MAGA Republicans are obsessed with harassing drag shows

Monday, December 12th, 2022

MAGA Republicans are obsessed with harassing drag shows — here’s why

Stephan: I had dinner tonight with a woman friend who is a physician with decades in a medical practice specializing in what I would call sexual wellbeing. I asked her what she thought of the MAGAt world’s obsession over the LGBTQ community and particularly drag shows. She said something very interesting. She said she thought the MAGAt resistance and hate stemmed from the fact that for them it is largely about men deliberatively choosing to be or behave like women, which meant a degradation of men because, in their minds, women are not equal to men.

*Drag queen story hour Credit: Shutterstock*

“I woke up like this.” So sayeth the 2013 Beyoncé anthem “Flawless,” a song that also features a speech by feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. When it was released, the lyric caused some grumbling among feminists who took it literally, but in my experience, fans understand it how Beyoncé almost certainly meant it, as an ironic joke. We do not wake up like this. Feminine presentation, in particular, can be a lot of work, with heavy investment in hair, makeup and clothes. Plenty of folks feel like genderless puffbags when they wake up, until they groom and doll themselves up.

In other words, Beyoncé boiled down reams of Judith Butler-style feminist theory for the masses: Gender is a performance. It’s an idea that caused much angsty academic debate for years. But when you put it like Beyoncé does, it starts to sound more like common sense.

“Flawless” has been rattling around in my head for months now, […]