Alice Vol. 4 No. 2

community. More people are seeing it as an
art form that’s pushing boundaries rather
than something once considered taboo.
He describes how he feels on stage with
one word: powerful.
He tells himself, “I’m the only one. I am
the only one.”
“I definitely think, since doing drag, I
don’t care about gender roles and things
like that,” Pearson said. “It’s definitely made
me feel like I don’t have to box myself in to
anything.”
Harvey, like Pearson, emphasized that
drag is an individualistic experience. And
while Harvey said he keeps his drag life
completely separate from everyday life, it
doesn’t mean drag queens leave everything
on the stage.
Confidence, pride and an overall sense
of power are all traits that translate from
the stage to the more mundane aspects of
life. By pushing boundaries and breaking
gender norms, drag culture has allowed the
performers a new sense of self-assurance.
Ethan Burt heads for the stage every
weekend as Dani California, but on a dayto-day
basis, he’s a third semester graduate
student at Auburn for geography and
community planning. Even though these two
parts of his life don’t intertwine, they’re still
connected by the things he’s taken away from
his performances.
“It’s hard not to be confident when you’ve
dressed up as a woman lip syncing in front
of people,” Burt said. “If I can do that, I can
pretty much do anything else. If I’m not
embarrassed about that, I have nothing else
to be embarrassed about.”
Before performing drag, Burt said he
wasn’t a huge fan. One of the reasons being
he didn’t feel it represented all of gay culture.
Now that he’s been performing for around
two years, he’s changed his opinion.
He said being a drag queen, though an
individualistic experience, works to bring a
community together rather than using it to
make a statement. It’s more of an outlet Burt
can use to showcase his artistic abilities, but
intentional or not, drag queens have created
impact.
“Drag queens have usually been kind of
like the most seen people in the [LGBTQ+]
community, and they’re kind of the ones who
take the brunt from most of the attacks from
anti-LGBTQ+ groups,” Burt said. “So I think
that drag queens in general have had to carry
a lot of the strength for the community and
voicing it because they are so visible.”
Many drag queens are involved in
efforts that benefit their local communities.
Queens will perform at shows that double
as fundraising events for local Pride
organizations. Performing drag also creates
an opportunity to travel and meet people
from all different social circles.
Pursuing any form of art is tricky and
comes with a lot of trial and error. For
Hughes, however, at the end of the day it’s
about doing what you love and having fun.
Looking back, he gives his past self one piece
of advice:
“Know that you’re going to face some
difficulties that are going to try and steer you
off what you love doing,” Hughes said. “Just
remember who you are and everything will
turn out.”
Drag inspires, it pushes and promotes
and brings people together. The same way
everyone in a movie theater cries together, or
everyone at a concert sings along, there is a
sense of comradery and community formed
by drag.
“Nobody does drag to change the world,
but we do change the world doing drag,”
Harvey said.
Alice Spring 2019 69