A BEGINNER’S

GUIDE TO DRAG

Drag is about so much more than putting on a dress – to paraphrase RuPaul, it’s not about dressing like a woman, but about dressing like a drag queen. Men have been imitating women for centuries – actors even had a legitimate reason for doing so because women weren’t allowed to perform on stage until the latter half of the 17th century – but drag as an art form, typically performed by gay men, developed later. By 1880, William Dorsey Swann, a former slave, had named himself queen of drag and had started hosting balls in Washington DC; drag scenes were also thriving in New York and San Francisco at round about the same time. Beneath the costumes, wigs, eyelashes and heels, drag is often politics dressed as entertainment and self-expression dressed as make-believe. It has its own language and even a network of families to support younger queens, with drag mothers as heads of the house.