Drag Family Reunion

No, this post is not about me bringing my beloved better half to a Wrathall family reunion in drag, though Göran and I used to joke about that. Göran actually passed as a woman for a while, selling Avon cosmetics in Iowa. (True story!) So we used to have this hilarious fantasy in which he would come to my family reunions as "Tasha Monet," and then we would fit in with all the other heterosexual couples! Except... OK, he's black, and so we'd still be scandalizing everyone with our interracial relationship. So I guess we couldn't win! That was the joke... We've gotten plenty of laughs from it over the years.

But no, this is about a different kind of drag family reunion. To understand this, you have to know that when Göran and I first met back in 1993, he was the reigning queen of The Gay 90's, the biggest gay bar in Minneapolis (and possibly in the world -- it's a HUGE bar). Any way, he was this drag performing sensation, and I was just this nerdy grad student. (I just noticed, drag and grad have the same letters.) Göran would do these big shows, and I became his personal valet, carrying his train of bulging drag suitcases, bringing him drinks, and ordering the cabs. I was his "trophy husband." He'd show me off to the other "girls" and say, "Have you met my boyfriend John?" and then relish the gleam of envy in their eyes. Those were the days.

It was kind of cool to be allowed backstage into the inner sanctum of drag queendom. I mean, really. How many people in their lives get to enjoy the fierce and catty camaraderie that can only be experienced when drag queens don't have their wigs on yet? It definitely made me feel special to be dating a drag queen. And then, when I was sitting in the audience and "Tasha Marie Monet" came on stage, she always lip-synced the love songs to me and me alone. It was as if I was the only one in the audience. That made me feel special too. Every once in a while, I hear one of those songs and a rush of memories and emotions come back.

Anyway, that was many, many years ago. After Göran and I had been together a few years, he gradually relinquished his role as Gay Community High Priestess (that's what, in fact, drag queens are). It was a lot of work to do drag! He got tired of the late nights and the smoke-filled clubs and cleaning up the "drag bag explosions" the next day. (Yes, the house was always a frickin' mess after a drag show! Clothes, make-up, wigs everywhere!) He eventually gave it all up in exchange for the joys of full-time marital bliss. We were trying to figure out the other night when exactly he did his last drag performance. Some time in the mid-1990s.

But every once in a while, we would run into some of his old drag friends. Last summer, for instance, Reuben and Melanie, friends of ours from the Lake Nokomis Ward, took us on a 60-mile bike trip to Hudson, Wisconsin and back, and who should we run into but "Sofonda Peters," working a hot dog stand (of all things). As a boy, of course. (Sofonda is in this picture on the left.)

Anyway, Sofonda called Göran a few weeks ago and told him that as part of a benefit for the Minnesota AIDS Project, a few drag queens had decided to try to break the Guinness world record for largest drag performance. They were trying to round up every drag queen they knew in order to get them all on stage at once in a great big, lip-synced, choreographed dragstravaganza. They were calling it "Night of 100 Drag Queens." Göran agreed to participate.

And last night, it was like a great big, Drag Family Reunion. All the old queens gathered with the young queens, and they had a shindig to end all shindigs. They didn't quite make it to 100 drag queens on stage. Only 57 ultimately made it into the performance. But that was still more than enough to break the previously standing Guinness world record of 30 drag queens. That doesn't seem like much of a world record to me, but I guess it's really hard to coordinate drag queens. Like herding cats. But really super catty cats.

It was such a strange experience for me. So much has changed in my life since those old days when Göran was Miss Gay Nineties. The thing that struck me most poignantly was how lost I felt in those days when I first started tentatively exploring the gay club scene. It was disorienting. Everything in that scene was so completely at odds with everything I'd been brought up with in a tight-knit, devout Mormon family and community. It was as if I'd been scooped up by space aliens and dropped on a different planet. Everything was simultaneously exciting and amazing and... Also a betrayal of everything I thought I'd been raised to believe in. It felt quite lonely... Last night I heard Sofonda reminiscing about those days, and her recollections of me confirmed my remembrance of myself. I was out of place, odd, vulnerable.

But last night I was not lost. I was surveying my past lostness from the vantage point of one who is found again. And I was aware of the rampant lostness sprawled out there all around me. It's not, I realized, a moral thing. It's not the casual attitude toward sex, the boys walking around in their undies, the alcohol, the rampant materialism. Those are all just symptoms. What it is, is a knowledge thing. It's the not being quite sure who you are, or what your purpose is in life, or where you are going. It's looking at the material surface of things, and mistaking it for the spiritual heart of things. It's being disconnected from family, from faith. (Partly because so many of us have been excommunicated from all those things!)

I also realized, however, that of all the things the gay community has going for it, it is the drag queens. They are not part of the problem of lostness, they are part of the solution. If there is a force for moral redemption that is native to the gay community, it is them.

After the event was over, I borrowed a friend's car and chauffeured a few of them home. (I was back to being the drag queen's valet again!) They were all drunk as skunks. (Good thing their valet was a practicing Mormon, to get them home safe.) They were reminiscing about the old days, and remembering some of the queens who aren't with us any more. I was actually weeping last night, remembering "Andrea Muffy St. Clair," who passed away from AIDS-related complications a few years ago. I was listening to them talk. And laughing, because you can't be around drag queens and listen to them talk and not laugh. It's one of their saintlier qualities. And I was aware of this deep, deep, profound love. These old queens had a bond and a love and a respect for each other that is quite unique. I guess that's why the worst sin in the drag queen code is a lack of respect.

And I also realized that they are self- conscious guardians of a much larger code. A code that includes morals like: Know thyself. Love thyself. Stand tall, no matter what anybody says about you. Be fabulous. And don't be afraid.