Difference between revisions of "File:Volcano Del LaGrace Halberstam Judith Jack The Drag King Book 1999.pdf"

The Drag King Book

Author	Judith "Jack" Halberstam, Del LaGrace Volcano (photography)
Language	English
Publisher	Serpent's Tail
Date	August 1999
Pages	160
ISBN	1852426071, 978-1852426071
E-book	PDF

The Drag King Book

by Judith "Jack" Halberstam, Del LaGrace Volcano (photography)

"The book profiles many different performers, among them San Francisco's larger-than-life Elvis Herselvis and New York's mackdaddy Dred, and presents interviews with drag kings alongside descriptions and analyses of actual shows. Lavishly illustrated with over 100 pictures by transgender photographer Del LaGrace Volcano, The Drag King Book is a striking testament to the multiple forms of gender variance today."

"It is impossible to separate my personal relationship with facial hair from my hermstory with the Drag King scene that erupted in London and around the globe in the mid 1990s. The thought of coming out as a bearded lesbian was terrifying and it was only when I hooked up with Simo Maronati that I found the courage to let it all hang out, consequences be damned! I was also due to compete in the first Drag King contest ever at the London Lesbian & Gay Film festival during the spring of 1996. I thought that possibly having a beard of my own might give me a much needed edge....since I was well aware that I did not possess an iota of 'authentic' masculinity. As it happened I was the biggest loser. My leather daddy stripper persona was a bit too genderqueer in an era where ‘realness’ was the currency. But from that one event a new queer time and place began that included Drag King clubs, lots of mainstream press, including a faux exhibition of my work on Sex & The City and a free trip through the Channel Tunnel to Paris for a gaggle of Drag Kings. The biggest bonus by far though was that Judith Jack Halberstam, (an academic already writing about Female Masculinity and one of the contest judges) and I became friends and went on to produce THE DRAG KING BOOK together over the next five years.

Now that more than twenty years have passed a new generation of Kings are in the spot light, although they are still given far less space than there sister Drag Queens. Many of the Kings I photographed in the 90s now live their lives as men or trans after finding the performance of masculinity a better fit than the options they had been living. As for myself, I continue to believe that dis-obedience, dis-ruption and defiance of gender norms and ALL norms are the cornerstones of queer cultural production." (Volcano Del LaGrace)

Source.

2023-12-07