On the second Tuesday of every month, levees, levee veterans, and levee collaborators gather at Ginger’s in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Some people are accustomed to going to Irish pubs or lesbian dive bars. The audience comes from all corners of Brooklyn’s queer community. A young patron with blue hair and ironic tattoos has just made his 10th trip from Bushwick, but an older man with close-cropped hair who lives around the corner is a regular at Ginger.
Guests withdraw money from an ATM in the corner, buy drinks at the cash-only bar, and flirt with other patrons as they patiently wait for performers wearing exaggerated makeup, larger-than-life wigs, and intricate costumes. (on this night, they’re dressed like horror movie icons)—weaving their way through the crowd to a back room. Around 8pm, the back of the building fills up. The show is about to start at Dyke Drag.
Although drag has found mainstream success outside of the clubs where it originated (the show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the film “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar”) ), continues to have deep roots in the nightlife scene, especially in the nightlife scene. Bars and clubs that cater to the LGBTQ+ community. Unfortunately, this art form has yet to enjoy the same success in lesbian bars as it has in other queer nightlife spaces, even though the number of lesbian bars across the country has once again begun to steadily increase. Brooklyn-based drag queen I’m Baby is working to change that.
I’m Baby, known simply as “Baby” in the drag world, founded Dyke Drag in 2021 with co-producer Kayla Manjarrez. What started as a shared dream between two lesbians to bring drag into a sapphic space has since become a monthly phenomenon at Brooklyn’s oldest lesbian bar. For about $13, audiences can experience drag artists from New York City and beyond perform on stage for a primarily lesbian audience.
There is a common misconception that drag only involves men pretending to be women. But the art form is much more than that. For example, drag kings (primarily queer women who impersonate men) have been around since the late 1800s, and Baby, like many cis and trans women in the scene, performs as a drag queen herself.
I’m Baby’s style is cute, just like its name, with a pastel blue and pink color palette. Her aesthetic and performance are an exaggeration of femininity. (However, she broke her mold and played darker characters and edgier performances, such as when she got “Baby” tattooed on her butt on stage.) For the Valentine’s Day show, She gave her partner a haircut. In front of an audience. “I think it’s such a wonderful thing to show the levees as ourselves, to have that experience,” she says of the performance. “I can go on stage and perform the exact same songs as other drag queens, but I can take that lens and show this very sapphic experience of being femme and cutting butch hair. That resonates with me, and it resonates with the audience because it’s something they know personally.” Pisces I’m Baby and the entire Dyke Drag crew are pioneering drag in the lesbian space and empowering others to do the same.
In October’s Halloween version of the show, dubbed “Boy Terrors,” I’m Baby will host Lady Gaga’s The Countess from “American Horror Story: Hotel” and Jennifer Check from “Jennifer’s Body.” He played the role of a cannibal who sucked the blood of two strange people. Afterward, she sat covered in fake blood and talked about what it’s like to be a lesbian drag artist and how dyke drag has changed over the years.
Annie Harrigan: What was your first encounter with the art of drag?
Baby: My first encounter with drag was probably watching Tu Wong Foo over and over again with my mom when I was five years old. That movie made me love drag. Years later, when I was 16 or 17, I stumbled upon RuPaul’s Drag Race on TV at my mom’s friend’s house. I was in awe. This was around the time when all seasons were available on Netflix, so I binge-watched the entire show. And the rest are sitting right in front of you.
When did you start doing drugs?
I started doing drugs in 2019, right before the pandemic hit. One night, shortly after I moved to the city, I went to a bar for a karaoke night and there was this really shy gay guy singing into the microphone. I looked at him and said, “We’re going to go there, and I’m going to sing with you, and you’re going to sing your heart out.” After that, I thought: I’m thinking of doing drag, and I’m thinking of choosing the name Supportive Bitch. “Then it took me a whole year before I actually started doing drugs again. By then, the “I’m baby” meme was going around everywhere and everyone was like, “You’re a baby.” I’m 5 feet tall, so this name suited me perfectly.
What was your experience like integrating into the drag community as a lesbian drag queen?
First of all, I’m really lucky to be able to do drag in Brooklyn, where anything goes. To be honest, if you show up and say, “I’m doing drag now,” you’re not like everyone else and people are just like, “Oh my gosh.” So my experience wasn’t bad. I know that a lot of people who came before me have gone through a lot to make it easier for me, and I really respect that.
What people often say to me is, “Oh, you’re a drag king.” I have to tell them, “No, I’m a drag queen,” and they ask me how it works. I said, “Well, that’s true.” I think the drag king community is also really supportive. Obviously, this is because many of them have experience with levees or levees. So I’m not doing this completely alone, just one person. But especially when booking these shows, I sometimes say to myself, “Oh yeah, there aren’t that many femme dike performers around.” So, hopefully there will be more and more.
Why is drag important to the lesbian community?
Once upon a time, when a gay bar was attacked, Butch and his drag queen would change their clothes to stay safe. When the AIDS crisis happened and men weren’t allowed to visit other men in the hospital, lesbians would go and sit there all day. They will be the voice of the sick, dying and lonely. So it’s really frustrating sometimes that we’ve lost that connection.
When I invite gay men to dyke drag and they say they don’t want to take over where the dyke should be, I have to say: I’m inviting you because this is my show and I want to share this space with you. Because I think we belong together. ” The dream is to continue to bridge the gap between both worlds in some small way.
What was your first dyke drag like?
I wanted to perform at a lesbian bar. I originally met [my co-producer] Kayla at the drug bar in Rosemont, this is actually where I first did drugs. After the pandemic, she asked me if I wanted to do this show with her, and I said, “Yes, I would love to do it.” We both have Pisces moons, so we needed to dream big.
Then we came to Gingers. We pitched the show and they were like, “Okay, yeah, let’s take a look.” I told myself that if we each took five people, the two of us and the four performers, we might end up with a half-empty room. Then we put out flyers and they sold out within an hour or two. Since then, nearly every show has sold out.
What does it mean to you to perform at Ginger’s, long the only lesbian bar in Brooklyn?
I can’t believe there are more lesbian bars now! I think that’s pretty cool. It’s just proof that queer nightlife, Sapphic nightlife, and levee nightlife are making places for themselves and claiming those spaces.
It’s really special to do it here at Ginger’s. I had never actually been here before visiting Dyke Drag, but it was on my list to visit and now it’s my home. That’s very special to me. It was supposed to be here now. I hope it lasts forever.
What do you think the future holds for dyke drugs?
One important thing is that I would love to take this on tour. We want to bring this to every lesbian bar across the country and hire the dyke talent in those cities to give them a platform and a stage. Today, I have a wild dream of opening lesbian bars across the country. And in those bars, on the second Tuesday of every month, all the bars had shitty dyke drag going on at the same time for years to come.
Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Get the latest features and recipes every week.
Related articles
Other stories you may like
Source link
