When Madiha and I started talking about what we wanted to do, Diyah immediately expressed an interest in drag, specifically being a Drag King.

As a tall woman, with broad shoulders, a deep voice, who grew up as a tomboy, who was raised by a single mom after the passing of my dad, and as someone who started working in the summers at the age of 12, I’ve never had much time to be “girlie.” I grew up feeling like taking too much time on my appearance was extraneous or even vein, perhaps? I was valued for my achievements, which I am grateful for. But I am sad it felt like it had to be an either/or choice.

More than that, when I was coming of age in the early 2000s, being a “girlie girl” (I am using that term in a very generealized way) was somewhat controversial and even looked down upon and there was a certain mockery, vitriol, or shame surrounding women who presented as such at the time. Names that come to mind are Brittney Spears & Paris Hilton. Presenting in a highly feminised way feels performative but I also feel not allowed to own being highly feminine; women who do are shamed or punished for it.

Whereas I, as a teenager, chopped off all my hair to a pixie cut after my dad passed away; that coupled with never wearing makeup because I had a really oily complexion when I was younger, I spent most of puberty presenting as more masculine or androgynous. I’ve never quite felt comfortable or like I’ve fully explored my female-ness.

As a white female, I feel very represented in pop culture & media, etc., which is a privilege. The drawback is that, more often than not, these representations have not been authored by (white) women. There is a very clear difference between representation and authorship. For me, what it is to be female, within white culture, is very prescriptive and , ironically/tragically, some of the most damaging reinforcements of those acceptable presentations of “white female” and what constitutes valid feminism are policed by other white women. And my sexuality is often portrayed from a perspective of me being sexually appealing consumable product (like a cheeseburger) whereas VERY seldom do I see my female desire represented; there is a difference between sex appeal and sexual desire.

Looking at the art history of western civilisation, the naked white female body is one of the most common images in visual art, but how much visual art do we see presented in museums by female artists? Shockingly few. And the same applies to novels, films, commercials, cartoons, everything. That – while I am very represented in culture- I have had no say in how I am presented. I am told what I am and what I am allowed to be or where my value is as determined by the power structures (white capitalist puritan patriarchy) that have had the most power in that authorship.

The prescription of what is acceptable for a white female body is so pervasive that I recall getting lots of comments (specifically from the women in my life) as I was entering the early stages of puberty. I found in an old diary of mine when I was 14, that an aunt told me that my being naturally slender shape made my body type “out of style” as if my body could be in or out of fashion; rather than just the corporal body that carries me in this life.

I am interested in being a Drag Queen because I am interested in playing with the stereotypes/prescription of white cis-female-ness based on these representations of me that historically have been largely made by men, uncovering invisible histories of what it is to be a woman in white culture, how/why white cis-females enforce patriarchy, problematic internalised misogyny and racism, the nature of white capitalist religious patriarchal American culture itself, and asking myself what authorship of my own identity would look like.