Queer Folks’ Tales I - Moustache Mafia

Hello hello hello, how are we doing, Edinburgh? Well isn’t that SUCH a coincidence because I’m doing great as well. Just to assess the vibe and see what we’re dealing with here, has anyone not been to a drag show before? Is anyone losing their drag virginity tonight? And GOD forbid, is anyone heterosexual?... Well, don’t worry, I’m known to be very gentle when it comes to popping cherries, unless you don’t want me to be, in which case you can find me in the toilets during the interval. (For legal reasons, that’s a joke, but my Grindr is always active, babe).

Now, for many newcomers to drag, several questions may be popping into your mind as you watch me regale this tale - what is that? Why am I so attracted to it? Penis or vagina? The answers to which are who knows? We both know, and buy me a drink first. But I can’t be completely un-self-aware in realising that my particular style of drag is at least a little confusing, if not a lot confusing, to the average cisheterosexual. I am of course talking about the elephant in the room, my pride and joy, the final frontier that protects my upper lip from contracting frost bite, my moustache. Do you like? I grew it myself. A lot of people assume that drag is exclusively female impersonation, that queens are meant to be giving Woman with a capital W, shaved legs, private parts snatched away into non-existence, serving gender illusion. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a huge part of drag, and it’s a part that I love and admire and respect, I am a devoted worshiper at the altar of the divine feminine… it’s just not a bit of me.

In my day to day life I’m a non-binary person - yes I’m part of the pronoun police, yes I am that one non-binary barista that makes the oat flat white of your dreams - and drag for me has always been an expression of my own relationship with gender and androgyny rather than trying to be a female impersonator. I keep my facial hair, I keep my body hair, I don’t tuck (that’s the real triple threat that I’m talking about), I don’t change my voice (that much), and I try to balance masculine and feminine as much as I can in pretty much everything I do. And I like the fact that it confuses people, I like to be confusing. In a world where western superpowers are trying to legislate binary gender into reality, I appear as a rhinestoned spanner in the works.

Not everyone gets what I’m trying to do here, and I get that, but it does lead to some interesting interactions. A wee while ago I was through in Glasgow performing at a regular gig of mine at Delmonicas, one of the main gay bars if you’re not already acquainted. For the unanointed and unfamiliar, there tends to be two types of drag gigs - the first are queer gigs, for the girls, gays and theys, probably in a dark room or basement somewhere, usually in a club, and normally features a lot of cabaret, alt drag, more risqué performances, concepts, mixes, deep cuts and niche interests - queer art made by queer people for queer audiences. Then, on the flipside of this lovely binary, there’s straight gigs. These are your bingos, your brunches, your karaoke dos, your hen parties, your corporate events and your paint and sips, that kind of thing. Basically, an easy way to figure it out is if you’re going to a drag event and it has the word ‘Boozy’ in the title, that's an immediate dog whistle for a straight gig. Slap boozy in front of anything and straight women will eat that shit up, let me tell you.

This one at Delmonicas was very much a straight gig, Saturday evening in the centre of Merchant City, and most of the audience consisted of middle-aged straight people - not complaining by any means, they are always the best tippers (mainly because queer people are generally broke), so it’s a mutually beneficial relationship, plus if they’re enjoying the performance and enjoying the art form, then who am I to complain? I’m on the mic, chatting shite as is my wont, when out of the ether a voice calls to me, as if in a dream. Or maybe more of a nightmare, really. It’s a pretty gruff, deep voice, thick Glaswegian accent and very masculine, which is usually a turn on for me, only all the words were slurred and he could barely string a sentence together, which, I don’t know about you guys, but is kind of a boner killer for me. This man shouts out in the middle of me introducing my number and asks me the first of those surface level questions that many people think to themselves when they look at me in drag -

“What are you?”

Again, can’t really blame him, I know all this can be a lot to take in, but I’m not the biggest fan of being interrupted by drunk straight men at the best of times, let alone when I’m in the middle of work. So I turn to this man and look him in the eye - late 30s to early 40s, red in the face, tattoos on his arms, Celtic shirt on his back, and god bless him is he trying his utmost to grow even the faintest wisp of a beard. I try my best to hold his gaze, which is harder than you think considering he’s swaying in his seat like a sailor at sea, and I ask him -

“What do you think I am, my love?”

To which he responds,

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”

Fair fucks, at least he’s to the point. He’s with some other people at the table, also quite pished but nowhere near as blackout as Heckler McGee, and one of the women he’s with leans over to him and whispers (and by whispers I mean yells so loud that the other side of the room can hear)

“She’s a drag queen!”

The girls that get it, get it, clearly - we love an ally. This man, however, remains unconvinced.

“No is naw” he replies, “look at the hair on that”.

So there I am, egg on my face dripping into my moustache as I realise for the first time that despite the bedazzled outfit, the wig glued to my scalp, the makeup caked on my face, the stilettos killing my feet, the microphone in my hand and the fact that I’d performed twice already that night, I was not, in fact, a drag queen, because a straight man had decided it was so. In his defence, discreet straight men are famously experts when it comes to crossdressing, albeit in the safety and security of the closet, so I obviously took his word for it.

Imposter syndrome immediately sets in - I’m a fraud, I’m a phony, I’ve been lying to myself, everyone hates me, oh god! And then I remember that I could not give less of a fuck what this man has to say to me. So I turn to him, and with the most saccharine smile I can muster, I reply:

“My love, I know you’re jealous of my moustache because you can barely throw together a soul patch let alone anything else, and your small cock means you’re overcompensating and desperate for attention, but please, this is my show, not yours. Enough from you, thank you very much.”

Needless to say he quietened down after that, and fair enough to him, he stayed for the rest of the show - men and their degradation kinks, am I right? But it just goes to show how confusing what I do can be for those who’ve never experienced it before. Honestly, if I had a penny for every man who’s told me in no uncertain terms that they feel emasculated by my drag or my facial hair, I would not be crossdressing for a living anymore, let me tell you that much. It must be a strange cocktail of emotions to feel - there’s a bit of attraction thanks to my feminine wiles (and the fact I usually don’t wear as much clothing as this), and then there’s insecurity as the male ego is threatened by the masculine, plus uncertainty as these people enter into uncharted waters of gender fuckery - and that my loves, is the joy of living in between the binary.

Later that evening, after the show, I’m getting out of drag and my phone goes off. It’s a Grindr notification - I told you it’s always active. It’s a blank profile and this guy says he’s straight, and then he sends a picture. Lo and behold, would you believe it, it’s the same man! The nerve of some people. Guess I wasn’t so far off with the degradation kink after all. He asks me if I want to come back to his, and with an eyeroll and a smile, I reply: “My love, not by the hairs on your chinny chin chin.”