I'm a drag queen!

I've been going thoroughly insane the last few days. Well, more insane than usual...

It's exam week for me and I've been taking 400-level literature classes, which require me to read a thousand books per class and create infinity final projects and portfolios, so I stopped existing for a while. But I'm back! You're all terrified, I know.

For one of my classes, we had to do a final presentation. Mine was on Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues and Drag King Dreams. Transgendered characters run rampant throughout these stories. My angle on the two was that the novels, which were published 13 years apart, address a lot of the same issues, such as corrective rape and violence toward the LGBT community.

I decided to give my class a little taste of what it's like being transgendered.

My teacher said we could use visual aids. She did not give limits. Professors really need to learn not to give me this type of leeway.

I think everyone in my class very nearly died of shock when I came sashaying in wearing a short skirt, a tank top, a very visible lacy bra, high heels, and makeup.

I received a lot of comments, not just from classmates but from friends who saw me staggering around campus in those g*ddamn heels. Mostly, "What the f*ck?!" and "What's going on?!" and "Why?!"

I think a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that I had dropped my transition and gone back to being a girl.

I had to stop and explain to everyone.

Shocked Friend: What the hell?! Why are you dressed like that?!

Me: I'm doing a presentation for a class.

Shocked Friend: On what?!

Me: Transgender.

Shocked Friend: So...you decided to dress in girl clothes? Why not wear what you usually wear?

Me: Because everybody in my class knows me as a guy. Seeing me in drag will be a shock. I'm trying to make a point about what society expects as far as compliance with the gender binary. I think this will help get the point across.

Shocked Friend: Whatever floats your boat...

Not a lot of people actually believed that going to class in drag would help get my point across. I think they thought I was just being weird for the hell of it. But seriously, my costume DID help get the point across. In fact, it drove the point home completely.

I got a lot of compliments on my presentation after it was done.

Dressing in girl clothes absolutely did NOT feel natural to me. This wasn't a case of, as a lot of people assumed, me going back to what was natural or normal for a bit.

People, I am a GUY.

I was in f*cking DRAG.

I felt like Angel, from Rent. It was pretty cool because Angel is the most kickass drag queen ever and I got to enjoy feeling totally kickass. Oddly enough, the comparison to Angel made me feel MORE manly because Angel wasn't biologically female, either.

I also got to laugh at all the straight guys who stared at me. Every time they did, I had to turn my head away to hide my smile and resist saying, "Ha! You think I'm a girl, you little queer!"