ABSTRACT
With their backsides to the packed club, five performers stand at attention, hips cocked, their coiffed hair and expertly made-up faces the epitome of femininity, waiting for the walloping beats heard round the world of Kelis’s 2004 hit song, “Milkshake.” At the exact moment that ubiquitous, enigmatic chorus starts, the performers turn to the front and start gyrating their hips, tits out, rouged lips pursed, working the crowd with their best video booty girl moves as Kelis sasses, “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard / And they’re like, it’s better than yours.” There’s one exception: these booty girls are Seattle’s Queen Bees. They are queer women and gender queers who are predominantly feminineidentified. Their bodies run a curvalicious gamut from pixie-thin to “more cushion for the pushin’, ” and they erotically accentuate each inch of every sexy curve. They have labeled the gender performance work they do everything from “bio-queening” to “exploding femininity” to good old-fashioned drag queening. And just at this moment, as they finish their last stinging shimmy, they are about to be confronted by the reigning monarchs of drag and divadom.
