#i'm speaking more to the culture around it and rupaul as a figurehead

[faelapis]

random trans thoughts & vent //

i've started watching unhhhh and i love it. its really funny. i've always been slightly uncomfortable with drag culture for probably the same reason a lot of other trans people are... but this show is healing the rift a little bit in my heart. it helps that they're both openly supportive of trans people, and they tend not to rely on the transphobic jokes that a lot of drag performers do.

to elaborate on that rift - drag queens are often seen as trans people's "fun" cousin who you're allowed to make fun of. it never escaped my notice that rupauls drag race got "big" before we saw any good trans representation, and that at the same time, the existing trans representation was tragically woobified and focused on angst, self-hatred and discrimination almost exclusively.

drag, on the other hand, often gleefully made fun of itself and invited cishet people to do the same. in comedy, they tended to often use transphobia as a punchline which did not hurt them too bad, relying on ciscentrism, fake boob gags and man in a dress-jokes that they themselves are "in" on.

it certainly doesnt help with a figurehead like rupaul who, well, has made a lot of distasteful comments, even if he eventually apologized. but the problem with those comments is that they kinda emphasize the frustration a lot of trans people feel with drag culture - that they say shit like a trans woman is just a drag queen with "50k and a good surgeon" or emphasize how their own performance "fails" at true womanhood. so they allow cis people those thoughts and reap the rewards. they get to be fun, self-aware, self-parodying and unserious. the good ones.

sure, they do challenge gender roles, which i'll yield to rupaul is indeed "punk rock"... but only as long as they remain "self-aware" of a level of artifice, in a way that never challenges how gender is seen as a cisnormative biological construct. in another rupaul interview, the guardian contrasted drags "playfulness" with trans people's "earnest militancy." which shows how defanged drag is nowadays, when the UK press is comfortable enough to compliment it.

but when you're serious, that's a "problem." when you're an actual trans person who doesn't appreciate your lived experiences constantly being portrayed as a joke, camp, failed seriousness, a clown show, a mockery of gender roles, etc... thats when drag culture feels like its partially there to make fun of you. its a surprisingly fine line to walk, gay men making fun of gender without being ciscentric.

i'm certainly not calling on it to become more self-important or serious, goodness knows we need comedy. especially comedy that challenges heteronormativity and gender roles. that is awesome. but its when drag leans in to its own "privilege" as "the good, funny, self-aware ones (who aren't mentally ill like the freaky trans folk)," thats when it fails to be subversive in any real way.

i've had cis LGB+ friends be surprised that i don't watch drag race. for them, its often a place for fun, lighthearted representation, where they get to feel at home in a way that isn't too angsty. but for me, and many trans people, its often felt like a world that would prefer not to think about us.

tl;dr - stan this collab between nikkietutorials and gottmik