bright-eyed and bushy browed : ramblings & reflections on sasha velour

RADICAL, MAGICAL, LIBERAL ART / GENDER IS A CONSTRUCT, TEAR IT APART

I know I'm incredibly late to have just jumped onto this bandwagon, but I've recently finished watching Season 9 of the fabulously flamboyant Rupaul's Drag Race. From the very first episode, a twinkle in my eye had been sparked by the glorious presence of Brooklyn-based funky art-theatre drag queen, Sasha Velour. Born Alexander Hedges Steinberg, Velour's identity has been constructed meticulously through intricately documented origins and personal anecdotes, 'Sasha', being a nickname for their original name Alexander, and velour, being their favourite fabric as a cheaper substitute for velvet, a feature they subtly parallel to the performative essence of drag.

Perhaps what remains most arresting to me regarding Velour's drag, alongside their constant practice of activism, is how it moves beyond practice of performing the conventions of femininity as someone assigned male at birth (which, in itself, is an gargantuanly endearing and defiant act) - Velour's drag, explicitly yet tastefully conflating various facets of the myriad subcultures within drag history, adopts an identity external to the enforced etiquette of hyperfemininity; it is unauthoritative, unhindered and always tastefully executed. There's been much commentary on the alleged "boundaries" of drag - an unnecessarily confining cage built around what qualifies as drag and what doesn't - and Velour isn't ashamed to call out the counter-productivity of hindering the fluidity of drag. And for fuck's sake, how could you not absolutely adore someone who, firstly, appears to have the sweetest smile to ever grace this earth, and secondly, mentions Judith Butler, a.k.a the world's reigning drag gender theory superstar, on Rupaul's Drag Race? 

Velour's constant commentary on the intersecting crosspaths of drag with queer + gender politics is incredibly significant, considering the ever-deepening divisions between groups which ultimately yearn for the same liberationist politics. Acutely aware of their privilege as an upwardly-mobile white individual, Velour is unhindered in their impassioned expression of how trans women of colour were the prime ringleaders of the queer movement alongside the Stonewall Riots: 

Trans women, trans men, AFAB—which is assigned female at birth—and non-binary performers, but especially trans women of color, have been doing drag for literal centuries and deserve to be equally represented and celebrated alongside cis men.

As of now, I've much more to research on drag history; although it intersects immensely with the queer movements of the '60s and '70s, drag history in itself, although not nearly as extensively documented as queer history, is incredibly rich and broad, and as Velour eloquently states, "is literally so ancient that it predates modern understandings of gender... drag predates the word drag itself."

Can I get an amen up in here? A-fucking-men.