Somebody asked the question this week in an online forum about the appropriateness of allowing a church youth group to stage a drag show in the ‘sanctuary’. Apparently some people felt that the ‘sanctuary’ should be reserved for ‘sacred’ activities, and presumably drag does not quite make the grade.
To hear this concern expressed was interesting for me, to say the least. Those raising the objections to drag were members of a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). MCC is an inclusive and predominantly GLBT denomination that, among its many celebrations, commemorates Pride and the Stonewall riots (the infamous night in 1969 when New York drag queens and trannies joined with gays and lesbians to fight back against centuries of oppression and silence).
The responses from forum participants were thoughtful and well informed. Some spoke of the universal and inclusive nature of the sacred and how the house of God should be open to all people for all kinds of events.
From a personal perspective it was interesting to see this question come up, given a related experience of my own last Sunday. I was making announcements at the start of our own worship service. Our church is holding a 'Prom' in a couple of weeks. One of our young adult leaders came up to the front to make a special announcement about the event — wearing drag. The idea was to promote ticket sales while getting people to think about how they might ‘dress up’ for the event.
Now this should not have been a shock to any in our congregation...
We have members who come to church in drag or who have even been married in drag. Most of them have seen drag shows. Our membership includes those with diverse gender expressions: leather men, butch dykes, bitchy queens, lipstick lesbians, business suits, trannies, grannies, you name it. And most congregants seemed to find the announcement entertaining. But from where I was standing I could see that at least a few women and men seemed to be uncomfortable at the public appearance of someone 'in drag' at the front of the congregation. One person looked quite upset in fact.
My reflection on the nature of drag is that it is, to some extent, a performative dimension of all our lives. Every one of us 'does' drag in one form or another, whether we recognize it in this way or not. How I model my masculinity or femininity, the style or persona I adopt in the public square, the extent to which I consciously or unconsciously comform to or transgress societal expectations of what is ‘normal’ and ‘appropriate’, is all about drag. The important question of course is who gets to determine what forms of ‘drag’ are permitted. The dominant heteronormative discourse labels as trans/gressive those whose adopted drag violates societal norms.
So there is a degree of incongruence in negative reactions to ‘drag in the sanctuary’ within a community that itself stands far outside the margins of what is considered normal. Yet we have a remarkable diversity of viewpoints within MCC, and not all of them are necessarily comfortable with the view from the margins. For some members, drag (or leather) is indicative of decadence or immaturity or provocation, and definitely not appropriate 'in church'.
But as my partner commented, how can a nelly queen or butch dyke not see the irony in passing judgment on drag [queens]?
Some people have remarked to me that cross dressing has nothing to do with transgender issues, or that it makes a mockery of either women or transgendered persons. I don’t believe either statement is really true. While ontologically different, both are the target of homophobic and misogynistic attack from the ignorant and hateful.
Our spiritual enemies make little or no distinction in their equal hatred of gays, lesbians, trannies and drag queens. In their gaze we are all equally deviant and an abomination before God. The diversities of sexual orientation, behavior and gender identity present within our diverse communities are all equally viewed as disordered and intrinsically evil.
We who are in a journey of liberation from homophobia, transphobia and misogyny nonetheless still sometimes fall back into internalized homophobia and misogyny. How easy it is to slip into unconscious generalizations about ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ — in the context of gender conformance and queer representation — that mirror those of our oppressors.
Is this internalized homophobia? Fear of being exposed as not really in the ‘mainstream’? I suspect that the latter — i.e. acceptance as part of the mainstream — is something that some of our congregants may desire quite desperately. It reminds me that we all probably need more education concerning (a) gender identity, expression and liberation, and (b) the radically inclusive and trans/gressive nature of the Gospel itself.
After all, the need to be trans/formed through the renewing of our minds is an ongoing process!
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