This month, a postcard from a different part of the country. Gabe Gonzalez is a Senior at Beloit College double majoring in Dance and Sociology. Gina T’ai is an Associate Professor in Theatre and Dance and Critical Identity Studies at Beloit College. Here, they discuss Performing Gender, a class taught by Gina that Gabe was part of in Fall 2018, as well as their individual experiences with drag, performance, and queer life in Southern Wisconsin. (All images courtesy of Gina T’ai.)
Gabe: I was given the opportunity to perform in drag for the first time with an email that read “Hey, so I have heard that you may be interested in performing in the drag show. This is a little bit late notice, but if there is still any interest please get back to me and we can work it out for this Friday!” It was a Monday in 2017, my second semester of college, and word had already spread across campus about my fascination with performing in women’s clothes. I was also tasked with finding a wig, dress, and heels in five days after excitedly replying “YES!”.
My experience with college drag in the years that have followed seems to fall within the same realm of chaotic improvisation. It went something like this: people wanted to have a drag show, they knew I was interested or they had seen me perform in the past, they’d ask me without any time to prepare, and I’d do an improvised performance full of splits and hair flips.
Beloit College students before performing at the Students for an Inclusive Campus event in March 2019. (This was a counter-event to a talk that Erik Prince was giving.) Performers left to right: Panika Takk, ScottyD, Le Big Tasty, Jasmine Rice, Miss Andrea, Shay La Vee, Aural Sex, Chiki Elektra, Adam from Accounting, Vittoria Emanuela
It took until my fifth semester for me to finally take my drag fate into my own hands. I enrolled in Gina’s Performing Gender class and found a space to answer the question “why do you want to do drag?” for myself and nobody else. What I took away from that class was different from my previous performances. I had found a liberation in drag that has been felt by queers before me and queers to come. Miss Jasmine Rice was not birthed in a week from a place of chaos, but rather she sauntered in, after a semester-long gestation, confident, queer as all hell, and ambitious to liberate herself and her school through the art of drag.
Gina: I first was put into female drag when I was seventeen by my brother’s drag queen friends while visiting NYC. They gave me a man’s ID so I could get into bars and clubs to see drag shows. Two years later, I was in a dance by Sam Piperato at CalArts when I dressed and performed as a man and it was transformative. I felt that I could take up space. Throughout my childhood I was always told (by women) that I took up too much space. Dressed as a man, that was encouraged, expected. Claim all the space. When I transferred to Hollins University, a group of us started a Drag King group called KitchN’Sync. We performed as the boyband, N’Sync. Performing masculinity feels free, natural, and empowering. I am a cis woman, femme, and pansexual. My performance of masculinity is the embodiment of entitlement. It is one of the many ways I practice my feminism.
The artist prepares.
I created the first iteration of the course Performing Gender in 2014 at Beloit College. The course is one-third drag history/theory/media, and two-thirds drag performance. Students spend the semester creating a drag persona, and building a performance for a drag extravaganza at the end of the semester. I teach this class this to encourage, educate, and support the next generation of drag artists and gender fuckers. And also to have a safe space for students interested in gender performance (in life and/or on stage) to play and experiment in a non-judgemental environment.
Gina T'ai as Ginger Caruso preparing for a drag show at FIVE Nightclub in Madison. April 2019.
As Gabe and I talked about this class a year after he took it, he was saying that this class — my drag and choreographic work — are not normal. “The “mothering” mentoring is normal. Putting it in academia is not.” That’s right. It’s not normal. It’s queer as fuck. Teaching this class in academia is punk, drag. I feel like I am getting away with teaching it, and every time there is a change in administration, I fear it will be taken away. It is simultaneously the least traditionally academic, and most impactful class I have ever been a part of. Gabe was part of the 2018 class, also known as The PowerHaüs. I watched Miss Jasmine Rice develop and to say Jasmine burned the house down isn’t doing justice to her fire.
Gabe: I have been thinking about what it means to be seen. And especially what it means to be seen here in rural Wisconsin. What makes being seen here special is that when I am here, I am not given a place that feels like home automatically. Being here means that sometimes I don't have a place of acceptance, love, and celebration. College is not fully equipped to provide those spaces for all people, which means that I have to make those places exist by willing them into being for myself and others. I of course do not do this work alone, which is where the role of drag comes into play.
Performing drag creates a function of the missing family home. Drag on campus creates a family, through mentorship, loyalty, and support — which then come off of the stage and back into the community. Family and home are, to me, places where your being is loved and everything that you are is brought to the table, not only to be seen but to be valued.
Gabe Gonzalez as Jasmine Rice posing at the Coming Out Ball. October 2019, Beloit College, Beloit, WI.
This is the goal of my drag-based activism work. In the face of discrimination, what does it mean to celebrate ourselves rather than giving our energy to people who hate us? Creating spaces of celebration has been a goal of mine and drag helps me get there. I can be visible in drag always, but being valued in drag is such a better feeling. If I were to arrive to a protest in drag, I wouldn't feel safe. I would feel visible in all the wrong ways. However, creating a space where I can celebrate myself, and where others can openly celebrate what it is people hate about them feels powerful and feels needed.
As I look down the future as a senior in college, the question is “what's next?” Will I have to continue making space for myself, or will the space provided by the club scene become my new platform. Previously unavailable to me because of my age, the club and bar scene now becomes the space I sought to create in college. My question during my journey into this scene is: how much work is there to be done about creating the family role here? Are these places that feel celebratory? Or will they simply be places of visibility, forcing me to again find or create my own celebratory space?
Gina: Drag in Southern and Southeastern Wisconsin is heavily pageant-driven. There aren’t many Drag Kings. There are a couple of Drag King shows. They are poorly supported and poorly attended. There is one organization, Glitter Stage Productions, that has a pageant for Mister Glitter Stage, inviting both male entertainers and drag kings to compete. I judged the Mister and Miss Glitter Stage pageant in 2017 and there was one lone contestant in the male category, Pony Boy. He won.
Gina T'ai as H.O.G preparing for a drag show at FIVE Nightclub in Madison. April 2017.
My concert stage work is heavily inspired and influenced by drag and gender performance. I feel more in control when creating for, and presenting in, a more formalized dance concert. Last year I created a solo for myself called Milkjug Luminary. It is a drag dance for sure, though through the lens of postpartum depression and the butching up I felt I had to do in order to function in society during that time. I’ve had experiences in gay clubs where I didn’t feel safe. No, I don’t want you to put a dollar in my pants. No, I don’t want to hear your thoughts about if drag kings belong in traditional drag queen spaces. No, I don’t want your tongue anywhere near me as I am performing. Inspired by the students in Performing Gender, and with some gentle nudging from friends who do drag, I tried performing in drag again in gay clubs. First as a drag king named H.O.G, and then as a female entertainer named Ginger Caruso. Neither felt quite right. I had to go to Madison to perform, which isn’t too far. Just over an hour away from Beloit. But I am not immersed in the community there. It isn’t my home. My home is helping to create and encourage the spaces here, at Beloit College, for those that need it.