Student Advocates Accepting Unique Lifestyles

by Leah Braunschweiler
11.14.07

They are everything I am not—glamorous, envied and have no problem leaving their inhibitions at the door. Drag queens are some evolved form of human beings that I, if born a man, would wholeheartedly become.

Yes, I do have a quaint obsession with transvestites, drag queens, all of the above. But, the idea of sexual reassignment surgery honestly does not appeal to me.

I simply admire these poster children of androgyny for their bravery, for their resolve to do whatever they please, regardless of the consequences. I happened to stumble upon a gathering of trannies at the Doubletree Hotel on Dodge Street, and frankly, those men looked better dolled up than a pack of girls at a senior prom.

The cross dressing population of the world is, I believe, grossly underrepresented and to most, very scary.

The idea of a man dawning a sequined gown, lashes ascending to the heavens, and enough makeup to single handedly put Maybelline out of business is, for some reason or another, disconcerting. The world has changed in terms of what is and what isnít socially acceptable, occasionally to an appalling degree, but yet there are still some remaining qualms about drag. Why?

Bending genders is a trend that has been around since the invention of fire. Cavemen smeared their faces with mud, decorating them with leaves. Stock brokers in the 1920s, although no one knew it, were prancing around in their wives' garters.

David Bowie threw the entire world for a loop when he decided to dress himself in glittery blouses, leotards and paint his face in hues that only accentuated his high cheekbones further. In a gloriously superficial time period we now refer to as the 80s, larger than life drag queen Divine defied our† imaginations with her astronomically large cup size and startlingly deep truckdriver-from-Brooklyn voice.

James St. James, an infectious personality with an affinity for hedonism and documenting the events generated by the idea, goes about life with a zest provincial men in todayís world get glimpses of only momentarily, via reverie.

Now all of these figures listed above arenít full-fledged drag queens, excluding Divine, but they did redefine their genders, and that is what we are concerned with here. They are human beings, amplified.

Cross-dressers have paved the resplendent path to fabulousness, inviting the curious to simply come along and dance.

Gender bending should not be approached with caution, if anything it should be embraced and not branded with a blatant seal of disapproval.