magine the scene: you’re in a deconsecrated church, complete with stained-glass windows. The vaulted room (which used to be the sanctuary) is filled with drag queens in l970’s beaded gowns, with hair by Betty Boop or Dolly Parton, makeup by Tammy Faye Baker or the Dragon Lady...and shoes too high to walk in.
The other half of the l50 celebrants are gay guys in black leather jackets or tuxedo tops festooned wih rhinestone pins. And then there were ten or twelve CDs like us!
The show, such as it was, had a lot of lip synching (or attempts at it), some of it very good , and some which was awful. There were a few pretty good acts, and a good deal that could have used practice - when the synch isn’t as good as a 1950’s Japanese grade-B horror movie dubbed in English, perhaps one has to admire the guts of the performer, just for getting up there in front of all those people.
Welcome to Friday night at the Limelight, the "Out Of Town" reception held annually on the eve of the Night Of l000 Gowns. (It was my 2nd. In my opinion, a CD visiting this alien planet is exploring her current personal limits in crossdressing by rubbing shoulders with other ‘sisters’ of gender-dom, queens with very different motivation from most CDs.
In a way, it was a lot viewing a slide presentation of an SRS operation, which I recently did. Being exposed to what our sisters of different experience do, and what they go through, is sometimes educational, and certainly thought-provoking.
Does the surgery turn you off..or on? Is the call to transsexuality an indication of where you’re headed ? Or attending a convention like the IFGE meeting in Louisville, dressing for 5 days, having breakfast on a weekday in daylight, and just going out in public. Maybe shaving and putting on makeup twice a day!
Sometimes we learn who we are by hanging around with people whom we are not! Drag queens are usually gay men, who do not have a feminine nature, and whose goal is to exaggerate or parody femininity, rather than to partake in it as nature. And yet, they wear heels and stockings just like us. And somewhere we’re related in a way. (Even some of us can be drag queens, if we have an urge to perform on stage!)
In a way, our special gender world is about uniforms. Drag queens at this event were surprisingly similar in their alleged non-conformity..blue, red, or beige, beaded floor gowns...spike pumps or sandals, huge rhinestone pins, lacquered-sculpted hair from a cartoon. Uniforms!
The l0 or l2 girls from CDI (plus 2 or 3 others including Cindi Chan from The Imperial Queens) were almost all dressed in understated, street-passable clothes, a lot of black, and chunky heels or flats to walk in comfort. These were our uniforms - those of real women, perhaps, at least the way we see them.
And then, as if to underscore the respective qualities of CDs and drag queens, Limelight abruptly ended this gala at ll:00 p.m. by letting in the unwashed bridge and tunnel teenagers...the usual Limelight crowd: blank-faced girls in non-descript black pants, shapeless black boots, knit tank-tops, and Clairol ‘blond’ hair. Their uniforms, a statement, perhaps, of their desired personality and sexuality.
Each of us makes a statement through our manner of dressing. Exaggeration...understatement to pass...and androgynous "I’ve been working on the railroad" gear. What were we each trying to say? It really doesn’t matter what drag queens or grunge teens are all about...it’s more what their "uniform" behavior teaches us about our own crossdressing, and, in this case, being entertained while we learned.
nancy lamar
