Celebrating the Drag Queen Community in Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lady Arsenika Satanis’ shot this fab pop art self-portrait. I love her style -- and love to see that drag queens are active in Second Life. Her picture, “Pop Art Fantasy” is the apotheosis of drag queen glamor. It seems appropriate to amplify and honor the beauty and courage of drag queens after this weekend’s tragedy. 

Club Q’s drag show in Colorado Springs had just ended and the DJ had started playing when he was wounded, shot in the back, by a man radicalized and incited by political hate rhetoric. It is painfully ironic that the shooting was at midnight as the Day of Trans Remembrance began. While drag queens are not trans women, they are targeted along with people who are trans by a political party that centers itself on hate. The political strategist behind the current moral panic over drag queens and trans women advocates conflating the two because that makes them sound more frightening. 

As someone who has gone to countless drag shows, lurid is not the word I would use. Fun, glamorous, exciting, hilarious, friendly, warm, and welcoming are more apt descriptions. See for yourself at CLAT Drag Club [To teleport, click here.] The acronym stands for Club Legends Art Theater. Or you could try out the London club Madam Lala’s [To teleport, click here.]

For more Second Life drag artistry, click here:

Venus is another drag artist. I love the artistry of her photos though a few are not safe for Google. She is always going for the high fashion, editorial style photos, even if they are slightly frightening and I am here for it. Her pictures are bold, a reflection of the life of a drag queen that demands boldness. “Hey Gorge” is an expression of bold beauty. 

I learned a little about the courage daily life can demand when I volunteered for a Queer Nation action/experience called “Queer for a Day.” I wrote about that experience in my blog back in 2012 [blog link here]. It changed my life and worldview. I wish there were similar experiences today.

Move over Andy Warhol, here’s Adore La Femme. Well, to be honest, her pics are far more glam. This is titled “Erotica” which is perfect, because what is more erotic than the face?  One of the ways the gay rights movement defended itself from anti-gay ballot measures was asking the community to come out, to identify publicly so people realized their own friends and family were the target. 

Drag performers and people who are trans are trying to replicate that strategy by being more visible, taking away the mystery and fear. That’s why there are things such as Drag Queen Story Hour at libraries, or in the case of Second Life, at the CLAT Drag Club.  [To teleport, click here.]

I love Maya Reyes “Lady Gaga”. It is so exciting because she does not replicate Lady Gaga, she gives homage but keeps herself as herself.. This particular picture was for FLAWZ Magazine, a Second Life mag that celebrates LGBTIQA life with glamor and effervescence. [You can check out FLAWZ at this link].

Ghoulina Waffle gives us this fun homage to The Boulet Brothers Dragula [Check it out here] that opens with a Queen saying “Drag, filth, horror, glamour” just as her picture is titled. Her outfit is as fun as the film. 

There are more drag queens in Second Life and I wish I had time and space to celebrate them all. People are frightened by what they don’t know, so get off your platform and leave your Linden home and come see a drag show or two or three. Watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. Soon that fear will dissipate. Fear becomes tolerance and tolerance becomes acceptance the more you know. That is why people are saying “Don’t Say Gay” and banning books and inciting violence to drive people back into the shadows of the closet - to keep the rest of us from knowing more and realizing all the fears were manufactured falsehoods.

Thanks to the current moral panic on the right, there has been a marked increase in crimes against LGBTIQA community spaces and the community itself. It should not require courage to get up in the morning, get dressed, and leave your house, but every day is a challenge to the courage of the community when it is under sustained and daily attack. There was no pause in the incitement of violence. The Senate campaign of Herschel Walker released an anti-gay campaign ad the day after the Colorado Springs shooting. 

This is a worldwide phenomenon. Former Oregonian Scott Lively has been a prime exporter of anti-gay hate working with Putin to change the law to criminalize coming out. Ghana is posed to criminalize coming out and speaking on behalf of gay rights. Coming out would be punishable by 5 years in prison and advocating for gay rights would be punishable by up to 10 years. This is an American export from the same people who brought us Measure 9 in Oregon, anti-gay laws in Russia, and elsewhere. 

Everyone of us can make a difference if we choose to. 

See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.

All images copyright their respective creator

Comments

[sirhc desantis]

Thank you for this.

[colt carson]

...wounded, shot in the back, by a man radicalized and incited by political hate rhetoric...

Actually, he was shot by a person that identified as non-binary and used them/they pronouns. It doesn't change that a tragic event occurred, but no need to turn this into something it isn't. Otherwise, you're just spreading the same hate with a different brand.

Go in peace