Member-only story
REVELATIONS
Actually, I’m a Naughty Schoolgirl
What my first drag show taught me about being extra
In college, Joe and I had a gay teammate who was from South Africa. He was about 6’5” and often went to parties around East Lansing in what I like to call “understated elegance” drag.
I remember him drunkenly walking home from a late-night party once, along Grand River Avenue, in kitten heels that were broken (he was a large, extremely muscular dude, and it’s hard to imagine any heels withstanding the physics ‘force diagram’ of him). Atop his busted heels were tasteful leggings and a J.Crew sweater. It was both sad (the forlorn intoxication) and a little hilarious, since he had very good fashion sense.
I’d always assumed drag equaled over-the-top, campy attire.
Now, for the strictly-sad part: When he’d come out to his father as LGBTQIA+, his dad had tried to physically attack him. Another teammate who came over to the U.S. with him that same fall, a fellow swimmer from the same part of the world, asked, upon arriving, “Did R make it? I wasn’t sure he would.”
It must be excruciating to show your full self to a parent and have them not only reject you, but actually try to kill you—and say as much. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 6’5” rugby-playing…
