ABSTRACT
Until relatively recently, academic writing about the history of drag performance has remained largely silent around how transgender people use drag for both artistic pursuit and strategic survival within a world that often disallows transgender people from living openly as themselves. Currently, transgender people face routine, completely legal housing and employment discrimination in 19 states. Though Senelick’s words are now over 20 years old, these beliefs about transgender women within the drag community are still pervasive, especially in drag competitions. The sound score combined Within Temptation’s heavy metal song “The Howling” with quotes from Kill Bill’s The Bride, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Buffy Summers, and The Lord of the Rings’ Eowyn. Drag performance allows practitioners to write themselves into a popular culture narrative that has largely excluded the reader.
