to be invisible. They are evolving drag from a ‘gentlemen’s club’ into an inclusive community that encourages anybody to express themselves through performance, fashion, makeup, and art.

Being in the audience while MamaMedusa is performing is nothing short of phenomenal. Her energy on stage captivates the audience, and you can tell that every lyric she choreographs has a purpose. Lizzo’s "Cuz I Love You" is the perfect medium for her alter-ego to channel her experiences of sexuality and how her body is perceived by others as a plus-sized woman. All the misogyny that threatens to break these performers only provides more ammunition for a better, more heartfelt performance.

Drag is an artform for MamaMedusa. Her passion developed after growing up inspired by the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), at age six. She began performing in 2018, and since then, she’s seen it all. “I’ve been knocked down a couple of times, but that […] definitely doesn’t mean that women [like me] are going to stop [performing]. It’s an expression, it’s my passion, it’s everything.”

Drag began as a way for people to explore themselves through self-expression. If we limited who could experience this exploration, we would be robbing drag of its diversity. In this political climate, drag has evolved to become so much more than just a performance: it has the ability to tell stories through vulnerability on stage. The inclusion of more marginalised voices — like transgender people, people of colour, or gender non-conforming individuals — only makes drag a richer experience for the audience and community.