The crowd whooped and applauded as Britney Houston strutted across the stage of Allen Auditorium, shedding a blazer and white button-down to reveal a spaghetti-strap black dress. Mouthing the words to Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” she proceeded to shimmy on an audience member who had ventured up to the stage to give a dollar bill tip.
Earlier in the day, Britney Houston had been Paul Reeves, coordination communicator elect of the Triangle Coalition, lounging on a couch in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Questioning Resource Center. He transformed into Houston to co-host Friday’s MU Amateur Drag Show, a Pride Month highlight.
The Triangle Coalition is MU’s LGBTQ student social group and organized the fundraiser. The $111 donated the night of the show went to the Center Project, mid-Missouri’s first and only LGBTQ community space.
Lip synching, dancing and cross-dressing characterize the drag kings and queens that take the stage at the Amateur Drag Show every year, but Reeves said the art form was more about gender illusion than cross-dressing.
“A female can be a drag queen, a male can be a drag king,” Reeves said. “It’s not about being a woman but doing the female illusion, about portraying the gender roles and stereotypes and appearances to a level of parody or performance.”
Friday’s seven performers, four kings and three queens, were all dressed as the opposite of their identified genders. Freshman Aaron Mack was Coco Carmella, with a short blonde wig and mock tears.
“You find an alter ego inside yourself,” Mack said. “I’m not just Aaron all the time. I’m Coco.”
Mack said he thought drag was weird growing up but that he now calls it an art form. He has been to more than 10 club shows but had not performed before Friday.
“A lot of people are a little more apprehensive to try it out in a club setting for their first time, because it’s kind of more daunting,” Reeves said. “We’re trying to give people who are interested in performing a chance to try out the art.”
Senior drag performer Morgan Insley has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a degenerative joint disease. She is not certain her doctors would approve it, but she has no intention to stop doing drag.
“Drag is the only time I get to feel free,” Insley said. “I feel free from being disabled…I’ve been in depression for three weeks, and it’s the only time I’ve felt happy.”
The drag show was also the “night of noise” that followed Pride Month’s Day of Silence.
“We’re gonna be loud, we’re gonna be proud, we’re gonna have a big, fantastic show,” Reeves said.
Reeves said that he hoped the event would help those who were scared of either the LGBTQ community overall or simply the drag culture.
“A lot of people are intimated by drag kings and drag queens because of the nature of someone who is subverting gender norms and is dressed up like that,” Reeves said. “But we’re just like any other person, just in really sparkly clothes.”
