Drag: The Ultimate Masquerade

A sermon for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

by the Rev. Daniel Charles Davis

Oct. 30, 2005

[Rev. Charlie approaches lectern in clerical gown, hair done up, an immodest application of lipstick outlining the mouth.]

Happy Halloween. This is a day when people dress in something scary. There are few things scarier to some UUs than seeing a minister wearing a robe. But for today I decided to put on my long black gown.

There is the story of the UU who attended her first High Mass. The priest came down the aisle in a resplendent white robe. He wore a red stole, embroidered with golden thread. He swung a brass censer with incense burning. The UU stopped the priest and said, “Your dress is lovely but your purse is on fire.”

Why do ministers dress in drag? It seems that those traditions that do not allow women to be ministers are the most likely to dress their male priests in drag. The robe has its roots as an academic gown, a medieval housecoat for those who went to the hallowed halls of learning. The stone cathedrals were very cold and drafty. All academics wore them. It was a symbol of strength and authority, separating the educated from the ignorant masses.

Professors at universities used to wear their robes all the time. Now they wear them only at graduation ceremonies.

Religion has been the last to shed this vestige of the past, which makes sense because religion tends to look to the past for its authority, whereas science often tests the theories of the past in order to build better ones for the future. The white lab coat becomes the symbol of authority. Some doctors find that patients follow directions better when the doctor is wearing a white coat.

But the symbol of authority has its downside. People’s blood pressure seems to go up when in the presence of a white coat.

Who we are is ultimately determined by who we are on the inside. But our clothing indicates who we are to others. Society runs smoothly if we are able to predict others’ behavior by how they are dressed. But the cues have been confused. We live in a drag society. The rules change, especially when it comes to gender.

Gender roles used to be very rigid. Only men were allowed to wear academic gowns. Perhaps when women were allowed to wear them, they lost status. They became less popular. Men chose to wear a suit and tie to indicate their status – and their manhood. After all, the necktie is a phallic symbol, long and straight and wide. Even when women wear a suit, their neckwear tends to be folded and soft. Their shoulders may be padded to make them look more masculine, yet their neckwear is ruffled and fluffy.

But fashion changes. The Founding Fathers had exclusive male power. They wore wigs and knee pants. This was not sissified, because women were not allowed to wear pants at all.

In the 19th century feminist Amelia Bloomer created loose-fitting trousers for women. The fashions of the day were so restrictive they made females even more weak and immobile, with their tight waists and heavy bustles padding the hips. With the bloomers, women were able to be more physical. Physical freedom was a symbol of political freedom.

Gender is a complex issue, containing at least four components: physical, sexual identity, sexual orientation and sexual presentation.

Physical sex is determined by genitalia. One of the first things a doctor announces is the gender of the baby. “It’s a boy!” “It’s a girl!” But many children have their gender assigned because their genitalia is unclear. The importance of gender determination is such that there is no tolerance of a third sex. Surgery is performed to eliminate any hint of confusion. But all sexual characteristics are on a gradient. Polarities are the extreme. Reality is a bit fuzzier.

Men tend to be fuzzier than women, but some women can grow a beard while some men can’t. Women tend to be shorter than men, but the women’s NBA has many women over 6’6”. Men tend to be stronger than women, but some women are stronger than the average man. Some women sing bass. Some men sing soprano.

The physical differences between the sexes are not mutually exclusive. A thin woman once explained why she did not date fat men. She said, “I refuse to date someone whose breasts are bigger than mine.”

Sexual identity is a lot less obvious. It is the internal sense of whether one is male or female.

Some people feel they are a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body. These are transsexuals. The feeling of gender identity is separate from sexual attraction. Madonna once said she feels like a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.

Sexual orientation is determined by whom you are attracted to. Both men and women are attracted to women. Both men and women are attracted to men. Some women and men are attracted to both women and men.

A transvestite is someone who wears the clothes or vestments of the other gender; some are gay some are not. This has to do with gender presentation, and this is the most fluid of the gender issues.

Dressing in drag sends a signal about other things, but these signals are often mixed. Every way we dress is some sort of drag. Our hair, our clothes, our shoes: All tell a story of status, and

status is often related to gender.

Long hair is considered effeminate, but it is also a symbol of being a hippie. When I have my hair braided and placed on top of my head, I may look matronly; but if I take my braids down [lets each hang at the side of his head], people may think I’m Native American. In the 19th century, General Custer was celebrated for his long flowing locks of golden hair, but since World War I soldiers have worn short hair, and that has become the standard of manliness. And now females are in the military, and their hair is also cut short.

Women who are professionals often wear their hair short. Many women remove so-called excess body hair, and this exaggerates the differences between men and women. The current fashion has most men in this country clean-shaven, that itself is a form of drag. Why do American men make their faces more like those of women? This is not true in Mexico, Afghanistan or among orthodox Jews.

Between1860 and 1913, nine of eleven presidents had facial hair. The two who didn’t were Andrew Johnson and he was impeached, and William McKinley and he was shot. Since then, all of our presidents have been clean-shaven.

What is this obsession with men in drag? What constitutes drag is arbitrary and shifts with changing times. The 1950s were a time of narrow gender roles. Ward Cleaver wore a suit and tie and went to work. He came home to June Cleaver in her apron and pearls. But some TV pushed the limits. From 1948 to1956 Milton Berle was Mr. Saturday Night. He often dressed in drag to get a laugh. The idea of a man in woman’s clothing was a surefire laugh. Lucille Ball sometimes disguised herself as a man in the “I Love Lucy” show. Sex roles were so rigid in the fifties that they had to be hit with a sledgehammer. There was no subtlety in these portrayals, nor were there any hints of sexuality. Milton Berle was an extremely ugly woman, and Lucy was a ridiculous man. There was no hint of homosexuality.

The fifties also spawned a performer that denied his homosexuality but gave us lots of hints – [throws off his robe with a flair, revealing a sequin-studded black blouse] Liberace! I wear spangles in his honor.

But the cowboy singers of the fifties also wore rhinestones. As real cowboys became less a part of American reality, the cowboy outfit became a costume. By the ‘70s the gay dance band the Village People had featured a singer dressed as a cowboy. Dressing in an overly macho style in the late ‘70s became a signal that one was a homosexual.

Just a few years earlier, in 1969, it was drag queens who took the lead in the Gay liberation movement. A gay bar called Stonewall Inn was raided. The majority of the men there were middle-class men in suits and ties. They may have been able to avoid arrest because they were straight-looking. But the drag queens could not slink into the night and avoid arrest, so they revolted and protested. By choosing to dress in drag, they were already more out than their counterpart. They had less to lose and more to fight about.

The Stonewall Revolt happened on the same day that Judy Garland was buried. She was an icon to drag queens, and one of her most famous routines was dressing up as a male tramp. So the police probably picked the wrong day to raid the Stonewall Inn. The drag queens were in a bad mood and ready to riot.

My own history with drag is less dramatic. As a child my favorite drag artist was Flip Wilson and his alter ego, Geraldine. I used to wear my sister’s wig and put sweat socks under my shirt – and say, [mimicking Flip Wilson] “The Devil made me do it!”

But around the same time, my mother started dressing in drag. Up to that point she would wear jeans when she was cleaning house, but she always wore a skirt when she left the house. Then one day she came home from the store triumphant. She told my sisters, “I’ve bought a pantsuit.” And indeed she had. It was a one-piece jumpsuit with a zipper, sort of like Elvis wore but without the spangles. It was orange, the kind of orange that only existed in the seventies, somewhere between rust and tangerine. It was the color of shag carpets on the floor and the Tupperware we stored inside avocado refrigerators. There she was from her neck to her ankles in orange – with a gold chain around her waist. Up to this point she resembled Edith Bunker. Now suddenly she was Maude. Like the bloomers of a century past, clothes were a sign of liberation.

Drag is about liberation. Halloween is about freedom to be whatever one imagines. Drag is about putting a part of your inside on the outside. Men and women share one X chromosome.

We are more alike than different. The social pressure to distinguish ourselves from the other gender is obsessive.

Why can’t we just appreciate the differences that exist between genders and honor all people, no matter where they fall on the continuum.

We can also respect who we are. We define what it means to be a man. We define what it means to be a woman. Each of us defines it for ourselves.

Though this has been a fun sermon, there are some real spiritual questions, questions that were asked in the first song, “Who Am I?” And who do I tell people that I am? And where do I belong?

I love going to committee meetings at this church because that’s where men wear suits and ties because they’re coming in from work . . . that wear the drag of the businessman. How we dress, how we present ourselves, reflects who we are and has to do with how we belong . . . What does it mean, how you dress? What did you see in the mirror when you left this morning? . . . What are you presenting to other people throughout your entire life, and when you encounter someone who is out of the norm or someone you do not know – like “It’s Pat” – and you are trying to figure out who someone is, how does that affect how much you love them?