Something Lacking at Drag Ball

To the Editor:

This year at Drag Ball, I had an epiphany. I have been going every year, and have had a great time at every Ball, but this time was different. This time I felt a keen sense of lacking.
Oh, I was able to do all of the things that I usually do –– I saw an incredible variety of costumes, some of them very creative; I got accolades of praise for my own (“Cruella DeVille”) and even stumped my best friend as to who was behind the makeup; I experienced intense titillation upon viewing every tenth or so person there. What was absent was the politics.
Drag Ball has a very specific purpose. It is a night designed to liberate transgendered people from the everyday constraints of the traditional gender binary. Straight, or gendered, or otherwise “normal” people should not be deciding the agenda. When different people get different things out of the event, their potential levity and frivolity make a mockery of the struggles of women, transgenders and indeed all oppressed people.
I felt like an intruder, almost, as I donned women’s clothes and endured the extreme discomfort of simply walking around in the pinching shoes and the sweltering layers of the ensemble. It seemed almost presumptuous of me to get a revealing look, just for one night, into the useless pains that so many women experience every day. How dare I try to learn about women? How dare any man? 
I was able to salve my guilt a little bit in the knowledge of my moral superiority to those who didn’t even bother to come in drag. One student was quoted in last week’s Review as saying that, “there’re a lot of people who come to Drag Ball who are not in drag and I think that’s disrespectful.” I definitely applaud her boldness in defining what constitutes “drag” at an event specifically intended to question what defines gender. It’s pretty easy to draw the line, too. Obviously, no one should come in a gorilla suit. Yet, even if a straight male shows up in a pink tank top with a little extra jewelry because he claims it makes him more “comfortable,” isn’t he really just being as disrespectful as the gorilla suiter by perpetuating the white liberal attitude that he can take a little “tour” of Transland for one night? The issue is, actually, a bit problematic, since it might be classist to discriminate against someone who can’t afford the often ludicrous expenses one often needs to look truly feminine and glamorous. But everyone’s rich at Oberlin, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.
All the same, I remain troubled. The last straw for me in this story was when a straight female friend of mine told me the following day that, “You can see a hot guy and say, ‘Wait! That’s a girl! Hmm…’” I think, in a way, that all straight people are guilty of indulging in this kind of cultural appropriation to serve our own selfish sense of amusement. I would never have the audacity to associate with queer or transgendered people; it’s not my right. Once I make the claim that I’m “understanding” them, am I not actually forcing them into assimilation? It’s a very slippery slope. Drag Ball has turned out to be so fun and so educational that I really don’t think I should attend next year.

–David Meadow
College junior