Send in the Clowns

Not a drag queen doing outreach

I have done many outreach sessions at various colleges and universities – typically for Human Sexuality classes. Usually I was accompanied by post-op, pre-op, no-op, male-to-females and/or female-to-males – a smorgasbord of trans individuals.

I don’t know how the professors prepared their students for our appearances, but oftentimes, the students were not expecting us – especially us male-to-females. The students’ questions and comments indicated that they were expecting drag queens and not the ladies that appeared before them. It was a teachable moment and our presentation enlightened the students, who were expecting someone more flamboyant. 

What was the source of their expectations?

The source was the media’s fixation on drag queens, that is, the media’s desire to publicize drag queens with inferences that the queens represent the trans community. My guess is that in many cases, the media does not know the difference or care about the difference between the trans community and the drag community. Their only concern is publishing their story and the truth be damned.

I have nothing against drag queens doing their thing. You go, girls! But I am not a drag queen and have an issue when they are held up as an example of me. So I strongly disagree that “any news is good news” – that the publicity drag queens receive is a good thing for the trans community or me.

Wearing Agua by Agua Bendita

Femulating at Santiam High School in Mill City Oregon in 1993.
A sample from our flickr Yearbooks collection.

Clowns in Gowns

Exhibit A

Exhibit A is a photo of a group of female impersonators (professional femulators), circa 1960. Discounting the glamorous evening gowns, these ladies resemble cisgender females you might see anywhere in the early ’60s.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B is a photo of what is considered 21st Century female impersonators (drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race). They more resemble the clowns in Exhibit C than they do cisgender females.

Exhibit C

Is it no wonder that I have no interest in modern drag queens? They are just clowns in gowns, in my opinion. 

I especially dislike it when they appear at Pride events and the ill-informed mass media and/or civilian population mistake them as representatives of the transgender community.

Not all drag queens are clowns in gowns. There are some who are professional femulators, but it seems that the clowns in gowns are getting all the attention today. Too bad.

Wearing Joie

Bob Uecker and Rob Stone femulating on television's Mr. Belvedere.

Once Upon a Time

By Mikki

Once upon a time, there were female impersonators all over the place. It was a mainstay of burlesque. There was even a Broadway theater named for Julian Eltinge. 

Female impersonator establishments displayed hundreds of ads for female impersonators in regular newspapers. But as more people were turning to television for entertainment, burlesque died except for Milton Berle and a few burlesque veterans who crossed over to television. 

Likewise female impersonator nightclubs... a few of the venerable ones like the 82 Club lasted a while longer and several television variety shows would have female impersonator acts – Dinah Shore was probably the last of TV shows to have them on, circa 1960. I was in the DC area and we had a bunch of clubs, including the Golden Key Club in North Beach, Maryland. We still have a few clubs, but not even close to what we had in the “olden days.”

I found out about 82 Club (aka Club 82), my favorite by far, from friends at the Golden Key Club, and when I went to work in LA, that same friend told me about the Queen Mary Nightclub. “The Queen” was large and had a back bar that was very CD/TG/Drag-friendly. And when I went to work in San Francisco, the venerable Finocchio’s was there waiting for me. My great surprise there was that the beauty I saw (and fell instantly in love with) in the Jewel Box Revue when I was 13, LaVerne Cummings, was the star of the show. 

The 82 Club lasted until 1978. Finocchio’s and the Queen Mary hung in there until 1999 and 2003, respectively with “The Queen” devolving from live into lip sync. Today, you have to go to Vegas or Bourbon Street in New Orleans to find a dedicated female impersonator club. 

Female impersonation just faded into the background, but RuPaul is responsible for exhuming it in a public way. Of course, there are bars all over the country that have drag on occasion, but RuPaul put it back in the open. 

Now I’d probably be hard pressed to find a town of a moderate-to-larger size that doesn't have some sort of drag brunch. Here in Baltimore, we have a very active drag scene. And the closest thing to a Jewel Box Revue we have are those RuPaul’s drag queen contestants on tour. The two I've been to were in large venues that were packed. The audiences were way more "civilian" than our community. My friend and I were the only two “ladies” at the shows. 

Drag/female impersonation has gone from ubiquitous to dedicated show bars, back to local bars and now back out in the open, if differently, thanks to RuPaul. But dedicated clubs are still as rare as hen’s teeth. And maybe the audience has reverted a bit toward the people who went to see female impersonation back in burlesque, not surprised to see it and comfortable with it when they do see it. 

And the RuPaul tours play to largely packed houses. So watching this “evolution” makes me think that drag and female impersonation will be around for a long, long time. And it’s probably going to creep onto television bit by bit until it and we are going to be hardly noticed. And we won’t have to be nearly as concerned about acceptance.

Wearing Bella Dahl

Postcard from Club 82/82 Club in New York City

Outed?

Femulating at Airline High School, Bossier City, Louisiana, in 1982

In case you don’t read comments that follow my blog posts, Paulette had this to say about Friday’s All the Pretty School Girls post.

I hesitate to cast a cloud over anything you do on this site, having been a big fan for many years. 

(Now comes the 'but'...)

However, have you considered the possibility that these old buried cross-dressing photos (aka womanless beauty pageants) are better left undisturbed? In today's fevered environment, being outed on the internet could be most unwelcome. A dusty schoolbook yearbook is - thankfully for many - lost to history. And despite our prurient fascination in others like ourselves, we have no right to dig up potential problems that will strike 40-50 year olds and their families, like a proverbial bolt from the blue.

Just sayin'

On more than one occasion, I have considered Paulette’s point, but fter writing about and posting over 4,000 womanless images from online school yearbooks, I have never received a complaint that someone has been outed. I believe there are primarily two reasons for this:

Although we like to think differently, most of the people in the images are not femulators. Their high school femulation was a one time occurrence, so there is nothing to be outed about.

About half of the images do not name the people captured in the photo; their anonymity provides protection from being outed.

If anyone ever complains, I will delete their photo immediately.

Wearing Metisu.

Femulating in the 1984 Italian film Cop in Drag.

SaveSave

All the Pretty School Girls

Lara, Maureen and Curly Joan are just three of the pretty girls captured in a new batch of photos that Starla uncovered in on-line school yearbooks. In case you are new here, the girls are really boys crossdressed by their mothers to participate in womanless beauty pageants (or other gurly events) put on by their respective schools.

Starla came up with 53 new yearbook images and they are now available on flickr, where you may view the new photos by opening one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z). There you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)

The contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Sacred Heart High School would be in the Yearbooks S set.

By the way, if you participated in your school's womanless beauty pageant or attended some other school activity en femme, I would love to post your photos along with any description you would like to provide. For example, here is my photo attending my school's Halloween party in 1976.

Say, "Cheese!"

Wearing Parker dress, Oscar de la-Renta earrings and Michael Kors Collection sandals.

Zackary Drucker femulates in a recreation of Blondie's classic 1978 album cover.

Back to School

Femulating in the Yale School of Drag Show (left) and at Belleville Township (Illinois) East High School (right).

I am back at school today, so I offer you two batches of school femulations.

৹   Starla’s latest online school yearbook discoveries

৹   Aunty June’s images from the Annual Yale School of Drag Show

Flickr is home for both collections, but they are located in different neighborhoods.

Aunty’s Yale images are in her Guys to Gurls on Stage and Screen Group.

Starla’s school gurl images are on my flickr page. You may view Starla’ new photos in two ways:

Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z) and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)

Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.

The contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Sacred Heart High School would be in the Yearbooks S set.

Wearing Bebe.

Harry S. Franklyn, femulating professionally in 1929.

College Drag

Miss Jan Brown, the Fantasia Fair program director and an old gal pal, is a regular reader of this blog (who isn't?) and she commented from Provincetown that all is well at the Fair, despite my absence!

Anyway, regarding the video of the high school Lady Gaga impersonator, Jan referred me to a collegiate drag show at Penn State over the weekend (as covered by the University's independent newspaper, The Daily Collegian).

Viewing The Daily Collegian article I was duly impressed by freshman Nick Gresh's femulation (see photo) and after a little Googling, I found a related video.

(Ah --- to be young and femulating again!)

Womanly Yours,

Stana 

Dancing Femulators

This video features three femulators from the Fusion Dance Company performing Single Ladies at the Northwestern University Drag Show in 2009. IMHO, they are excellent.