'When you're bashing drag performers, you're bashing the culture.'| Columbus Conversation
The art of drag has a very long history.
Male performers after all took the stage during William Shakespeare’s days as female characters.
In recent years, drag queens and kings have been pulled into the culture wars being fought in Ohio and around the nation.
Right here in Columbus, Holi-drag story time was canceled in December due to a protest from far-right nationalists the so-called Proud Boys.
No, this is not about kids and story time.
More recently, a neo-Nazi group Gov. Mike DeWine described as cowardly in a recent Dispatch guest column protested a 21 and up drag brunch in Columbus.
Drag entertainers were invited to discuss, demystify and debunk misconceptions about their craft during The Columbus Dispatch presents: "Columbus Conversation: Why Drag."
Excerpts from the conversation edited for clarity are below.
The videos from the conversation can be viewed on the Dispatch.com as well as the Dispatch's Facebook page and YouTube channel.
The questions asked during the conversation were partly taken from those submitted from readers.
The event featured:
Corey Williams (Anisa Love), a drag artist and activist recently named Ohio ambassador for the nonprofit Drag Out to Vote. A 21 and up fundraiser Williams organized for Kaleidoscope Youth Center on April 29 at Land-Grant Brewing was protested by a small group of neo-Nazis. He says the attention backfired on the group. The attention they attracted raised awareness and helped drive more than $65,000 for KYC instead of the $5,000 target.
Josh Stucky (Dana Sintell), a retired schoolteacher and member of The Rubi Girls. The comedy drag troupe has raised more than $3 million for a host of causes that include breast cancer, animal care, hospice and HIV and AIDS prevention.
LuSter Singleton, (Lustivious Dela Virgion and Luster Dela V.) a writer, drag artist and co-founder of the drag king troupe H.I.S. KINGS and IDKE (The International Drag King Extravaganza).
Julia Applegate (Jake Wakeman) a former drag king with H.I.S. Kings and The Royal Renegades. Applegate and Singtleton are co-directors and producers of an upcoming documentary about Summit Station, Ohio’s first and longest-running lesbian bar.
Drag artist Caleb Mikayla Robinson who drew national attention after her December Holi-drag storytime at the Red Oak Community School was cancelled due to threats and a protest by members of the Proud Boys, a far-right, neo-fascist organization.
Whose job is it to convince people drag queens are not the enemy?
Corey Williams (Anisa Love)
It is not my job to teach you. It's your job as an adult to want to educate yourself. We already are fighting uphill battles.
But when it comes to a grown thinking human being, knowledge is ultimately power. All you need to do is pick up a book. Everyone has a phone, do the research and do the work.
Soon as you read the fact of what we do, how we do it, you should already know what's real and what's factual.
I'm done fighting, saying I want you to know this - I need you to know this - because then I'm punching against a wall that doesn't want to be cracked. But the problem is we have adults who are choosing to push their views and the hardest and nastiest of ways on their children.
And those children are going to be (making) the laws making decisions in our near future.
Josh Stucky (Dana Sintell)
I will add to that what I find funny about all of this is, you know, 28 years in a classroom, I read a million books to kids.
But the fact that you put on a wig and a dress - and all of a sudden that changes everything. It boggles the mind.
Why do we have the responsibility to fix this? Fix yourself.
What happens at Drag Story times?
Caleb Mikayla Robinson
The educational system is supposed to help us have this diversity and inclusion, that's what drag story time allows. A drag queen can help open up the eyes for people to see that they can become whoever they want to and however they want to be — and do it.
The drag story hours would allow the families to come out with their children, hear different stories. We did ours during the Christmas season, so we had holiday books. We did holiday songs. Just like if you go to a holiday parade or if you go to Disney World, you see people dressed costumes.
The importance of it is just it's showcasing diversity and inclusion.
Parents choose to want to bring their children to this. I think people who aren't choosing to bring their children, need not to try to control what other people choose to do in their households and what they want to do to show diversity and inclusion in their home.
Even in churches, schools, libraries, it's a part of the world's duty to do this due diligence. For those fighting against, it, you are a part of the problem, and you are the problem.
(I was put in a national scandal) being scandalized and being labeled as a groomer or being labeled as a pedophile or whatever they wanted to use.
I started going to school for early childhood development. I wanted to own daycare centers. I wanted to work as an elementary school teacher. Being able to be a 36-year-old adult who's always going to be an educator and being asked to come read books, provide education and resources, it's a great job and a great feat.
How would you like to see people support drag performers and others in the LGBTQ+ community?
Julia Applegate (Jake Wakeman)
Learn some history and recognize that the drag kings, drag queens, performances of gender like this - it's a production of our culture.
When you're bashing drag performers, you're bashing the culture.
It's not a game. It's a painful thing to dismiss an expression of a cultural identity. Learning some history and understanding what you're doing when you're bashing drag. It is damaging and painful.
LuSter Singleton, (Lustivious Dela Virgion and Luster Dela V.)
You do have a civic responsibility. We're a community. If you have kids, know what's going on in your school.
I just recently had a conversation with someone who somehow didn't realize that trans kids had problems trying to go to the bathroom of their choice and our school and (they were) very upset and outraged about it.
We make some assumptions about some of these groups and, you need to see what's going on.
I work with a school that does a “tolerance assembly" at the beginning of the year that basically just looks like parading in some people of difference to dance or drum or do some poetry and say we should all love each other. It needs to be more in-depth than that.
It needs to be, what happens when I find myself in a group of my friends being homophobic, being racist, being classist?
What do I do?
How am I empowered? I feel bad about it, but how am I empowered (to do something)?
And so, you know, it's those types of situations. You know your church groups who say that they're all welcoming and inclusive. Are they really?
Your equity groups - at your organizations, are you looking around seeing everybody looking like you with the same politics as you?
Maybe you want to press that and change that up. Speak up, speak out, send letters to your congresspeople. For real, we need you to flood every avenue you can on our legislation right now.
Corey Williams (Anisa Love)
You need to understand that right now we have HB8 (House Bill 8), the bill that would give teachers the power to out their students to their parents - (These are students) who may be going home to an unsafe environment as it is.
Ultimately as an ally, stand with us at the polls like you want to tip me at my show? That is the thing. Voting is the key to changing anything.
Caleb Mikayla Robinson
A lot of allies are stuck on RuPaul's Drag Race. Those girls are stars but your stars are your local girls.
As you can see, many of your local drag performers and artists are also studying politics and are also on the ground in the community trying to force and get change to happen.
So support your local artists.
LuSter Singleton, (Lustivious Dela Virgion and Luster Dela V.)
I have three children. I would not be having a show with nudity and whatnot for my children. There is no nudity happening at the story reading time.
The nudity or scantily clad stuff that is going on is going on for people that are 21 years of age and older. It is in a club. It is entertainment. It is basically people dressing up and singing their favorite music, doing performances and numbers, sometimes versus sometimes not.
The realness.
That's what's going on and not all drag shows include nudity.
Sometimes they're just around a certain genre, but there is the play of intimacy and titillation. It's a show at a bar
I don't know what's happening with this collapsing of thinking that we're taking this bar thing and putting it in the library or putting it in the schools.
When we do performances for the under 18 set, we live by the same kind of morality, too.
Because I do drag does not mean I'm immoral. I identify as a faith walker. There is this notion that because we do this “cross dressing” or we play with this that somehow that makes me inherently someone who is trying to bring flowness to our children.
What's happening at the library is not what's happening at the bar.
You can be sure that if children are involved none of this other thing is involved because as a queer identified person, as a drag performer, I have to be hyper aware of what I'm saying and doing for fear that someone's going to think that I'm trying to turn their child out and and and do all of this stuff.
It is not synonymous with child sex trafficking. We really have to move away from that.
You should come to a drag show… you can leave if you don’t like it. But you should come to it and see for yourself.
Josh Stucky (Dana Sintell)
How many fundraisers have the Proud Boys done?
We have all these communities coming at drag queens, who turn around and say, 'Hey, my son is autistic, can you raise money for Autism Society?'
Yes, I absolutely can and I will do that. But we're not going to the Proud Boys and saying, when is your show to raise money for the Autism Society, right?
Drag Queens have a charitable nature.
It's in us to do good for other people. And when people bring up these nudity and immoral things, it's like, why are you throwing this into the mix when all so many of us are trying to do is benefit other people and move the pendulum forward for anybody that may have need or feel underprivileged in our society.
It absolutely incenses me that on one hand you'll say, well the drag queens will do it and on the other hand don't do it, drag queens.
You can't have it both ways. It is very frustrating to so many of us in this community.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus drag performers say neither drag story time hours or artform should be vilified.
