The Texas Monthly interviewed a drag queen named Brigitte Bandit, who has performed in nightclubs, bars, and library story hours. She has worn a big pink wig, lots of makeup and frilly dresses while performing as Dolly Parton, Jesse the Cowgirl, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and other roles.
She loves performing. But here’s the catch: she was born female, identifies as female, and would not be affected by the ban that Texas legislators intend to pass.
But she’s fighting for the drag queen community. She testified before the legislative committee in full drag.
She noted that there are videos of some of the legislators dressed in women’s clothing (posted in the article).
She said in the interview:
Ultimately, drag is just a play on the gender binary. You can have a drag queen or a drag king, or more alternative drag performers, like spooky, monster-type drag. Drag can just encompass so many things that defining it by your genitalia misses the point of what drag is. A lot of people didn’t realize I was an AFAB [assigned female at birth] queen until I spoke at the hearing. They had no idea, because drag really is a costume, and you can’t poke holes through it to see what’s happening underneath, you know? …
I actually had a Dolly Parton book open on that table during my testimony. [The passage] read, “Dolly loves to wear wigs and lots of makeup. Some people may think it’s too much, but children love her look. And so does she.” I was going to read that, because if you go to story time, you’ll see that it’s really not a threat to anybody or anything. It’s actually a really fun environment, and kids love it. I did this event at [radio station] KUT’s Rock the Park as Dolly Parton, and there was this huge group of children just following me around wherever I went. It was wild to me. They just loved it so much. I was trying to perform and I was worried that I was going to trip over them because they had completely surrounded me. Kids don’t see anything other than, like, a really tall Barbie doll. It’s adults who are sexualizing this kind of art. What’s the issue with me wearing a big dress and reading a book?
Is a female (such as Brigitte Bandit) allowed to give a drag queen performance, but a male dressed in the same outfit with the same wig going to be thrown in jail?
Why do red state legislators find drag queens so threatening? Are they insecure about their own masculinity?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The filth and impropriety is in the minds of those who deign to call drag dangerous. What they really need is a long hard look inside their own psyche.
Why is the former historian Diane Ravitch obsessed with drag queen issues? Over and over, every week.
Jan, I am not a former historian. That’s like saying a doctor is a former doctor. Once a historian, always a historian.
Why do I care about drag queens? Because red states are obsessed with banning their performances and demonizing them, as they are demonizing trans kids, censoring books, and acting as the Rightwing Morality Police. The American Taliban. First they come for the trans kids, then the drag queens….who is next?
@diane — Just so you know I appreciate YOU constantly finding ways to engage minds on not what to think, but how to think. I have learned so much from you and your blog community with your WIDE RANGE of blog posts. I am reminded that the Adult Ed student I helped graduate happened to be a drag queen. What if I dismissed him because of that? Or went out of my way to not help him? Smartest young person I knew. Excellent writer. It reminds me when the kids said, “These burgers taste terrible…’chomp, chomp, chomp…licking fingers…” I said, “I don’t see you not eating them.” If you don’t like something…don’t read it or change the channel. But, the path to enlightenment is to learn what and how your supposed enemy thinks. Most times, people want the same thing and never took the time to sit down, talk, and listen. Blessings, Diane.
Thank you, Mr. Charvet. I post what interests me and hope that readers will understand that my main interests are 1) saving our democracy; 2) saving free public education and improving it.
I write about attacks on marginalized groups and attacks on the freedom to read and the freedom to teach. When the government tramples the rights of anyone, I call them out. Some people have a problem with that. But I write what I want.
I agree with you: if you don’t like drag shows, don’t go.
If you oppose abortion, don’t have one.
@diane — It is a breath of fresh air to read your daily blog. I am cutting ties with many other blog readings simply because a conversation is never happening — just yelling. I remember teaching the First Amendment to my students (we were on the topic of religion) and one of them referred to God and the Bible. I said, “We must defend the rights of all people. So where does it leave me if everything is based on one source, the Bible?” That’s why there is a separation of church and state and rule of law. But, for now, I appreciate what you do…I get it..but I leave you with this, “I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Unfortunately, the quote isn’t real — or at least, it’s not really Voltaire. It comes from a 1906 biography by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in which it was intended to represent a summary of his thinking on free speech issues.
Murky, please do underscore your statement, “Your allusion to Nazi Germany is absurd, the lack of sense of proportion that I note here”, with an argument, not just polemics. Dozens and dozens of people have documented their reasons for believing these “allusion(s)” that it is not absurd with actual facts and experience that are not at all out of proportion. Please, take all the time and virtual ink you want. If you believe what you write, have the integrity to explain why without blind, unsupported accusations.
BTW, more American children die because of gun violence than any other cause. And this is based on lies about second amendment (similar to those about separation of church and state) that has taken hold of this nation since the early 1970s. But do go on.
Under the oft-stated rule number one of this blog: you are not allowed to insult the host. If you do, bye-bye.
So Diane is a retired historian, if you prefer. Being a Democrat, I prefer the truth: Diane Ravitch continues to write and speak authoritatively about the history of education. Her purposes in this blog are different from her purposes as a professional historian, and her writing differs accordingly.
I am a Jew who detests direct comparisons to the Holocaust. Unlike countless Republican officeholders, Diane makes no such comparison. She merely adopts the form of Pastor Niemoller’s poem to make an analogy in kind, not degree, between the acts of the National Socialist [sic] German Workers [sic] Party and today’s Republican Party. This analogy could not be more apt. Linda Murksten: Are you a Black male state legislator in Tennessee, a tenured professor at a Florida institution of higher education, or the friend of a pregnant woman in Idaho whom you drive to an ob-gyn appointment at which she suddenly miscarries? If so, they’re coming for you.
Thank you, Bill. I am a historian. I am retired. I am not paid to blog. There are never ads on this site. Blogging is not writing history. As you point out, they are different kinds of writing. I do know a lot about US history, and I use my knowledge from time to time to put current events into perspective. It is powerful to know, for example, that the demand for “school choice” was created by segregationists trying to escape the Brown decision. That is a well-documented fact.
See Stephen Suitts, Overturning Brown. https://bookshop.org/p/books/overturning-brown-the-segregationist-legacy-of-the-modern-school-choice-movement-steve-suitts/18639662?ean=9781588384201
Or Derek Black: “Schoolhouse Burning”
https://bookshop.org/p/books/schoolhouse-burning-public-education-and-the-assault-on-american-democracy-derek-w-black/14022633?ean=9781541788442
Or my review in the New York Review of Books of these books plus Katherine Stewart’s wonderful “The Power Worshippers” about Christian nationalists. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/01/14/the-dark-history-of-school-choice/
Jan, I think the bigger question is why does it offend you that Diane Ravitch cares about the implications these bans have on society?
Exactly
Bingo!
Now, now, you know they’re scared to say that part out loud, at least not in mixed company with a soupçon of decency.
What are the chances that this Jan person actually reads this blog and didn’t just get directed here to make stupid statements like this? I’d say low
What are the chances that “Jan” is not a fignewton of ChatGPTs overactive imagination?
Great quotes from world history:
“Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with Negro issues? Over and over, every week?” (ca. 1963)
“Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with Ukrainian issues? Over and over, every week?” (2022)
“Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with sanitary water and sewage?” (NYC ca. 1885)
“Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with Jews?” (worldwide ca. 1938)
“Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with that scrawny kid carrying the cross?” (attributed to Ben Hur, ca. 30)
“Why is Jan Stevenson obsessed with Diane Ravitch?” (2023)
Too shay. May I add:
Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with the remote prospect that the Supreme Court will ignore precedent and overturn Roe v. Wade? (January 22, 1973-June 24, 2022)
Why is (fill in the blank) obsessed with more beautiful warm days and a few fires in the middle of nowhere caused by the Rothschilds’ shooting lasers from space? (ca. 1975-The End, which is nigh)
When it comes to sexuality, right wingers are profoundly insecure.
And immature.
exactly
Short in the brain and the britches, as my aunt used to say
Most of these guys probably dressed in drag in skits in high school or college. Drag performances are just that: performances. As such, they should be protected by the First Amendment.
Drag shows are a form of creative expression that are intended to entertain. Anyone that reads more than that into it has a problem. If some people find these shows unappealing, they have the right to find entertainment elsewhere. Why are state governments overreaching into issues of personal taste? If they value “freedom” so much, why are they fixating on drag shows?
Because the current Republican Party does not value freedom. It is obvious their goal is one party rule.
RT,
The obsession with drag queens is red meat for the ignorant. Helps distract from the fact that GOP has no program, other than voter suppression, gerrymandering, and staying in power.
Yes—so they can extend and expand tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations, zero-out social-welfare expenditures that benefit the economy as a whole, live their fever dream of an AR-15 in everyone’s hands (no matter how tiny), and damn all life on Earth to the hellfire of an atmosphere that’s coming for every one of us.
As an arts person, when they asked, “We need a Cinderella for our play.” I looked around and said, “Sure, why not?” Many of my son’s friends (mostly girls) played guys in many of the plays at school. So, like Dianne said, “What’s next? Are they going to outlaw school plays? Mardi Gras parades? Halloween?” Besides anyone in the arts knows that performers put on lots of makeup to allow for proper lighting. And if one has been to a Disney Parade can see the HUGE costumes and fun. Back in the ’60s in San Francisco, it was a big deal to go to Finochios to see the brilliant Broadway shows. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/What-a-Drag-Finocchio-s-to-Close-2899225.php The problem is (as my we studied in Chicago) Who gets to call it art?
“Are they insecure about their own masculinity?
Not only insecure but afraid of their own masculinity.
In Shakespeare’s time ACTING WAS NOT CONSIDERED APPROPRIATE FOR WOMEN.
“England was the last of the European countries to accept women on the stage. In the year 1629 a visiting company of French players gave performances at Blackfriars, with actresses.”
“Women were considered to be the property of men, first their fathers, then their husbands. It was not appropriate for a respectable woman to be alone with men without a chaperone from her family. Women did not work outside the home, unless they were very poor and cleaned or worked in the kitchen for another family. Many respectable women did not even attend the performances of plays because the environment was so rough and vulgar. Actors were considered vagabonds and could not be trusted…
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/why-were-women-banned-from-stagein-shakespears-78191
Do the Fascist MAGA RINOs want to roll back the United States to 17th century England?
I had no idea Dolly was in drag.
Drag Queen: someone who dresses like a politician but acts like a clown.