Content note: discussions of transphobia, misogyny, and of bodies as male- or female-coded
So the RuPaul thing is being approached from so many angles that it can be hard to see the wood for the trees.
The response to his ‘apology’ tweet has been understandably mixed, but also confused. People have said “It wasn’t an apology” - which is true. They’ve also accused him of refusing to take responsibility though, and that’s exactly what he did do:
“I understand and regret the hurt I have caused.”
He does take responsibility for causing hurt. He says he regrets that he hurt people. But he’s neither sorry he said it, nor taking it back. This was deliberate. He may well be listening, as he claims, but at this point we have to assume his stance is unchanged: RuPaul will not have people with female-coded bodies on his show.
Erin and I (hi, Mo here) only started watching Drag Race late last year and pretty much blitzed through the selected highlights (as curated by our live-in houseboy), seeing the years of progression and development in the Drag Race brand in the space of a few weeks.
From the way some of our friends had talked about the show I half-expected it to be teeming with trans people and so-called 'bio’ (note: gross term) queens by the most recent season, so the incremental shift we saw instead was a little surprising - a couple of women coming out as trans on the show, usually right before (or after) leaving, and one woman who was out as trans from the start, in nine seasons (and three seasons of All Stars). (I’m aware there are NB/GQ folk too but I haven’t heard of any having had surgical affirmation.)
Truth: I’ve always looked sidelong at drag queens. I acknowledge their importance to parts of the LGBT community, but for me personally it’s always felt discomfitting that the oppressive identity foisted upon me by my superficial biology is a figure of fun when performed by (usually) cis men. That impression has softened watching RPDR. Seeing (and hearing) what drag means for even the cis men who engage with it has made me sympathetic to the other side of the debate, and though I wouldn’t say I’m entirely converted I no longer think that’s all drag is about, and I’m at least aware of the more subversive types of drag - although they’re rarely showcased RPDR itself and when they are it’s very sanitised.
But RPDR continually featuring only male-coded bodies just reinforces everything I thought: that drag is a misogynist act by cis men, and not an inclusive, subversive fucking of performative gender at all.
One of RuPaul’s most famous aphorisms - “We’re born naked, everything else is drag” - is one that really resonates for me, on a level - it’s essentially Judith Butler without the nuance. But Judith Butler doesn’t have a massively popular TV show.
I think we all get why he’d want to restrict RPDR’s representation, whether we’d admit it or not. He claims it’s because this is drag at its most 'dangerous’ and 'ironic’, that only in seeing 'men’ drag as women do we say ‘fuck you’ to masculinity.
(Note: he says ‘men’ but he doesn’t seem to care whether they’re men, non-binary or women, only that their amab bodies are largely still male-coded.)
But let’s admit it, ultimately it’s because that is drag at its most populist, dramatic and superficially impressive: the male-bodied person transforming into a hyperfeminine person. The idea that a trans (or cis) woman performing hyperfemininity isn’t ironic and thought-provoking and radical is transparently preposterous and RuPaul must, must know that.
(Oh, and while we’re here, what about post-op trans men? Can they be drag queens? What about pre-op but post hormones trans men? What about trans men who’ve had top but not bottom surgery? Do they literally make prospective contestants drop trou at the audition to check their junk?)
“So, okay, that’s just how Drag Race is then,” you might say, “nobody is saying that’s how drag actually is.”
But here’s the thing: in theory RuPaul is saying that it’s totally fine for there to be 'bio’ and trans queens, and only that they can’t go on Drag Race if they have female-coded bodies because Drag Race’s thing is male bodied people doing drag. In doing so of course he also draws a distinction between pre- and post-op trans women, which is also epically problematic. But it gets worse.
Because in practice it seems pretty well established at this point that in the USA at least, RPDR is basically a gateway to a new pay bracket for queens, and to the international market. It’s not the end-all be-all, but it’s a massive leg-up for queens to have been on RPDR. That’s why we’ve for several seasons now been seeing queens on there who clearly don’t really want to do a reality TV show but feel they have to if they want to get ahead in their profession. And RuPaul knows that. In other contexts 'Mama Ru’ revels in her status as the ultimate Drag Matriarch, shepherding these baby queens onward to stardom.
So RuPaul can say all he likes that he believes drag should be inclusive even if RPDR is not, but through his actions he single-handedly and deliberately maintains a glass ceiling for female-coded-bodied drag queens.
In one profoundly misjudged tweet, he compared the whole thing to the Olympics:
“You can take performance enhancing drugs and still be an athlete, just not in the Olympics.”
Funny thing is it kinda is like the Olympics, though not in the way he suggests. The Olympics’ approach to gender and performance is arbitrary, unfair, transphobic and misogynistic.
Just like RuPaul’s Drag Race.
How’s THAT for irony?
abigailnussbaum