#drag queen of the century

[thepoisonroom]

anxiously explaining to my friends that i won't go to drag brunch not because i'm anti-drag but due to my terror of crowdwork

[houghtonlib]

Poster for The Queen, a 1968 documentary depicting the experiences of the drag queens organizing and participating in the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest in New York.

In conjunction with Houghton Library's fall exhibition "American Drag," the Harvard Film Archive will offer a special screening of The Queen on October 28th.

2022T-89

Houghton Library, Harvard University

[toffoliravioli]

this is the best picture to ever picture

[dailyhistoryposts]

José Sarria

José Sarria (1922-2013) was an American drag queen and political activist.

Sarria was born in San Francisco to an absent Spanish father and a working Colombian mother, and was partially raised by another childless couple when his mother was busy. He began dressing in girls' clothes from an early age and spoke four languages by the time he graduated high school. Sarria's first, and longest lover, was Austrian baron Paul Kolish, whom Sarria tutored in languages.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sarria joined the Army (despite being too short--he seduced an Army major to be enlisted). He was officially attached to the Signal Corps, but also spent some time in the Intelligence School, trained as a cook, deliberated failed to be trained as a scout, and worked in the motor pool.

After Sarria returned from overseas, Kolish proposed marriage (it would not have been legally recognized), and though Sarria's mother agreed, Sarria himself did not. Kolish died in 1947, and despite instructions for Sarria to be looked after, Kolish's brother kept most of the inheritance.

After, Sarria returned to San Francisco, where he began working as a drag queen named Michelle and a cocktail waiter. He would sing full parody operas while serving drinks, including leading patrons to sing "God Save Us Nelly Queens" to the tune of "God Save the Queen", loud enough to be heard by the fellow gay men in the jail across the street.

Sarria also began work to decrease the number of police raids on gay bars and ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961. This makes him the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in US history. He helped form the Tavern Guild, the country's first gay business association and the Society for Individual Rights.

Sarria, who also called himself "Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton", helped established the Imperial Court System, a network of non-profits throughout continental North America.

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

[pochapal]

pride tomorrow....feeling normal about this!

[unhonestlymirror]

If Jan Matejko's mom saw this painting, she would exclaim, "Jan, ARE YOU GAY????"

[bookbinderbitch]

Jo Brocklehurst

[the-land-of-women]

I think we need to stop acting as though everything that is counter culture is automatically progressive

[not100bees]

i'm not over "andrew garfield sucks because he watched drag race to play prior walter" you mean he studied drag queens to play a drag queen? we should stone him to death.

[martyrbat]

just saw the most dumb take alive. goodnight.

[stuff-made-by-orose]

queen shit

[fat-fem-and-asian]

ZIWE SESSON 3

NOVEMBER 18TH !!!

[queerblue]

Pronouns are words used to refer to yourself and others. I, We, You, Your, He, She, They, You're, Theirs, His, It, Herself etc are ALL pronouns, it's very hard to speak English without using them. Singular They/Them has been used for centuries. The word "You" used to only be used for groups, see how language evolves.

Cis and Trans are Adjectives which are describing words. Cis is not a slur or a pronoun. Cis is a Latin prefix that means "On the same side of" whereas Trans means "On the other side of."

Puberty Blockers were first created in the 80s to stop children from starting puberty too early. Children can get their period as early as 7 years old and a child shouldn't have to go through that. The effects are completely reversible, all the child has to do is stop taking them whenever they're ready and they'll start their puberty again. You only have a problem with puberty blockers when Trans kids use them.

No doctor is performing gender affirming surgeries on under age children (except for intersex children and babies), there's so much that you have to do before even being approved for top or bottom surgery (or any kind of gender affirming surgery), it's also very expensive, none of this would ever be performed on a child.

Drag Queens reading stories to children or dancing for them isn't any different than hiring a professional to dress up for your child's birthday party or going to Disney World where everyone is dressed up and playing characters. There is absolutely nothing inappropriate about Drag Queen story time. Drag Queens wear far more clothing than literally any of us. If you're fine with taking your child to Hooters or to a sports game with cheerleaders but you have a problem with Drag Queens... You sexualize Queer people and say it's inappropriate for us to be around children yet you have no problem with over-sexualizing women if it's for your entertainment and you have no problem with your child seeing it.

[omgthatdress]

Please stop using derivatives of “cunt” to describe the way women look, it’s unbelievably sexist. It’s not cutesie or hip, it’s just degrading. Not all modern language is good language. Even if you want to use it for yourself, you can’t reclaim something hurtful for someone else, and at the end of the day you’re talking about strangers.

Oh, darling, that's TERF talk. Literally.

Serving Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent isn't just a cute new phrase, it's a phrase that's been used the drag and transfeminine community for decades. To claim it's sexist and degrading it to operate under the TERF assumption that transfeminine people don't possess real femininity and don't experience real misogyny. If I'm guilty of anything when I use it, it's cultural appropriation.

Cunt isn't just about hyper-femininity, it's about an attitude that demands attention. If it were just about looks and being feminine, Kate Middleton would be the cunt queen of the century, and the only truly cunty thing she's ever done is disappear off the face of the earth.

Learn some queer history. Experience some queer culture. You'll enjoy it, I promise.

[fryingpan1234567]

some CHB headcanons

every cabin has LEDs around the inside, but there’s a constant battle over what color they are

Percy has his rippling back and forth from teal to blue and it looks like light dancing through water all over his walls and floor

the Apollo cabin can usually settle for orange and yellow as a common ground

the Aphrodite kids have a different color for each time of day and sleep with pink on the lowest brightness setting

the Hermes cabin has like ten different strips and they’re all constantly shifting

Demeter cabin’s shifts with the seasons

ANYWAYS MOVING AWAY FROM THE LEDS

they have movie nights, which I will talk about in a different post

before everybody goes back to school, the Aphrodite and Hecate cabins have a massive salon at the end of the summer with new haircuts and magic hair dye and outfit recommendations and fake but enchanted sturdy nails and a whole bunch of other stuff and basically it’s a week straight of spilling hot tea between everyone in camp

if someone asks where a camper got their hair done when they get back to school they just go “oh, um… summer camp.” and their friends will snort and be like bro isn’t summer camp the opposite of a makeover?? but they get no argument, just a shrug and a half smile

when I tell you pride month over there is a fucking riot

because Mr. D is in on it, right?? because he’s the god of gender?? and Chiron is aroace and has been raising dumbass gay heroes for literal centuries?? PLUS the sheer fucking amount of queer peeps up in there?? dude yeah

cabins competing for who shows the most pride

Demeter’s roof is covered in rainbow flowers

Hecate’s is enchanted to emit actual light in whatever flag colors of whoever uses the front door, even when they’re straight (it’s just a rainbow)

Percy collects a bunch of shed scales from the hippocampi at the bottom of the lake and then puts them all over his cabin

I could make a whole post about CHB pride but

every single Apollo kid is also a theater kid fight me

Rachel Elizabeth Dare painted a skateboard for Percy’s birthday and he brings it everywhere now, it even sits in his backpack at school

Leo, Annabeth, Percy, and Piper fucking love horror movies. Frank, Hazel, and Jason fucking hate them. They watch through their fingers, if at all

Piper loves the band Surfaces with all her heart, but she also is a die hard Green Day and P!ATD fan

Jake Mason is covered in burn scars up to his neck, just like Deadpool, just not bald lol

Hephaestus and Apollo kids faintly radiate warmth (like more so than a normal person)

the Stolls sometimes stay at camp year-round because their mom is off on international missions that are too high-risk for them to help with

the seven are AVID Smash Bros players

really everyone but

not as many people go to the Athena campers for help with homework as you might think, but whenever anyone does, they’re happy to help

the sun chariot blasts music at a frequency only the Apollo kids can hear, so their life kind of has a shitty soundtrack that consists of a mix of Broadway, Queen, modern stuff, and random bits of Beethoven every now and then

the Romans swear on few occasions

the Greeks know when to swear and when to be polite

the Valhalla peeps swear unbridled and all the time

the Egyptians never swear (in English)

for the longest time, Will Solace thinks the only gift from his dad is his healing prowess— which is obviously great, but he expresses being upset over the fact that he’s not very good at archery

well, considering this is the dumbass who didn’t bring a weapon to actual fucking Tartarus, Nico drags him to the weapon shack thing immediately afterwards and made him pick something out

he's immediately drawn to the Celestial Bronze shotgun.

Nico’s just like “what in the redneck shit did you just pick up” and Will jokingly aims it at his chest and grins and says “you know I’m from Texas, right?”

that’s how they find out Will is one of the damn best marksmen in Greek demigod history

some of the Disney nerds in the Apollo cabin sing What Once Was Mine to the little ones who need bandaids for knee scrapes and give them lollipops afterwards

Percy Jackson absolutely used to make poverty and struggle meal jokes all the time, but he got weird and concerned looks for it at CHB, so he kind of just stopped. But one day, aboard the Argo II, the PERFECT opportunity came up and he just HAD TO and as per usual— everyone else looked at him like he’s crazy— but Leo laughed so hard chocolate milk came out of his nose and that’s the story of how the two of them became Best Friends