Drag for the Next Generation

By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill • Photos by Ollie Hancock jennifer@northcoastjournal.com

Dressed as a fairy princess in a purple gown and pointed ears, the drag performer known as Tucker Noir spoke in a bedtime story voice, telling the kids and grownups in the College of the Redwoods auditorium, “First there was clothing, then there was drag.” As the words got bigger, she kept the Mother Goose tone. “Drag is the artistic and experimental exploration of gender,” she explained. “I identify as a girl, whatever that means,” she added, drawing laughter from the kids. “Drag is just dressing up for performance; everybody gets to do it.”

Dragging Through Time, the family-friendly drag fundraiser for Lost Coast Pride, originally planned for January at the Old Steeple in Ferndale but canceled due to safety concerns, finally took place at CR April 29. After Felix Flex danced with a candy-colored sword and shield as Rose Quartz from the Steven Universe cartoon, and Aiden Abet and Uncle Histamine did a number from Monsters Inc., Noir returned to the stage. She was still an elf, but with pants and a five o’clock shadow. “The outfit I was wearing earlier would be fine in Tennessee but the one I’m wearing now is a felony ... just because I put the eyeshadow on the bottom part of my face.” It was a wild thought to hang onto watching her perch in an oversized yellow wing chair as she led a sing-along to “The Rainbow Connection.”

The right-wing media-fueled national furor over drag and kids has led to showdowns with extremist protesters, some armed, disrupting drag queen story hours and all-ages drag events. Locally, protesters and activists have shouted and attempted to intimidate participants, and branded drag event organizers and performers “groomers” out to lure and sexually abuse children. Despite the backlash and the genuine fear it can instill, local performers say they are determined to keep entertaining audiences of all ages in wigs, beards and fanciful costumes. For some of them, drag is both playful self-expression and a vital practice for their community, a sacred space to form connections and keep traditions alive.

Drag performance has a long tradition in America, going back to Vaudeville and masquerade balls. However, men playing women on stage is a tradition dating back to ancient Greek drama, Chinese opera, Japanese kabuki and Shakespearean plays (including those roles where a female character dresses as a man — try to keep up). The flashy, often bawdy style drag we see at clubs and on television grew out of LGBTQ+ communities in the 1980s. At its core, drag by kings, queens and artists exaggerates and plays with gender norms with art, humor, dance, drama, music, makeup and costume. Like other forms of theater, its range and audience are broad.

“Drag is about breaking down what society thinks of you and making yourself into whatever you want — it’s imagination, it’s playing,” says Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza who teaches in the Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Cal Poly Humboldt. Atienza himself has a drag persona — Maria Arte Susya Turisima Tolentino, or Ma Arte — and performs on occasion at Los Angeles’ long-running community open mic Tues Night Café. Ma Arte is an example of the alchemy of drag, born of the trauma of being teased. “There was so much shame for having feminine traits, my voice being higher than some of the boys, my walk