DRAG

The journey of self-examination is often a treacherous route. I've been debating how to describe my experiences dressing in drag -- and I'm not sure that I can quite describe the role drag played in my very early gay days, and why I've pretty much given it up now.

To begin with, it was a year or so after coming out at age 18 that I first donned some unique fashions and pranced out into the gay scene.

To be honest, I did do some drag in high school - but it was for a two person show called Greater Tuna, where I played twelve characters, two of them being women. I also dressed up as Tammy Faye Bakker ( during the collapse of the PTL Empire) for a home coming rally - performing a burlesque version of Swing Low Sweet Chariot (Good God!)

But I moved away from my small farm community and went to college, and for about a week or so, I wore Polo Shirts and khakis and tried to blend in to the super WASPy environment here in St. Louis.

Then I went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time...then I came out of the closet..then I got my own apartment... and boom! I was participating in a life so very different from what I'd pictured when I left home for college.

more