The type of drag motherhood showcased internationally by Ru Paul’s Drag Race is the most satisfying of serotonin rushes. What sane queer has not been even briefly moved by gorgeously lit queens weeping tears down precisely Botoxed faces while raising grateful, manicured hands to “mother”?
Given this moment in history, however, it’s critical to clock drag motherhood as both revolutionary and, contrary to what we see on slickly produced TV series, only occasionally glamorous.
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Rooted deeply in mutual aid, drag motherhood is more about marginalized people’s survival than learning to lay lace-front wigs or cattily command audiences.
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Artistry, oppression, and mentorship have always been intertwined, a timeless lattice work produced by necessity. Drag motherhood is merely our most modern and photogenic poster child for what happens when community care and artistry intersect.
The evolution of the artist family
Mentorship is the foundation upon which all good art stands. Experienced practitioners guide the nervous hands of newbies until confidence and technique gel into consistency.
Before our fancy artist schools, conservatories, and for-profit “workshops”, knowledge of arts and legitimate “crafts”—think woodwork, masonry, fabric-making, sewing—were taught in the oral tradition, often passed between blood relatives.
“Guilds” of artisans and craftsmen were commonplace across ancient Greece and Egypt and included multiple generations from the same family. In Japan, the theatrical-dance traditions of Noh and Kabuki were passed through “ryu,” or lineages, with certain clans developing signature, easily recognizable styles. The groups trained, but also broke bread and sometimes even lived together.
Regardless of discipline and landmass, guilds and lineages were characterized by accomplished elders coaching younger, inexperienced apprentices first into competence, then excellence. Global fascination with this master-and-pupil dynamic intensified during the Renaissance, when “celebrity” artists like Michelangelo and Verrocchio trained up the next generation of mononymous superstars, like Raphael and da Vinci.
Unsurprisingly, spending a LOT of time meticulously learning complex, creative things together produces close kinships. Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan trained and legally adopted her protégé, Anna Duncan, who became the keeper of Isadora’s technique after her famous mother’s death. Canadian writer Robbie Ross began as a student (and brief romantic fling) of his famous teacher, Oscar Wilde, cultivating a chosen family relationship which persisted into the afterlife, with the pair being buried in the same French tomb. The alternative “family building” of arts communities mirrored, and often overlapped directly, with the quietly informal adoptive practices of queer folk.
Motherhood is mutal aid
When an art form is illegal, mentorship evolves from foundational to crucial. Censorship in art banishes even the best-rehearsed performances or well-penned poetry to darkened fringes, limiting learning opportunities by design. The drag “motherhood” we know today was born in such shadows around a century ago, as the original Prohibition Era ballroom culture slid on its beaded heels.
Everything about early drag was a crime — drinking and selling alcohol, “cross dressing” cabaret performances, and private homosexual activity of all kinds could land a person in jail, asylums, or worse. Even having “[one’s] face painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or otherwise disguised… [while] in a road or public highway” was an arrestable activity.
Fortunately, civil disobedience is the queer community’s go-to response to legal overreach. As Prohibition comically failed at sobering America, Harlem Renaissance speakeasies and covert variety shows became prime performance venues for queens like Barbette and kings like Gladys Bentley, with stars dazzling multiracial audiences in equal measure. Behind the scenes, mutual aid traditions like rent parties, crowdsourcing for bail money, and bartering systems facilitated by queer folk ensured the show went on regardless of financial limits or police activity.
As laws criminalizing gender expression found their fangs blunted by the late 20th century’s progressive movements, drag began crawling out of basements and warehouses — first into cabarets and nightclubs, and eventually the bright lights of sold-out brunch parties and network TV.
The “vogueing” and pageant-style drag competitions established by Black and Latino gays of mid-20th century NYC are now iconic parts of queer history, cementing the “house” tradition still practiced today. As the famed documentary Paris is Burning poignantly preserved, the 70s and 80s Houses of LaBeija and Xtravaganza strutted so our Davenports and Edwards could run today.
Jim Crow and AIDS epidemic-era drag houses, however, epitomized queer family building as a form of vital resistance.
Yes, mentoring skills like makeup application and seamstressing were indeed part of the drag mother-daughter relationship. But drag families became literal safehouses to queers of all generations rejected by biological family due to bigotry. Providing food, beds, couches to crash on, medical advocacy, safe sex education, transportation assistance, and emotional support to marginalized, frequently dirt poor, youth was and still is standard in drag motherhood.
Younger chosen family members assist with chores, volunteer at shows, help with costumes, and provide caregiving to ailing elders. These mutually beneficial, ever-expanding families provided systems of support capable of stabilizing and ultimately saving vulnerable lives. They also ensure the art of drag perseveres and evolves even during targeted attacks on queer communities, such as the AIDS crisis or, you know, right now.
Circling back to the “oral tradition” of ancient artist guilds, drag motherhood has notably preserved the traditions and history of queer artists compulsively erased from mainstream historical records.
“The importance of drag families, or predominantly queer family, to me is ensuring that you share your knowledge and share the past,” drag queen and mother Mahatma Khandi told Dazed in 2020, “…[you] look out for these kids out there in these streets. You just bring love. Love is the most important thing.”
While there may not (yet) be a Happy Drag Mother’s Day card selection at our local drugstores, we nonetheless salute the stunning matriarchs laboring to protect our queer youth, and all the drag daughters learning to become “mother” themselves.
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