Reminder to all the idiotic posts I see from a subsection of transfems (usually transandrophobic ones) complaining about how drag is like "blackface for women" and "stereotyping femininity" and all that shit- Fucking obviously, a space that allows men to explore their feminine side and experiment with dressing in gender-non-conforming ways has its ties to some of those men realizing they are actually trans women!! One of the documentaries I was assigned for a class on LGBTQ+ history was focused on the drag community, and I found it very fucking notable to this stupid discourse that; a pretty decent amount of the drag queens that were interviewed in that documentary talked about being trans women and their goals in transitioning. Not to mention a lot of them were people of color, so, yeah I'm sure those radfems would have a great time if they were to use the "drag is like blackface" argument to those people's faces.
But, genuinely though, discourse aside, it is really important to educate ourselves on other sides of our community like this. I have no part or place in the drag community, I've never gone to any show or space for it and I doubt I ever will, because it's just not for me. (Though to be fair, shows in general aren't really for me. All the noise gets overstimulating to my autistic brain very easily.) But god, it's important to recognize the difference between personal preference and validity like that. Watching that documentary taught me a lot about what people in that community went through at the time, and likely still go through to this day. It might not be for me, but I sure as hell gained a lot of respect for drag and the community surrounding it after seeing them talk about their own experiences. A lot of the people who talked about the community in that documentary talked about how they provided support for each other, as a lot of them struggled with some level of poverty or homelessness after being kicked out of their homes once their family found out. And, again, trans people were absolutely a part of this community, some of the interviews included brief mentions of people within the community coming together to help pay for someone's medical transition.
So, yeah, learning more about what these people went through and why drag is important to them and helps bring them together, I gained so much respect for these people and their experiences. And, as part of that, even more rage for the ignorant people in the LGBTQ+ community who denounce them as "stereotyping/performing femininity like blackface."
