Canada In the 1940s,
John Herbert, who sometimes competed in drag pageants, was the victim of an attempted robbery while he was dressed as a woman. His assailants falsely claimed that Herbert had solicited them for sex, After being convicted, Herbert served time in a youth
reformatory in
Guelph, Ontario. He included the character of Queenie as an authorial
self-insertion. In 1977, the Canadian film
Outrageous!, starring drag queen
Craig Russell, became one of the first gay-themed films to break out into mainstream theatrical release.
India (right) In September 2018, the
Supreme Court of India ruled that the application of
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to consensual homosexual sex between adults was unconstitutional, "irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary". Since then, drag culture in India has been growing and becoming the mainstream art culture. The hotel chain of Lalit Groups operates a franchise of clubs where drag performances are hosted in major cities of India, such as
Mumbai,
Delhi, and
Bangalore.
Maya the Drag Queen, Rani Kohinoor (
Sushant Divgikar), Lush Monsoon,
Betta Naan Stop, Tropical Marca, Zeeshan Ali, and
Patruni Sastry are some examples of Indian drag artists. In 2018,
Hyderabad had its first drag convention. In 2020, India's first drag specific magazine Dragvanti began publication.
Lebanon Lebanon is the only country in the Arab world with an increasingly visible drag scene. Drag culture has existed in Lebanon for several decades but gained popularity with the astronomical rise of
Bassem Feghali, who came to prominence in the 1990s, becoming a household name for his impersonation of Lebanese female singers. Due to the global success of
Rupaul's Drag Race, Beirut's drag scene has adopted various influences that blend American drag culture with local, unique cultural elements. The drag scene has grown so much that in 2019
Vogue magazine declared it a drag-aissance.
Paraguay Usha Didi Gunatita was a pioneer of drag art during the later years of the
dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. Many drag queens of later generations claim her as a reference, and base their characters on Usha's exaggerated characteristics in her performances. She is also remembered as one of the first trans people who was featured on Paraguayan television without being censored.
Philippines Before being colonized by Spain in the mid-1500s, it was a national custom for men to dress in women's clothing. However, when the Spaniards arrived, they not only outlawed homosexuality but executed men that appeared to be homosexual. Spain cast a culture of
Machismo onto the Philippines, causing any kind of queerness and queer culture to be heavily suppressed. It started in the form of underground pageants which created a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community in
Apartheid South Africa, where people could be punished by law for being gay. Discrimination against drag is widespread in South Africa, and drag queens face the threat of violence because of being openly gay. Furthermore, there is not language to explore queerness in
Xhosa, one of the indigenous languages of South Africa.
Taiwan In 1994, entertainer Cai Tou established the male-to-female cross-dressing
"Hongding Yiren (Chinese)" (Red-Top Artists) singing and dancing troupe, inspired by the ladyboy cabaret shows in Thailand. In 1998, the
Public Television Service program
"Fruity Ice Cream (Chinese)" featured the character "Grandma Fruit" (Sui Guo Nai Nai) in male-to-female cross-dressing; this character became a staple on television.
Thailand After homosexual acts were decriminalized in Thailand in 1956, gay clubs and other queer spaces began opening, which led to the first cabaret. However, drag in Thailand was actually heavily influenced by drag queens from the Philippines as the first drag show started after the owner of a gay club saw drag queens from the Philippines perform in
Bangkok. Therefore, drag shows started in Thailand in the mid-1970s and have become increasingly popular over time, especially in major cities like Bangkok. so female roles were played by men or boys. The practice continued, as a tradition, when
pantomimes became a popular form of entertainment in Europe during the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Despite homosexuality being outlawed, men would dress in women's clothing and attend these taverns and coffee houses to congregate and meet other, mostly gay, men. The role of the dame, however, evolved to become more about the individual performer. Many female impersonators built up their own fan bases and began performing outside of their traditional pantomime roles.
United States Origins Drag performance in the United States had its roots in the female impersonations of performers in
minstrel shows of the 19th century, followed by female impersonators working in vaudeville, burlesque, and the legitimate theatre in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The
Pansy Craze was a period of increased LGBT visibility in American
popular culture from the late-1920s until the mid-1930s; during the "
craze," drag queens – known as "pansy performers" – experienced a surge in
underground popularity, especially in
New York City,
Chicago,
Los Angeles, and
San Francisco. The exact dates of the movement are debated, with a range from the late 1920s until 1935. The term "pansy craze" was coined by the historian
George Chauncey in his 1994 book
Gay New York.
First drag balls The first person known to describe himself as "the queen of drag" was
William Dorsey Swann, born enslaved in
Hancock, Maryland, who in the 1880s started hosting
drag balls in
Washington, DC attended by other men who were formerly enslaved. The balls were often raided by the police, as documented in the newspapers. In 1896, Swann was convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail on the false charge of "keeping a disorderly house" (a
euphemism for running a
brothel). He requested a pardon from
President Grover Cleveland, but was denied. It moved from being popular mainstream entertainment to something done only at night in disreputable areas, such as San Francisco's
Tenderloin. Drag queens such as
José Sarria first came to prominence in these clubs. As
LGBT culture has slowly become more accepted in American society, drag has also become more, though not totally, acceptable in today's society. At the invitation of the Roosevelts, he performed his impersonation of Eleanor at the
White House.
Protests at a
marriage equality protest in Paris, 2012 The
Cooper Donuts Riot was a May 1959 incident in
Los Angeles in which drag queens, lesbians, transgender women, and gay men rioted; it was one of the first
LGBT protests in the United States. The
Compton's Cafeteria riot, which involved drag queens and others, occurred in San Francisco in 1966. It marked the beginning of
transgender activism in San Francisco. Drag queens were also involved in the
Stonewall riots, a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the
LGBT community against a
police raid that took place in the early morning hours of 28 June 1969, at the
Stonewall Inn, located in the
Greenwich Village neighborhood of
Manhattan, New York City. The riots are widely considered to be the catalyst for the
gay liberation movement and the modern fight for
LGBT rights in the United States. During the summer of 1976, a restaurant in
Fire Island Pines,
New York, denied entry to a visitor in drag named Terry Warren. When Warren's friends in Cherry Grove heard what had happened, they dressed up in drag, and, on
4 July 1976, sailed to the Pines by
water taxi. This turned into a yearly event where drag queens go to the Pines, called the
Invasion of the Pines.
Politics In 1961, drag queen
José Sarria ran for the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States. In 1991, drag queen Terence Alan Smith, as
Joan Jett Blakk, ran against
Richard M. Daley for the office of mayor of Chicago, Illinois. The campaign was chronicled in the 1991 video
Drag in for Votes. After qualifying for presidency on his 35th birthday, Smith announced a campaign for presidency in 1992 under the slogan "Lick
Bush in '92!" and documented in the 1993 video of the same name. In June 2019, a play based on Smith's 1992 presidential campaign, titled
Ms. Blakk for President, written by
Tarell Alvin McCraney and
Tina Landau and starring McCraney in the title role, opened at
Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. In 2019,
Maebe A. Girl became the first drag queen elected to public office in the United States when she was elected to the
Silver Lake Neighborhood Council.
Ladycat De'Ore is a drag queen based in Colorado who is known for advocating for the rights of
transgender persons and in particular for Black transgender women.
Other D'Arcy Drollinger was appointed
San Francisco's first drag
laureate in May 2023. The role consists of serving as an ambassador for San Francisco's LGBTQ+, arts, nightlife, and entertainment communities. Pickle Drag Queen became
West Hollywood's first drag laureate on International Drag Day, 16 July 2023. == Drag families ==