Defending Drag within Drag - You’re not a Drag King.

Defending Drag in Drag

What is a Drag King? I find myself asking this question while defending my Drag… to a Drag King that has been performing as a Drag King for 4 decades…

On Drag Kings, Camp, and Who Gets to Decide What a “Real Man” Is

I was in drag when I told her my pronouns were he/him (she was not in drag).

She told me that would be hard for her, because she still sees me as a girl.

Because I had eyelashes on. Because I wore lipstick. Because I wear platforms. Because my drag didn’t fit her definition of what a drag king is supposed to look like.

She told me I wasn’t a drag king.

She said drag kings do male illusion. That camp is a type of drag queen, not drag king. I explained that my drag is flamboyant, abstract, campy drag, and she said that by calling myself a drag king, I was offending her—and everything she fought so hard for.

And then she said something that stopped me cold.

She told me that drag kings are meant to represent real men.

When I explained that my character, Max E. Pad, represents more of a queer man, she shut that down immediately.

That’s not drag, she said.
It has to be a man-man.
Not a gay man.

Standing there in full drag, I realized something deeply unsettling:

Sometimes the loudest gatekeeping comes from inside the house.

Pronouns Aren’t a Preference

Let’s start with the basics.

I stated my pronouns while in drag. He/him.

That wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t a political statement. It was a request for the same baseline respect that drag artists across all identities have asked for, fought for, and normalized over decades.

In a condescending tone, she said “When I am in face – that’s what we call it when we are in drag – I tell people to call me he/him, but you aren’t male illusion.”

This conversation started when I said the same thing to her that she has told people when she is in drag, and it’s simple – my pronouns in drag are he/him.

Refusing to use someone’s pronouns in drag isn’t about confusion. It’s about control.

It says: I get to decide who you are.
It says: Your performance doesn’t override how I categorize you.
It says: Your expression is conditional on my comfort.

And when that refusal is justified by eyelashes, lipstick, or flamboyance, it reveals something deeper than disagreement—it reveals a hierarchy of gender expression.

“You’re Not a Drag King”

According to her, drag kings must do male illusion.

Let me be clear: male illusion is a valid and powerful form of drag kingship. It has history. It has impact. It has helped carve space where none existed.

But it is not the only way to be a drag king.

My drag is campy. It’s theatrical. It’s exaggerated. It’s abstract. It’s comedic. It plays with masculinity instead of trying to pass as it. When I paint my face, I am painting a canvas and playing with optical illusions and light while keeping it obvious and artsy. It’s common for men in society to be taller than women, so I wear 7 inch platforms and play with the illusion that I am taller – is that not a type of male illusion? I have glued hair on in the past and worn the shadow in the way that a male illusionist would, and it didn’t feel authentic. My authentic drag includes binding and packing, while also adding height with platforms and exaggerating my facial features with color and lashes.

And somehow, that makes it illegitimate?

Camp is not owned by drag queens (though she told me that it is). Camp is a language of queerness. It is satire. It is exaggeration. It is critique. It is joy. It is protest.

Drag queens are allowed to be grotesque, political, hyper-feminine, absurd, messy, and camp.

So why, when it comes to drag kings, is the expectation suddenly restraint?

Why must kings be serious, stoic, and straight-passing to be valid?

Why is masculinity in drag treated as something that must be protected rather than questioned?

In drag, my outward expression matches the energy that I have and the inward belief that men don’t have to be serious, stoic, straight to be masculine… My celebration of masculinity is of the colorful, joyful, eccentric male. I don’t want my drag to be the toxic masculinity, I want to express positivity, understanding, and acceptance, and represent a man that doesn’t feel the need to revert to toxic traits learned from societal expectations.

When Male Illusion Becomes the Only Option

There’s another layer to this conversation that often gets overlooked—and it directly affects how drag kings are perceived by audiences, bookers, and even other drag artists.

If all drag kings are expected to do the same type of male illusion drag—serious, realistic, grounded in traditional masculinity—we inadvertently reinforce one of the most harmful stereotypes about drag kings: that they’re boring.

Not because male illusion is boring.
But because uniformity is.

Drag thrives on contrast, exaggeration, and variety. When kings are boxed into one aesthetic, audiences don’t get to see the full range of what drag kings can do.

They don’t see:

• Camp kings

• Comedy kings

• Character kings

• Political kings

• Avant-garde kings

• Flamboyant kings

• Absurd kings

And when audiences only see one version of drag kingship, they assume that version is all there is.

That’s how the myth gets reinforced.
That’s how bookings get limited.
That’s how kings get sidelined.

Expanding drag kingship doesn’t erase male illusion—it strengthens it by placing it within a richer, more exciting ecosystem of drag.

What Is a “Real Man” in Drag?

This is where the conversation crossed from gatekeeping into something more harmful.

“A drag king represents a real man.”

And when I said my drag persona is representative of a queer man, I was told that didn’t count.

That it had to be a man-man.

Not a gay man.

Let’s sit with that.

Gay men are men.
Flamboyant men are men.
Camp men are men.
Queer masculinity is not a parody of manhood—it is a lived reality.

When drag kings are only allowed to represent straight, rigid masculinity, what we’re doing isn’t subversion. It’s imitation.

That kind of thinking doesn’t challenge patriarchy—it upholds it.

And when queerness is erased from drag kingship in the name of “realness,” we’re not preserving a legacy. We’re policing it.

When Trauma Becomes Gatekeeping

I don’t doubt that she fought hard for drag kings.

Early drag kings faced erasure, ridicule, and invisibility. That fight mattered. It still matters.

But survival does not grant ownership.

Legacy does not grant authority to exclude.

Progress does not mean freezing drag in the image that once made it palatable.

When trauma turns into gatekeeping, the next generation pays the price.

And too often, the artists pushed out are the ones who are already marginalized—camp kings, trans kings, nonbinary kings, queer kings who don’t perform masculinity “correctly.”

We end up recreating the same systems of exclusion we claim to resist.

Why This Matters

This wasn’t just a disagreement between two drag artists.

This was a reminder that respectability politics don’t disappear just because the space is queer.

That conservative ideas about gender can show up wrapped in rainbow language.

That the fight for drag kings isn’t just about visibility—it’s about freedom.

Freedom to be loud.
Freedom to be camp.
Freedom to be queer.
Freedom to be complex.

I Am a Drag King

My drag does not exist to make masculinity comfortable.

It exists to interrogate it.
To exaggerate it.
To laugh at it.
To queer it.

Sometimes that includes eyelashes and lipstick.

That doesn’t make it less king.
It makes it drag.

If your definition of drag king requires erasing queer men, then it isn’t liberation—it’s assimilation.

Drag did not survive by playing it safe.
And drag kings will not survive by shrinking themselves to fit someone else’s idea of legitimacy.

I am a drag king.
And so are the ones who don’t look like me.