Playing dress-up with no illusions

By Sarah Sabalos
Knight Ridder Newspapers

RENEE ITTNER-MCMANUS / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Susan "Tex" Green tries to minimize the appearance of a bustline as she prepares to perform a Toby Keith selection in a drag king competition.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — With her cropped hair, John Deere T-shirt and worn overalls, Bo Gray looks and sounds like a laid-back farm boy.

She's not. Gray, 22, is a fledgling drag king, part of a thriving subculture in which women dress up — often very convincingly — as men, and perform dance and lip-synch routines for an enthusiastic audience.

Gender illusionists aren't new: Joan of Arc was executed partly for wearing men's clothes. Women performing as men were popular in Victorian England, and Marlene Dietrich donned a suit long before k.d. lang did. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker dressed in male attire while working as a surgeon for the Union Army (and came away with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865).

While cross-dressing was illegal in parts of the United States until the mid-20th century, it flourished underground.

But in recent years, drag-king culture has grown, matured and claimed its place as a bona fide subculture. And it is specialized — a retro king might wear tie and tails while others go for a country, leather, hip-hop or wholesome-boy-band-singer look.

It's like a drag-queen show, but also, way not. Female impersonators like RuPaul and Georgia's Lady Chablis have become mainstream, happily campy performers. Drag kings, with their fluid appropriation of masculinity and sensual defiance of the gender binary, are still on the edge. Especially in the South.

Competition and fun

In cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, drag-king competitions are a weekly event. There are professional touring groups, conventions, fan clubs and Web sites.

Things aren't that elaborate in Columbia, but the first annual Drag It Out competition attracted about 80 people last year. The second, at Alley Cafe in July, drew an audience of about 250. It raised $700 for the Sue Kuhlen Camp for Kids — which helps children affected by HIV/AIDS — and for the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild. (The latter organized the lion's share of the event.)
 
The sociopolitical, gender and sexual subtexts of drag kingery are enough to fill a library — and they do, in fact, serve as advanced-degree fodder.

Donna Troka, a teacher of American Studies at Emory University, Atlanta, co-edited Drag King Anthology, a collection of prose, poetry and photographs addressing gender, sexuality and feminism. In October, she'll attend the sixth annual Drag King Extravaganza in Chicago, a three-day international conference with workshops, performances, academic discussions and a brunch.

She resists attempts to paint drag kingery with a broad, "all performers bravely subvert the dominant gender paradigm" brush.

"For some people, it's not consciously a political or transgressive act," said Troka, who has interviewed many performers, including those who are transgendered (people who believe the gender they were assigned at birth is a false or incomplete description of themselves).

"For some, there's a sentiment I would almost call antipolitical. They're put off by the really overt numbers critiquing government, racism, the treatment of women. Some women are like, 'This is about having fun. Why do you have to be so serious? Why do you have to be so deep?' "

Self-expression

Susan "Tex" Green of West Columbia, S.C., is a woman who seamlessly combines the fun and the deep. At July's Drag It Out, she held court at a table of friends and admirers before her performance.

Six feet 4 inches tall, smelling subtly of musky cologne and dressed in a 40-pound leather suit, Green has done drag professionally since starting out as a "drag prince" in 1973. During the day, she works as a zoning inspector for the city.

"People are getting a little more accepting of drag kings," said Green, 50, whose gentle demeanor and sweet voice work like a magnet on the women around her. "And it's really a whole lot easier when you have your family accept you and won't let anyone condemn you."

Green performs across the Southeast — mostly in Tennessee and Georgia — on the same verging-on-full-time level as many female impersonators. She owns $15,000-$20,000 worth of suits and has earned close to $40,000 doing drag during the past 30 years. Pass her on the street in full regalia, and you'd see her as a man — no questions asked.

First-timer Gray and the other half-dozen women who competed at Drag It Out might do it again, and they might not. But for Green, drag performance is an irreplaceable adrenaline rush — and a way to express aspects of her soul that don't get much play in everyday life.

"I'm not a real heavy drinker and I've never done drugs," she says. "This gives me a natural high. And when I do shows, I can show another side of myself that I really feel. I like being a woman, but I like women, too."

Her partner, Angela DeBruhl, enjoys watching Green stay in character from the time she leaves the house to perform until the time she returns.

"I jokingly say I have a boyfriend every two or three weeks," she says. "Otherwise, I like my girlfriend."

A popular show

The crowd at Alley — mostly female — was so dense that servers couldn't find their customers. It was dotted with a few men ("This woman I work with convinced me to come, and with the alcohol, it's OK," one said) as well as several performers' families.

"You have to be gay to get in," one wiseacre deadpanned to a male and female couple in the doorway.

The man looked at his date as though she were a piece of expensive jewelry he had just dropped in the ocean.

"Stop teasing the straight people," someone admonished.

In the meantime, Gray was working hard to convince a straight person in her life that it was OK to attend.

"No one's gonna hit on you!" she whispered fiercely into a cellphone as the show started. "I'll tell everyone you're my girl, and I'll take you right home afterwards!"

It was no use. The one relative who had agreed to come bailed out at the last minute.