Homophobia and gender norms a real drag

By Ricky Alexander

From the moment we are born, we are branded boy or girl, blue or pink, cars or dolls.

We have no say in the matter, and we make no conscious choice about the gender identity that is thrust upon us for the rest of our lives.

Because of the rigidity of this gender binary -- the notion that human gender exists in only the masculine and feminine forms -- many negative implications arise, including restrictions on how one dresses, where one works and who one loves.

While some people may fit perfectly into their pre-configured gender identity, many others feel their freedom of expression partially, if not wholly, suppressed due to the gender roles assigned to them at birth.

What is one prominent way we can respond to such an oppressive paradigm of gender? Drag!

What is drag, how did it come to be and what does it mean to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community? While it is a relatively new professional phenomenon, drag has a rich if underground history over many centuries.

The term drag itself is derived from the phrase "dressed as girl," hearkening back to Shakespearean times when men would play women's roles in theater productions. The acronym has now been widely adopted to signify gender non-conformity in a variety of contexts.

Dressing in drag is such an empowering endeavor for many people within the queer community because it symbolically allows LGBTQ people the freedom to express an identity typically frowned upon by society at large.

In addition, deconstructing gender roles is often tied up with, and is analogous to, deconstructing heterosexual privilege.

In this way, stories like Matthew Shepard's reveal the importance of defying social norms in advocating for the LGBTQ community. Shepard was a gay student at the University of Wyoming who was brutally tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyo. in October 1998 by two homophobic killers.

For simply being a homosexual, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, systematically tortured, tied to a fence in a rural area and left to die.

"The Laramie Project," a film about Shepard's life and death, was recently shown on campus, but the flyer used to publicize the event neglected to mention why he was killed.

Omitting the fact that Shepard's murder was a hate crime against homosexuals trivializes his life and functions as a means of pushing others back into the closet.

In order to change the social and political climate of homophobia and transphobia we live in, we must openly express our sexual and gender identities, even when doing so entails a non-conformist and courageous flourish of the heart.

Drag symbolizes this bold stepping out into a realm unfamiliar yet representative of the world we would all like to live in.

The story of Angie Zapata exemplifies why drag is of special significance to transgender people within the LGBTQ community. Zapata was a transgender woman who transitioned from male to female and was beaten to death in Greeley, Colo. in 2005.

Zapata was beaten with fists and a fire extinguisher before she died. Her killer, Allen Andrade, was convicted on April 22, 2009 of first-degree murder and committing a hate crime because he killed her after learning she was transgender. The case was the first in the nation to get a conviction for a hate crime against a transgender person.

For transgender people, drag is particularly meaningful because it challenges the dominant paradigm of the gender binary by promoting less rigid ideologies of gender expression. Furthermore, it breaks down barriers created by traditional gender-related behavior and liberates LGBTQ people from the confines of established gender ideologies.

While we have tended to think of gender as a masculine/feminine dichotomy for the majority of human history, it is finally becoming clear that gender exists along a spectrum like most aspects of the human condition.

Fluidity, and not rigidity, is the defining principle by which gender functions in our society.

Drag is a hugely important phenomenon for many in the LGBTQ community because it helps us to forge a new, inclusive social consciousness regarding the diversity of gender and sexual orientation that exists in our world.

Drag, symbolically and realistically, changes the landscape of the world we inhabit. Drag is the freedom to be whoever you are and whoever you want to be. It is a message relevant to everyone.

Ricky Alexander is a senior environmental studies and peace and justice double major.