Drag Shows Are Safe Spaces

I remember being eighteen years old, freshman in college, excited to live my life. If you didn’t or haven’t been to college, think about how you would feel when you first moved out on your own. There’s excitement of the unknown and the journey of self-discovery that happens when you get full independence in your life. There’s also fear and worry of how you’ll be treated. Can you handle all of life’s ups and downs on your own? You go out seeking community, seeking comfort, and seeking safety. Interestingly, it was once I went to my first drag show I found those three items: community, comfort, and safety.

Pictured above are two photos of me in college dressed up, in what I considered at the time, to be “drag”.

Once I attended my first drag show I found a sense of belonging I never experienced before; especially growing up in a region where there were no gay bars or queer-owned businesses. I think of how I didn’t feel judgement, I didn’t feel shame, I didn’t feel alone or lost. I also didn’t feel drag turned me into, or made me desire to become something else. At no point after doing drag did I think, “I actually think I’m meant to be a man”. It is not the point of a drag show to influence you to think you are something you aren’t. Drag is an artform. Drag is an expression of oppression.

In all honesty, drag was letting me live out a dream that would otherwise never come close to happening: being a rockstar. I can play guitar, but I can’t sing. When I’m in drag I get to lip-sing my favorite songs in front of an audience while I play my guitar, and it just so happens that I’m dressed as a man rather than myself.

Performing my first drag show in front of 100+ people in Flagstaff, AZ.

Drag is one of the most supportive, safe environments I’ve experienced in my life. People compliment you left and right. You hear things like great outfit, great makeup, great performance, etc. Compliments all one would hear after any art performance. Drag shows are an environment meant for building someone up to allow any expression of themselves and you do it through art: makeup, song, dress, & dance.