Hi, I know nothing about the drag scene, curious about the definition here.
I thought drag was specifically men dressing up as women, is drag any gender putting on too much makeup and wearing gaudy outfits?
It’s just the look?
It’s not just the look, it’s performative. It can be any sex assigned at birth and any gender - including nonbinary, as the subject of the article identifies.
Depending on your viewpoint, there’s an argument to be made that KISS, Alice Cooper, and many hair metal bands were a form of drag.
Thanks.
Yeah I definitely identified those bands as drag, I just didn’t know it could be anyone.
So look plus performance equals drag?
Thanks
I think humour is a key part of what separates drag from just regular performance. The artist isn’t afraid to make fun of themselves and just have fun.
That’s a good point.
There has to be something over the top about the performance, right?
Because I think of David bowie and obviously he had different personalities and quite flashy costumes, but it would be difficult for me to say he was doing drag, partly because he was so poised.
It’s definitely an interesting piece of culture.
There is also a wonderful argument that professional wrestling is drag
I, too, am part of the smarty pants society
Ha! Was just about to reply with “Dropout subscriber?”
Plenty of classic comedians dressed in drag for performances during “wholesome family entertainment” tv days. It’s only become a problem because conservatives made it one.
I’m not part of the drag scene, but my understanding is that drag is an exaggerated performance of gender.
The actual situation of the actor doesn’t really factor into whether or not it’s drag. It’s also not exclusively an exaggerated performance of femininity.
Ah, “exaggerated” is keying me in to a more complete definition, thanks
I think the definition is getting more loose in recent year with different types of drag queens.
I like to think it’s gender clowns in the nicest way. The art is playing with gender and gender expectations in an aesthetic, comical or thought provoking way.
Haha, that’s a great way to think about it. Gender jesters
Preach queen!
I still don’t even understand what gender is, in my language there is only a word for (typically biological) sex and nothing more.
It’s pretty simple - sex is basically your reproduction capabilities (in biology even this is far from trivial “A or B”) while gender is more like how you see yourself, how you present to the world, and usually comes with certain assumptions and roles from the society you’re in. That’s why people say it’s a social construct; it’s literally constructed, socially. Being cis or trans just means whether your reproductive traits match your socially constructed traits.
Oh now I understand, thank you. I think the far right don’t understand and think that people are referring to their sex. Maybe their social circles are socially/culturally separated by sex?
They definitely don’t understand, but more importantly it doesn’t matter either way - having a group they can persecute is just how they reinforce in-group ties. They lack a coherent ideology, and simply bond over cruelty. Any hatred that can safely be stoked will suffice for such people. Every time we accept an out-group into normal society, platform and protect them, they find new prey. Whenever we give up ground and let peoples rights get taken away, the ‘far right’ go back to hating them too. Cruelty is the point, and it’s what turns them on. That’s what makes them ‘far right’, is that it’s obvious compared to normal conservatives.
It’s just a general quality of the political far right the world over. They don’t like people that don’t act, look, or think like them. Anything that challenges their beliefs about what a person is supposed to do is something to fight against for them.
When it goes to the extreme, you get Nazis.
I think it’s important to point out here that you aren’t talking about gender identity (physiological), but the social construct aroundgender roles (socisl/cultural).
Gender identity is not a social construct, and I believe this is more what we are talking about when it comes to gender because the person in the article is talking about how they were born female but identify non binary.
Intention was to encapsulate the psychological aspect within the phrase “how you see yourself”. It’s hard to get every detail into a simple explanation.
When a baby is born what color do you associate with boy and what color do you associate with girl?
Blue with the boy and pink with the girl I guess…?
But there’s no “biological” reason for that. In the same way, skirts/dresses being for women and suits/ties being for men, leg hair, haircuts, voice, mannerisms, emotional availability, all get tied one gender or another.
We, in our society, have associated some properties to one of two genders. Some of these properties tend to be associated to one sex (sex being a more “biological” thing (but still not binary or unchangeable!)), but many of them are just expectations we put upon people. This is what “gender is a social construct” means; that the general understanding and intuition about gender is constructed by the society in which we live. Different societies may have more than 2 genders or completely different sets of associations.
Unfortunately these categorizations are bad for a significant portion of the population, including trans people, gender non-confirming people, but even cishet people; how many times have you heard of some act making you “not a real man” (eg crying for a movie)?
Historically neither.
Red signifies passion and anger (male traits), and pink is the softer version of red for younger boys or representing flowers for women.
13-14th century you would have both represented by both genders, and late 1800’s was when it started to diverge.
In lefty circles such as most of Lemmy, “gender” refers to the social norms and expectations that are attached to sex.
Personally, I think choosing the word “gender” to describe gender roles was a mistake. A call to abolish gender norms seems pretty reasonable, but if you’re uninformed about this definition the call to abolish gender sounds utterly deranged.
Rare to see an anti-trans argument on lemmy
What?
gender is socially constructed
Other queer identities are not mutually exclusive with supporting trans identities.
Here is an explanation from the person who essentially created queer theory:
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender
