The History of United States Drag

When one leans into Queerness as a natural state of being, one may give the human experience the fullness it deserves — and Drag, as a world-making project, does such a thing. Interestingly enough, Drag — a globally criminalized act — has become an artistic expression and performance more-so accepted within the United States than in previous times making it an critical artform for further inquiry. In an effort to understand why criminalization occurs and to uncover the history of U.S. based Drag, I found it advantageous to focus on lesser known Drag artists such as Divine, Pepper Labeija, Gowongo Mohawk, Gladys Bentley, and William Dorsy Swann, as well as the ways in which Drag has shown up in unexpected places such as institutions of higher education. A culmination of Drag experiences provide a basis to better understand the ways in which the social-class making of gender, sex, and sexuality impact Queer expression and how Queerness may be criminalized from such classification.

Hello, my name is Elijah Nichols. I am a Senior at George Mason University studying Government and International Politics with a concentration in Public Administration and Policy. Today, I will be presenting a bit on my research.

Throughout this research process, I have leaned into the sociological understanding of the world: where Queerness is looked at as the natural state of being. Queerness is the leaning into the naturality of our world not of human-created classes — giving the human experience the fullness it deserves.

With such understanding and exploration of the aforementioned sociological understanding, I have chosen to ask the question: What is the unheard history of United States Drag, as a performance art?

With the rise of RuPauls Drag Race, we are seeing Drag become a commodified, straight-and-cis-appealing artform thus putting an unreasonable standard on local Drag artists.

Building an awareness through both a literature review and eventually a production will foster a Queer, historically accurate and creative means of leaning into our Queer reality and the artform of Drag. The intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class will and must be touched on within the research as well.

The importance of focusing on lesser known Drag artists (which are named above) allows for us to build on the idea of Queerness — and that naturality — being restricted through the making of gender, race, and class thus leading to a need for the world-making that is Drag.

The reality of Queer identity and expression being criminalized throughout history, however, creates challenges in the research process. Documentation of figures such as Gowongo Mohawk and Gladys Bentley are scarce, so much of the research came from popular magazines, radio shows and films, as well as some peer reviewed works from Feminist and Drag leaders such as Butler, Torr and Bottoms, as well as Vagistan.

William Dorsy Swann: First documented “Queen of Drag” in both legal and news documents was also the first known riot on behalf of Queer liberation and the first person to use legal mechanisms for Queer liberation. Others such as Pepper Labeija are often flattened in their documented history in films such as Paris is Burning.

Therefore the production will focus more on specific moments, as literature and popular media is scarce for many of the subjects except Divine. The literature review, however, focuses more on the connection between gender and queer theory with the five drag subject’s experiences.

As of now, I have not finished the research and hope to continue the work into the Spring, but I am confident that the conclusion and results of will highlight the historical repression and criminalization of Queer peoples, as well as the fullness of the subject’s artform. Otherwise known as the subject’s process of world-making through Drag.

I’d like to thank both the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, & Research and my mentor, David Corwin, as they’re actively aiding in Queer liberation through the support of this project.