All hail the kings and queens of volOUT.
VolOUT and Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee sponsored the “HalloQueen Drag Show” to raise funds to support each organization’s upcoming events while spreading a message of gender acceptance and empowerment in a fun and exciting way Thursday night.
“The Drag Show we sponsor with volOUT is always one of the most popular events during Sex Week, so we’re doing this as a fundraising activity for both SEAT and volOUT,” said Colleen Ryan, member of the S.E.A.T. Executive Board and volunteer at the event.
The show consisted of 12 talent performances by LGBTQ students dressed in drag, including singing, lip-synching, dancing and stand-up comedy. Each of the contestants had their own hashtags that audience members used to vote for their favorite acts.
Coming in first place was “Lady Godiva,” who did an impression of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” white tights and fake blood included.
While the technical purpose of the event was to raise funds, Kolt Free, a senior in college scholars, claimed that dressing in drag is “not just about putting on a dress and makeup.” To Free, and several other performers and volunteers, drag is about defying gender stereotypes through a theatrical exaggeration of those norms.
“The idea is that you’re playing with gender, you’re kind of messing around with those norms and you’re exaggerating them and bringing them out even more than a normal person walking down the street would,” Free said.
For some volunteers and performers, seeing people perform in drag and exaggerate gender norms is a personally empowering experience.
“When I first came out as queer, for me, a drag show was the first time I realized I wasn’t necessarily restrained by social norms in the traditional sense of gender and sexuality,” Ryan said.
Katie White, a sophomore in architecture and stage manager of the event, agreed, emphasizing the personal freedom she said she feels to express her sexuality while watching drag performances.
“I find it very liberating to see, lets say, a guy go on stage and perform super feminine,” she said. “For him to be totally okay with doing that makes me feel like it would be more okay for me to present the way I want to no matter what.”
For James Anderson, known by the stage name “Rayne Bow,” performing in drag, as either a male or female, is a fun way to express their sexuality while doing what they love.
“I found that expressing my gender and my sexuality through dancing with the drag show was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me,” Anderson, a junior in Hispanic studies, said. “Every year I look forward to the drag show.”
While drag shows are commonly associated with trans women, White said that dressing in drag is not exclusive to homosexual males or transgender people.
“To do drag is to not be a transgender person,” White said. “They are two entirely different things.”
Anderson said that volOUT, as well as the performers, who ranged the spectrum of LGBTQ individuals, hopes to dispel these myths and spread the word that drag is for anyone who wants to play with gender norms in a dramatic way, regardless of sexual orientation.
“Anyone can do drag. It’s not complicated, it’s not hard,” Anderson said.
Christie Thiessen, senior in communication studies and member of the volOUT executive board, added that the only primary qualification for participating in drag shows is a desire to have fun.
“This is really just an opportunity for students to just come and show off and just be whoever they are and have fun and for other people to encourage that.”
