Dear Heather Heying: Drag is Not Woman Face

Someone people are so desperate to be oppressed that they will look for any reason to be a victim and today we have a classic case of that from Heather Heying of Darkhorse Podcast fame. She wrote an article on her popular substack recently that argues that drag shows are “woman face” and that men dressing up in an over-the-top caricature of women is degrading and damaging to women. Obviously with the advent of RuPaul’s Drag race, men performing as women has become much more mainstream.

Men dressing up as women (drag) has been around since antiquity. There used to be sumptuary laws that would arrest people for wearing too many items of the wrong gender’s clothing (many weren’t repealed until the 1960s). Drag is performance art these days. Although it has roots in men pretending to be women to hide their homosexuality (or make homosexuality palatable to men) these days, it has damn near little to do with sex is any capacity. It’s also a big business with major brands working with drag performers. There are people who have podcasts, youtube channels, and more that have brought the LGBT subculture into the light of day for everyone to enjoy. Drag simply isn’t degrading to women. No drag queen is trying to be a woman. Although some may come out later as trans, there are plenty who live as regular men and have sex as regular men (often with other men). However, drag is not a gateway to sex in most cases (there are some that I know of but it’s not the usual case).