*It is important to note that while researching powerful LGBT+ people from the past, it can be complicated to label their identities with words we currently understand while respecting who they were in their own time. While Storme may have used different identifying terms now, I am respecting her own choice of identity - a lesbian, woman, drag king.*
Storme DeLaverie was the fierce biracial, butch lesbian who threw the first punch at Stonewall, igniting years of passionate LGBT+ activism. From being one of the first “male impersonators”, to patrolling the streets of New York City until she was 85 to protect young LGBT+ people, Storme’s legacy of badassery lives on in modern LGBT+ activism. Read more about her here:
anyways. drag kings have been around for decades & are equally as important as drag queens. drag masculinity faces serious erasure & that’s a problem. support your local drag kings
whenever I see people reblog this or my other post about this with some variation of “oh i didn’t even know drag kings existed!!” it makes me so sad. I’m glad u know it now but like, the fact that people don’t even know drag kings exist? how many people do you thing would get into drag if they knew drag kings and drag masculinity was a Thing? how many more people would get to explore their masculinity via drag?
Some kings to get you going.
Landon Cider, Buck Wylde, Miles Long, Koco Caine, Murray Hill, and Spikey Van Dykey.
I should also recommend Beau Jangles and Mudd the Two Spirit, my two personal favorite kings!
Beau is very much inspired by Cab Calloway, so you know. I, Heidi Ho myself, just have to be obsessed.
Mudd is an indigenous king and honestly? His looks are FUCKING INSANE I love him.
Drag kings haven’t just been around for decades, they’ve been around for over a hundred years.
As an aspiring professional queen myself, the erasure of drag masculinity is quite literally offensive to the artform as a whole. Kings have contributed so much and they deserve better.
They have been around for over a hundred years!
In the 1800s, drag kings were called “male impersonators” (and likewise, drag queens called “female impersonators”), and they would work the music halls (like, variety acts, comedy and theatre) - mostly singing silly or risqué songs like “Burlington Bertie from Bow”, “Following in Father’s Footsteps” or “Jolly Good Luck to the Girl that Loves a Soldier” - and many of them also did panto, acting as the Prince Charming, or Peter Pan (as is traditional), things like that
One of the early ones was Bessie Bonehill in the 1890s
Here she is, from an image search -
Later on, there was Ella Shields
And Hetty King, who worked until the 1930s, 30 years on the halls
