This was updated & revised March 4, 2025
I found this childhood photo of me while going through family albums at my mother’s house a few years ago. I’m around eight years old and dressed up like a girl. This wasn’t just playing “dress-up” as we used to call it in 1958. This was what we would view now as “drag” with lipstick, pearls and a ponytail made out of lock of hair my mother had saved (more on that later). My mother had dressed me for the entertainment at the monthly meeting for the cub scout troop to which I belonged. I wish I could tell you that I lip-synched to Patti Page’s big hit that year “How Much is That Doggy in the Window?” and brought the house down, but alas no. Apparently the Boy Scouts of America in 1958 in their publication sent to leaders outlining possible programs for troop meetings, suggested that it would be hilarious for all the den mothers to dress their sons as girls and have a “Funny Fashion Show.” That’s the reason that the “dress” I’m wearing in the photo is actually a burlap feed sack. “Sack” dresses were a fashion statement in 1958. I don’t remember what the other boys/girls were wearing except for the one member of my den who refused to where a dress. They put him in capri pants.
Seeing this photo made made me laugh and brought back a lot of distant memories. I was also very surprised to find this photo because I thought that I had destroyed them all when I was old enough to be embarrassed by them at 13 or 14. I remember being quite determined to get rid of all the photos from that day ripping them up and throwing them in the trash. Now I’m glad I missed one and that I can share it with friends and fans who know that playing “dress-up” is something I came back to have some fun with much later in life. In the photo it looks like I was having fun back then as well. Also in the photo is my little brother who clearly found it quite hilarious.
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Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah · Saturday, March 16, 1957 |
Seeing this photo also made me think about all the issues surrounding gender identity and children which is perplexing many parents these days in ways that would have been unthinkable in 1958. It’s hard to imagine that the Boys Scouts of America we know today suggesting to den mothers all over the country that it would fun to dress their young sons up as girls and parade them around in public for everyones amusement without a second thought about what kind of irreparable damage it my do to their fragile prepubescent minds. Yet that is what they did. I was curious to verify that this wasn’t just some outlier den mother in Michigan that came up this idea, but that it was actually something that came from the BSA headquarters. Thanks to the miracle of the internet I found a newspaper article from around that time with pictures–from Salt Lake City Utah no less. I can only presume that many of the “girls” in the picture are just a decade away from being called by the LDS to do their missionary work in crisp white shirts and ties.
Certainly the 50’s were a more innocent time and I’m sure that there were many parents, particularly fathers, who wouldn’t let their young sons participate in such an emasculating thing. However it did happen and cub scouts all over the country were cross-dressers for a day just for fun without any judgement or concerns from adults. In my troop there didn’t seem to be much concern that this experience might have a detrimental effect on the boys development into normal masculine young men. Perhaps there were some who were psychologically damaged by it and grew up to be wife-beaters or bullies to compensate for the for the shame of knowing they once were forced to wear gender inappropriate attire. Perhaps some of those boys even grew up to be secret cross-dressers living double lives remembering when it all started in the cub scouts – the day they discovered the feel of silk and satin against their skin made them happy. Certainly some grew up to be homosexuals. I know of at least one who did. However I can also say with certainty that the fact that I had some fun in a dress at the age of eight didn’t make me gay. I played dress-up a lot when I was a kid. In my closet there was a box of old clothes that was there for us to play with and we did. We put on old hats, shoes, ties and yes dresses and pretended to be people we were not. It’s what kids did and I presume still do when they play. Then you get older and you put little kid things aside to please your parents and fit in with your peers. Certainly back then any boy beyond a certain age who continued to choose girlie things to play with over boy things was going to have problems in most families.
Certainly if I had continued putting on dresses and lipstick after the age of nine or ten there would have been concern from my parents, but by puberty I was “normal” enough to be embarrassed by reminders of my childish behavior as a little kid, especially the pictures of me dressed like a girl. However, in retrospect I think my parents didn’t pressure me too much to conform to hardline gender specific behaviors and interests. In my family, as the middle child who was considered the more “creative” of my siblings, I was allowed to stray a bit outside the boundaries of normal gender specific interests. I played with cars, trucks and toy guns but I also had a puppet theater. I liked music and performing and both my parents encouraged me. I learned how to use tools from my dad and my mom taught me how to use a sewing machine. Dad would take my brothers and me to the movies to see many of the action-adventure movies of the 50’s and 60’s like “Ben-Hur” and “The Buccaneer.” Very much “guy” movies, but he also bought sheet music of songs he liked for me to learn how to play on the piano. Mom took me to see shows and concerts. I learned many skills from both my parents that have served me well in life for which I will always be grateful.
I can only imagine what new challenges are brought to the parenting game today with all the gender and sexual identity issues being being more openly discussed and dealt with publicly by young people, adults and children. However while I look at all the old photos of me and my brothers and cousins as kids, I think that maybe back then in more innocent times, there were fewer things for parents to worry about. I wouldn’t suggest that things were better when I was growing up. However, I think one lesson that 21st century parents might take from their mid-20th century predecessors is to relax a bit and try not to obsess too much over the consequences on their kids for everything they do as parents. Parents today would probably cringe at much of what their grandparents did as parents, but a substantial number us survived without too much permanent damage. Children are pretty resilient and will probably deal with a whole bunch of really crazy stuff that we haven’t even thought off yet. So if your eight-year-old son wants to put on a dress and lip-synch to Lady Gaga don’t discourage him (unless of course he’s got no talent). He will move on to other things tomorrow or maybe he won’t, but either way, he’ll probably survive just as most of those little boys that the BSA encouraged to dress like girls in 1958 did. I’m pretty certain that most of them grew up to be respectable adults Sure one or two of them may have grown up to be drag queens, but so what? Today it’s a viable career choice.
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The author’s grandmother, Edith
Lawrence, born in 1888. |
About the ponytail I was wearing in the photo: It was a lock of hair that my mother had saved from when her mother cut her hair. It was a long substantial amount of hair and I assume that my grandmother saved when she gave up the Gibson Girl look of her youth. It matched my hair color perfectly and I used again ten years later for a part I had in a play my senior year of high school. It was an 18th century period play where the men wore waistcoats and ponytails. It was 1967 and while fellow cast members and I were wandering the hallways in costume to promote the play, a girl told me I looked like member of the garage-rock band Paul Revere and The Raiders. This was high praise for the nerdy theater geek I was in high school.I don’t know what happened to that lock of hair later on. I presume my mother threw it away at some point. I wish I still had it many years later when I as a middle-aged queer man I having some fun playing dress-up.
After the Cub Scouts my next experience with “drag” didn’t occur until I was in college in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was a theater major at Butler University. At age 18 in 1968 as a college freshman, I began to explore the possibilities open to a young gay man discovering the underground gay culture. I had an excellent guide into this world in an older classmate who remained a good friend for many years after college. Pre- Stonewall Indianapolis had a surprising vibrant gay scene in the 60s with many clubs and bars. Armed with a fake ID my new gay mentor took me to most of them. The place that stands out the most in my memories of that year is the Club Betty K because it had a drag show. I don’t remember their names but the performers fascinated me. They all had fabulous glittery costumes and lip-synced with great skill. They would get the biggest reaction from the audience with popular torch songs that would build to dramatic crescendos and broad campy theatrical gesticulations. The audience of gay men and very “butch” women would line up at the foot of the stage to hand the performer dollar bills. I remember thinking how strange and wonderful it was to watch a woman who looked like a man appreciatively handing tips to a man dressed like a woman while lip-syncing about losing a man.
One very rubenesque queen performed a suggestively camp version of the song Blow Gabriel Blow (lip-syncing to Ethel Merman), then for the finale she would drop her feathered coat to reveal a full-length gown covered in mirrors as she segued into Kate Smith’s God Bless America while red, white, and blue beams of light reflected off her gown all over the room. The audience would jump to their feet. Gay bars were were still subject to police raids and in this place after every thing we had just watched, a standing ovation for a drag queen singing a patriotic song felt like and act of defiance.
Inspired by the drag shows I’d seen during my early college years I developed some pretty good lip-syncing skills that I sometimes entertained friends with at parties, but there were no wigs and dresses involved. It wasn’t until on Halloween my third year a college that I next put on a dress. It was just a quick whim Halloween costume for a campus party. I didn’t put much effort into it borrowing a dress, makeup, and some jewelry from a classmate. I didn’t need a wig as I had very long hair at the time. I was surprised at how convincing I looked and the excited reaction of some of my straight classmates. One of them tried to play a joke on one of our teachers by introducing me as his cousin visiting from out of town hoping he would try to hit on me. My boyfriend at the time was not amused and even a little jealous at the attention I was getting. I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I did enjoy pretending to be something other than myself and the freedom it gave me to say and do things I wouldn’t normally do. I suppose one could say I enjoyed expressing my “feminine side” but I feel it was mostly just the child-like fun of pretending to be someone else.
Another Halloween many years later after college around my third year living in New York City, my friend from college who had taken me to my first drag show was giving a big Halloween party and I thought he would get a kick out of seeing me in drag. Once again I borrowed a dress from the only woman who was part of my close circle of mostly gay men at the time. Many of them gathered at my apartment and it became a team effort to transform me into their vision of glamorous faux femininity. I had intended to leave for the party in my regular clothes with sunglasses hiding the makeup and change at the party because I didn’t want my neighbors or the building staff to see me in drag as I left my building. My friends however convinced me that I looked really good and no one would recognize me. With misgivings I agreed, hoping the elevator would be empty when it arrived to take us down to the lobby. It was not. My entourage and I had to squeeze on with some startled neighbors. My friends tried without success to suppress their giggles at my embarrassment on the way down. When we reached the lobby I angrily burst from the elevator and sashayed out of my building with fierce runway model attitude that stunned everyone. I don’t remember if I had fun at the party, but I do recall vividly how the “drag” allowed me in that moment to become fearless and totally unconcerned with anyone else’s approval.
Another fourteen years would go by before the drag bug would bite me again. The 1980s was decade of losses and disappointments for me both personally and professionally. My career as a scenic designer had peeked and waned and I was struggling to find a new career path. My partner left me for another man. Many of the circle of friends I acquired in the previous decade either moved away or died of AIDS. Then the spring of 1989 I went to an open-house at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center where there was a presentation about volunteering there. Charles Ching was co-chair of the Center Dance Committee and I was most impressed by his presentation. This volunteer group had been putting on twice monthly dances at the Center since 1984. The dances were on hiatus for the summer but they were about to start building a float for the Gay Pride parade in a few days and I agreed to help. This began my long association with the Center and the Dance Committee as a volunteer.
It was my joining the Center Dance Committee that started my brief eight years as a part-time non professional drag queen. It’s members had become friends and a major part of my social life. Many of them, Charles Ching (aka Coco LaChine) especially, were very much into doing drag, and not just for Halloween. Charles had become a good friend and I would often walk with him home after the weekly Dance Committee meetings and the dances since we lived in the same neighborhood. He was also a member of the Imperial Court of New York (ICNY) which put on a lavish charity drag ball every year, Night of a Thousand Gowns. In March of 1991 he asked me to volunteer at the ball and I was introduced to this strange world of faux royalty where empresses and emperors were crowned and titles were bestowed with tongue-in-cheek pomp and circumstance. I was impressed by theatrical silliness of it and the many creative people that seemed to be having so much fun playing adult dress-up. It is a drag queen version of cos-play not unlike ComicCon and SciFi conventions. I wasn’t in drag that first ball I attended, but it inspired me to try out full-on drag at the next Center Prom Nite dance later that month.
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Kay Lua (aka Jerry Pannozzo), Coco and Deanna Jean
at Prom, 1991 |
I had some sewing skills from my time in college costume shops and with little help from a more experienced friend I bought some cheep shiny fabric and made a gown to wear to the prom. We had had some fun putting on some makeup and wigs to have headshots made that we put in The Centers lobby bulletin board to promote the dance. We chose drag names to put with the photos and I chose to use my five-year-old niece’s name. When my niece, Deanna Jean Monroe was born I commented to my brother that it would look good on a marquee. She was also the first granddaughter for my mother who had no daughters. My mother once told me that while pregnant with me, her second of three sons, she had decided on Betty for a name if I had been a girl. I wish now I had used that name for my drag persona. At the time I didn’t think that I would be using a drag name beyond this one event, but it ended up sticking with me for six years and even got published in two drag queen photography books.
Later that year five days before Halloween, the Center Dance had a “Leather and Lace” theme and co-sponsored with the Gay Male S&M Activists group. I came up with a somewhat androgynous faux-leather dominatrix outfit. I was quite bald but still wearing my hair very long in a braid. The studded head covering allowed me to cover the bald parts and let the hair I had left hang free. It wasn’t too long after this that I gave up on the pigtail and started wearing my hair very short.
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The author (right) with Charles Ching aka Coco (center)
at the Leather & Lace Dance in 1991. |
Sometime in 1991 Charles, who by now was known mostly by his Imperial Court name, Coco invited me to join the ICNY. Drag was not a requirement for membership, and I wasn’t sure at first that I wanted to join as a “lady,” but it was apparent that the ladies were having the most fun. I had to make a decision before the group photo of the ICNY membership for next year’s ball was scheduled. With encouragement from Coco I put on the dress I had made for the Center Prom and joined the Court as a lady committed to wearing a gown to next year’s ball. Coco became my guide and mentor. He took me shopping for a new ball gown in all the many discount shops in the garment district where it wasn’t unusual for two middle-aged men to be seen browsing through the plus-size racks of beaded gowns with a measuring tape.
Also around this time I was introduced to Fire Island when Coco invited me and some other Center Dance Committee friends to accompany him Fire Island where he was competing for the first time in the Miss Fire Island Pageant in Cherry Grove. The Grove has a prominent place in the history of drag culture that goes back to the 1920s and many members of the Imperial Court were also part of that scene. This was the first time Coco had done a pageant like this and we were his support group. He had borrowed the use of a one bedroom beach condo in the Pines from a friend where about six of us sleeping mostly on the living room floor. It was my first experience of Fire Island. Saturday night we had dinner at another Dance Committee member’s house, in the Pines, Tom Verley’s, and had lovely silly evening putting on wigs and gowns while we watched the Miss America Pageant on TV. I was entranced by this fabled gay mecca that I had read so much about. It was exciting to be in such totally gay place that was so removed from the real world. The Miss Fire Island Pageant, however was disappointing. We didn’t realize that after many years this pageant had become a cash cow of the owners of the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove where the event took place. It attracted a large audience of straight people from Long Island and other beach towns on Fire Island who drank a lot and seemed to be there to see a freak show. The influx of straight people really changed the atmosphere in Cherry Grove so much that many of the Groves’s regular summer residents would avoid being near town during this event. There were still many locals and Imperial Court members who took part in the pageant because of it’s long history, but for many its recent popularity with a straight audience had ruined it for many locals. Even though this was my first visit to Fire Island, I noticed the change in the atmosphere when the arrival of all of those straight people seemed like an invasion of our space. I returned for some other Imperial Court events the next summer, but I never attended another Miss Fire Island Pageant again, even though I would spend a lot more time on Fire Island in the coming years.
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Deanna Jean’s first Night of A Thousand Gowns in 1992
(the blond second from right) |
1992, with my first Night of a Thousand Gowns in in a dress, marked the beginning of my peak drag years. I didn’t stand out at the ball in my discount beaded gown and cheap wig, but I wasn’t an embarrassment. I had fun with it, but I was learning that there were levels of involvement with this culture that could really take over your life. I was enjoying the new found pleasure of playing at adult dress-up, but many other Imperial Court members seemed to take it all very seriously and invested a lot of time and money. It was an intense competition for many to be the most noticed, photographed, and talked about queen in the room. I wasn’t taking it too seriously, but I did start expanding my drag wardrobe a bit.
The summer of 1992 along with Coco I was a guest in Cherry Grove at the home of Bill LaMonica a.k.a. Billy Ann Miller for a couple of ICNY events. These were memorable weekends that gave me first-hand experiences of the drag culture of Cherry Grove. It was such a privilege to be introduced to this world by Billy. He was such a sweet man and had a long history in the Grove dating back to the 1950s. He would become ICNY Empress in 1994. One of the events I helped with that summer was the Court’s Drag Tag Sale, from which I purchased several items expanding my drag wardrobe. Another weekend was my first experience on Fire Island in drag as an ICNY member. I borrowed a short white dress from a fellow Dance Committee member and ICNY member Ben Sander, aka Vivica Fairfax, aka Brini Maxwell, and a wig from Coco to attend the White Party. This event involved a ferry ride from The Pines to The Grove so I wore a long flowing scarf because I had a vision of it elegantly catching the breeze on the moonlit boat ride. I wish I had a photo.
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| Halloween with Coco, Deanna and Shonda Lear |
Coco introduced me to another aspect of drag culture on Halloween in 1992. The Center Dance Committee partnered with the ICNY for a Halloween Center dance which fell on a Saturday night that year. I was dressed in what I considered a very scary Halloween appropriate kind of drag. I wasn’t in a dress, but a black pants and blouse outfit that was definitely feminine with a well-padded bra. The makeup was very Adams family with a chalk white base and a short black wig. After the dance closed down at 1 a.m., Coco convinced me to accompany him to a Times Square bar called Sally’s Hideaway. Sally’s was a tranny bar – tranny is inappropriate terminology now, but that’s the word we used back then. It was a gay club where cross-dressers, transvestites, and their admirers gathered. It was on 43rd street in the run-down Carter Hotel’s former restaurant. There were drag shows and go-go boys. Some of the drag performers were featured in the documentary film Paris is Burning. Many of the “girls” in the bar were “working girls.” My recollection of this night is vivid as I recall feeling very out of place and uncomfortable, but also fascinated by my surroundings. I had never been in such a public place in drag before. My drag was very unglamorous so I didn’t think I would be mistaken for one of the regulars or working girls. By 2 or 3 a.m. Coco had disappeared and I found myself alone at the bar wondering how I would get home, when a well dressed man started chatting with me. He started the conversation by asking me if my tits were real. I assured him that they were not with a dismissive tone that I hoped would make it clear I was not one of the queens looking looking for tricks. Attracting the amorous attentions of a man while I was in drag was something I had no experience with and I didn’t know how to react. I was certainly a bit inebriated and I don’t recall the details of my conversation with this man, but in spite of my confusion, he offered to drive me home and I was glad to accept even though I wasn’t really attracted to him I invited him to come inside with me out of some booze induced sense of obligation. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this stranger after what had been a very surreal evening. I was not inexperienced in bringing home men who I had just met in a bar, but being picked up in a tranny bar while in drag was a new experience for me. It turned out that the nice gentleman who brought me home was expecting something of me that I could not do. Whatever fantasy my Halloween drag had conjured up for him ended when I took off the makeup and wig, after which he politely said goodbye and left. I was relieved.My experiences with drag were fun playful excursions taking on an alternate persona which sometimes allowed me to flirt with men in a way I would never do while dressed normally. I never took any of those flirtations seriously or engaged in any sex play of any kind while in drag. It was never something I was comfortable pursuing. This was not the case with Coco. I asked him once how much of the illusion he maintained in his intimate encounters with men while in drag. His answer was “It depends, sometimes all you have to keep on is the shoes.”
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Deanna Jean at the Night of a Thousand Gowns
ball in 1993 with Azure |
In March of 1993 Coco was to be crowned the next Empress. We became closer as I provided both moral and physical support with preparations for the coronation. I was Coco’s escort to many events where he was performing or making a “royal” appearance representing ICNY. Over time the more I got to know Coco, it became clear that his drag persona was more than just a fun thing to play at from time to time. When “dressed” as he would call it when he was in drag, was when he felt most confident and attractive. In drag he could attract the amorous attention of very “straight” masculine men that would not notice him out of drag. When I first met him Coco was in a long-term relationship with a much older man that started before he became serious about drag and discovered his ability to attract younger masculine men. This was the cause of some strain in his relationship but they remained together until his partner’s passing. I think if Coco was a young man now starting to do drag in the current culture of gender fluidity and identity possibilities, he may have chosen to transition and live full-time as female.I had a good time hanging out with Coco and the more serious queens I met through the ICNY. I went to the Night of a Thousand Gowns coronation balls New York and some out-of-town balls in Toronto, Buffalo, Providence, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. I became more comfortable being in drag in public after awhile. In the end however, I didn’t enjoy it enough to commit fully to it. Also there were a few awkward situations when I found myself being hit on by men while I was in drag. I had no interest in exploring those possibilities.
As Empress Coco showed his gratitude for my help with his coronation preparations by bestowing on me the high title of Princess. In the Imperial Court system bestowing titles was the Empress’ prerogative and usually bestowed in incremental titles from Lady to Princess based on merit for your participation. Sometimes their was contentiousness over these titles when they seemed to be given out on the basis of the member’s close friendship with the current Empress. I was close friend to Empress Coco, and I also did help him out a lot, but never the less I was surprised by the sudden high title. There may have some resentment from some ICNY members at the time, but I never fully engaged in the faux royalty game.
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Deanna Jean and Shonda Lear at the Toga Party, Belvedere Hotel, Cherry Grove, Fire Island. |
My niece whose name I borrowed now has a 5 year old daughter who likes to dress up as a Disney princess. I wonder if there will ever come a time when I can tell them about the time when their queer old uncle was a princess and show them the photos.In the summer of 1993 for the first time I decided to look for a summer share in Fire Island. Michael Robert, a fellow member of The Center Dance Committee was also interested and a group formed to look for a place. The group expanded from a friend of Michael’s to friends and acquaintances and friends of friends. I had originally suggested Cherry Grove to the group since most of my experience of Fire Island was visiting with friends I had on the Imperial Court who had summer places there. However others in the group took the lead in looking at houses and we ended up taking a house in Fire Island Pines on Shell Walk. I was happy to accept the group’s decision as putting together a group of gay men to share a summer house on Fire Island can be a complicated process – a process which I would become very familiar with in subsequent summers when I took the lead in organizing a house.
I took a full share in the house which meant I was there every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day as well as weekday vacation days. Others were there only on alternate weekends. I can’t remember all the names my housemates from that summer, but for the most part I recall having a good time that summer. I looked forward to the congenial company and camaraderie that occurred easily among my housemates, but I didn’t form lasting friendships with many of them.
There were several “dress-up” Imperial Court events in Cherry Grove that summer in which I took part. There was a toga party at The Belvedere Hotel in The Grove one weekend that was a benefit for something and ICNY members were invited as long as they were properly dressed. I used fabric I had bought to make a gown for next year’s ICNY ball for the toga party gown. It was hastily draped and held together with safety pins but survived the party and a breezy moonlit walk home along the beach at 2AM.
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The Imperial Court beach volleyball team: Deanna Jean, Viveca, Ruda, Terry, and Azure |
One very exhausting weekend I played volleyball in drag on the beach in the afternoon and that evening dressed again for late night event. The volleyball was at the request of the Gotham Volleyball League which holds a tournament every summer on Fire Island. This is a gay league for serious players, but I think just for the entertainment value one team wanted to play in drag and challenged the ICNY to put a team together. I’m fuzzy on the details of this challenge or why any of us decided to do it. I and my fellow ICNY members had no experience or abilities with beach volleyball. It was a very silly and somewhat surreal afternoon. We were terrible players and I don’t recall anyone on my team scoring any points. Robin Byrd, the public access TV porn queen was there to judge our outfits and there was a raucous pool party afterward where a David Dinkins, who was running for his second term as NYC mayor made an appearance. I’m not sure what his staff was expecting from this, but but Mr. Dinkins looked a bit startled when several soggy men in women’s bathing suits and wigs climbed out of the pool to have their picture taken with him. It had the potential to be a viral instagram moment if instagram existed in 1993.
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Deanna on the way to the White
Party benefit for the Empire State
Pride Agenda, summer 1993
wearing flats which were so much
more practical on the boardwalks
of Fire Island. |
After a brief nap and dinner that same evening I put made myself up again and donned a an all white sailor outfit that made me look like a chorus girl from a summer stock production of Anything Goes. The ICNY had been invited to a pre-party before the White Party. The White Party was a major annual benefit for the Empire State Pride, a gay advocacy non-profit that disbanded in 2015. It was a much anticipated party with the main event held at the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove. A VIP ticket involved a property at a big Pines house with lots of A-Gays in attendance and a tiki-torch lit procession to a special ferry to the Grove. The ICNY queens were there to provide some extra gay sparkle and glamour to the proceedings which we delivered with enthusiasm. This night was a prime example to the joy to be had for middle-aged gay men in playing “dress-up.” My costume, on this balmy summer night on a barrier island beach town with fit scantily clad young men bouncing and swirling all around to the deafening throb of disco music, allowed me to completely remove myself from reality. I could subsume the real me into a make believe person with few inhibitions. I could sashay about and flirtatiously rake my painted nails across across the muscular chests of strangers without fear or unintended consequences. Everyone was there to happily play a role in this fantasy world whatever that turned out to be. It’s very liberating to pretend to be something so completely outside yourself in the midst of hundreds of strangers happily cooperating with your pretensions as you reinforce theirs. One of my more surreal memories from that night occurred in the mens room when I was in front of the urinal struggling with my pantyhose so I could pee. A man at the next stall looked over at me and told me I reminded him of the movie star from long ago, Eve Arden. I took it as a compliment.
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Performing on stage with ICNY members in Toronto’s Coronation Ball |
My time in dresses grew after that Fire Island summer in 1993. I even started to do some performing for some of the ICNY’s benefit shows and for some of the Center Dances. In my first years of college I majored in theater and wanted to be an actor. I drifted away from that aspiration and went into design, but that urge to be in the spotlight was always somewhere in the background. Lip-syncing dramatically to the recordings of gay icons, divas, and pop stars reignited those old passions. Also I thought it was something I could do pretty well and after watching a lot of really mediocre drag performers at ICNY events I wanted prove that to myself. The first ICNY event that I surprised my colleagues and Coco with my stage presence skills was during an out of town Imperial Court coronation in Toronto. It was typical for visiting sister Court members to participate as a group or as individuals in the host Court’s program, usually with some kind performance. The NY Court decided to stage the Beautiful Girls number from the broadway show Follies. It was basically a chorus number that would allow everyone in our very large contingent to parade around the stage in their finery. At first they were just going to have the singing tenor MC in the number be a voice off stage. I however, convinced them to let me take on the role. I would bring a tux and change out of my ball gown for the show. It worked out well and I got some attention and upstaged the “girls” a bit with my lip-syncing skills portraying the MC’s high tenor voice with flair. |
Deanna Jean performing in a ICNY benefit show at The Center |
While I enjoyed the performing and the cos-play aspects of drag, I never fully committed to it as much as my friend Coco. It was fun on most occasions, and no one expected perfection. All the pressure to do well came from me and I would spend way to much time preparing for these performances. Over time I would become much more selective about how much time and money I would spend. The Imperial Court had a competitive aspect to it that could be quite costly. Some members spent thousands of dollars for custom gowns, wigs, and jewelry. Indeed some of the members made their living making those custom gowns and jewelry. Also if one achieved high titles like Empress one was expected to travel to a lot coronation balls in other cities which could get expensive. Many Imperial Court members took it all much too seriously and seemed to have no social life or close friends outside of the Court. As I got further into it myself I could see how it could take over your life and I was determined that I would quit before that happened to me. One of the best things about my brief life as a drag queen was that it offered me the opportunity to get to know José Sarria, the founder of The Imperial Court. My friendship with Coco allowed me to spend some time with José. Coco would host José when he was in town for coronation week and I would often be called on to help out entertaining him while he was in town. There several occasions when I would take him out for a meal or to see a show when Coco wasn’t available. José even stayed in my apartment once for a couple of nights when he was in town. If I hadn’t decided to join the ICNY, I wouldn’t have had the unique pleasure of hearing first-hand many stories from his fabulous life. When José died in 2013, I was no longer an ICNY member and Coco lived in Los Angeles. I very much regret that I didn’t hear of José’s passing until it was too late for me to travel to San Francisco for his memorial.
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Deanna Jean and Shonda Lear at the 1994 Night of a Thousand Gowns |
José was a legendary figure in San Francisco gay community. As a pre-Stonewall activist he was instrumental in making gay men and lesbians there into a powerful political force. He was the first openly gay man to run for public office in the U.S. when in 1961 he ran for a city board of supervisors position. He didn’t win, but got a lot of attention because of the large number of votes he did get. The Imperial Court System evolved from José’s activism, and his notoriety as a drag performer who was crowned Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball by the San Francisco Tavern Guild in 1964. Taking inspiration from a historic figure from 19th century San Francisco folklore, Joshua Norton, declared himself the Widow Norton Empress of the U.S. and all its territories. Norton was mentally unstable, but harmless man who dressed in an old military uniforms and marched around the docks declaring himself Emperor of the U.S. in 1859. The newspapers published his proclamations which the public found amusing – so much so that people started to treat him with deference and played along with his delusions. Norton became beloved local character and was honored by the city with a pretty impressive memorial where he is currently buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the town of Colma outside of San Francisco. The San Francisco Court made an annual pilgrimage to Norton’s grave on the day after the coronation ball. It was a surreal spectacle that I was privileged in 1995 to take part in. That year The Court was dedicating the gravesite near Joshua Norton’s that they had acquired to be José’s final resting place. The procession of hundreds lead by the veiled Widow Norton in her black mourning dress consisted of visiting “royalty” from out-of-town Courts along with their retinue, a marching band, and many prominent citizens from the Bay Area’s gay community. Winding through the gravestones with the band playing very lively non-funereal tunes the procession something from a Fellini movie. There were a few wearing somber cemetery appropriate drag or veils. The New York Court all wore matching hats decorated with sequins and foam rubber Statue of Liberty crowns. At the gravesite after many speeches and proclamations José was lifted up and laid on the grave so as to be sure he would fit. That day is one my fondest memories of my drag queen life. The faux serious foolishness of it was exemplary of José’s vision for the Imperial Court System and his spirit. He founded an international charitable organization that raises serious money for serious causes supported by grown men who like to dress up like women and bestow fake royal titles on themselves. The Imperial Court System is not unlike more conventional fraternal organizations like the Masons, Elks, or Shriners which also involved weird costumes, strange ceremonies, and pretentious titles.
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With frequent “sister in drag” Jerry, aka
Kay Lua at Night of a Thousand Gowns
in 1995. |
The New York Court of the Imperial Court system was formed in 1986 when the first Night of a Thousand Gowns coronation ball benefitting AIDS organizations was held. I don’t know who the original organizers were then. Coco had attended some of the early balls and joined the ICNY sometime in 1990. He became a board member in 1991, the year I was first invited to an ICNY meeting in his apartment. At that time there were about sixteen active members who could easily fit in Coco’s living room. By 1997 there were 117 members listed in the ball program.In addition to the things I mentioned some already there were many other memorable events and crazy fun things that happened to me during my short career as part-time drag queen. Such as the night I was on a school bus full of drag queens for a “bar crawl” of every gay bar in Toronto. Then there was the night a group of us from the ICNY performed in a gay bar in the Bronx to an audience of about twenty. One afternoon I made an excuse to leave work early so I could get dressed and made up in order to go to the premiere of the film, To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar where I passed out programs to the audience as they arrived and hung out with the many celebrities attending the party after. There was night in Providence Rhode Island when I was in a group of queens wandering the streets late at night looking for a male stripper bar which we found and I remember feeling weirdly uninhibited in the stripper bar while in drag.
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One of the images from the contact print page of Panya Jürgens art photography book. |
One of the most unusual things I did in drag by far however, was being photographed for an art photography book. The photographer was a Swiss woman, Panja Jürgens. I had met her through my friend and frequent companion in drag, David Mandel, aka Shonda Lear. Panja was fascinated by drag queens and and had a very specific requirements for her book project. She wanted to photograph each subject while they were getting dressed. She wanted to artistically document the transformation. She was using black and white film and limited her sessions to 36 carefully staged shots. She processed the film to give the photos a very rich sepia tone and published all the images as a contact print together on one page along with a selection of full page enlargements. I posed for her book in 1994 or 95 and it was published in 1996 with the title They Call Themselves Queens. There is a forward by Quentin Crisp. Most of the subjects are amateurs like me, but two queens in the book, Kevin Aviance who is on the cover and Hedda Lettuce, went on to have careers in drag. Panja also asked each of her subjects to write a statement to be published with their photos about themselves or their feelings about dressing up. This is what I wrote.The Most Precious Freedom
Children have the ability to pretend naturally. They are not taught this. It’s part of being a child. To play at being something you’re not is one of the best things about childhood.The ability to go places you’re not supposed to go and do things you’re not supposed to do – to temporarily inhabit a world of your own creation – to escape from your boundaries with your mind, and perhaps a few well-chosen props. This is healthy for the child. Fantasy is encouraged.
Why can’t what is good for the child be good for the man?
Must we lose the ability to escape from reality that came to us so naturally as children?
Pretend to be something else. Use your body as a canvas on which to paint an illusion, then escape inside for a while. Experience the freedom of a child. It is precious and should never be lost.
Looking through the book now is bittersweet for me. There are photos of friends from the ICNY who I’m no longer close to like Coco, some who have passed away – one quite recently like Shonda Lear aka David Mandel, and some who I used to know who may be dead but I have no way of knowing. It’s strange to wonder who will be looking at this art book in the future with images of me in drag with the fake name I borrowed from my mother’s only grand-daughter.
As Founder of the Imperial Court the Empress José was always encouraging the subjects of his make-believe realm to “have fun and don’t take it all too seriously,” but in any non-profit charitable organization there will be petty jealousies, resentments, and cliquish power seekers. Over the next few years through to 1997 I would continue to attend the Night of a Thousand Gowns and other Court events, but the fun of ICNY of membership was slowly becoming less fun for me. As the membership grew and became more diverse, there were inevitable growing pains common for any non-profit charitable organization. Social cliques formed around disparate “Monarchs” and petty resentments would arise concerning titles and honors bestowed or not bestowed. In spite of José’s encouraging otherwise, there were too many who took it all way too seriously. Being close to Coco who was always a high ranking board member on the ICNY board, I would hear more details about all the controversies and petty disputes than I cared to. I can’t recall any of the details I heard about or witnessed at meetings. I just remember a feeling myself slowly becoming less enchanted by it all as time went on.
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Summer of 1996 at Fire Island Pines several of my housemates went to the White Party in matching outfits |
I took another summer share in Fire Island Pines at 52 Lone Hill Walk in 1994 with some of the group from the previous summer along with some additions which included David Mandel, aka Shonda Lear. It was great to have a fellow ICNY member in the house and we had some great fun that summer. David had also helped out with events at the LGBT Center like the Garden Party and Center Dances. He was particularly great help with the Halloween dances and we became pretty good friends. There were a few weekends at the Lone Hill house when it was cluttered with sequins, feathers and wigs, while David an I were getting ready for some event that required dressing up. It turned out some of our non-drag queen housemates were not as tolerant or amused by this. When it came time at the end of the summer to renew for the following season, the lease-holder and several other house mates had decided to take another place and David and I were not invited to join them. I took over the lease for the Lone Hill house and David and I took on the task of finding house mates for the next summer.
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For the 1995 NOTG ball I had more jewelry made by my friend David Mandel. |
The 1994 Night of a Thousand Gowns ball was Coco’s step-down as Empress and because I was a princess in her court I had a tiara and matching broach made by Robert Sorrell who along with being an ICNY member and a Fire Island housemate, was a jewelry designer. Investing money on custom made jewelry represented a big step toward committing myself to this drag queen thing. My friend Ron Cohn was being crowned Emperor along with Billy Anne (Billy LaMonica) as Empress. Ron was the development director at the LGBT Center and worked with him on many events there. He was a dear sweet man who passed away this year (2024) at the age of 91. For the 1995 ball I was asked to be part of the Emperor Ron’s court for his step-down ceremonies. I had to be on stage for parts of the ceremony and had convinced myself I had to have more than one gown for the evening and I would buy more jewelry including another tiara. Another major commitment to drag queendom. These were gowns I bought, discounted but not cheap. Coco and I went to a discount formal wear outlet in New Jersey where the saleswomen were very tolerant of us and allowed us to use a large changing room designed for disabled customers to actually try on the gowns in the store. The sight of these two middle-aged men eagerly carrying armloads of plus-size sequined and beaded gowns into the dressing room might have startled some of the other shoppers, but the sales staff was quite used to it. High heeled shoes in sizes large enough for me were hard to find in regular shoe stores and even if I could find them I was never very comfortable trying on women’s shoes in public. I did buy some flats in a Payless for one of the Fire Island events where heals were not required. Coco, however could fit into regular women’s shoes and had no qualms about trying them on in stores, especially if there was a bargain that caught his eye. I bought several pairs of heels at Lee’s Mardi Gras, which was boutique hidden away in the Meat Packing District on 14th Street on an upper floor. Back then this area was a grimy industrial area. Lee’s catered to the sartorial needs of cross-dressers and drag queens of all kinds. There items were on the expensive side but it was the only place that carried a large variety of large-sized shoes. Men could try on satin or sequined pumps and patent leather boots with stiletto heels without embarrassment or side-eye from sales clerks.
Terry Douglas, was an ICNY member who worked at Lee’s Mardi Gras. He explained to me that many of his “cross-dresser” customers were straight men who were sexually aroused by wearing women’s clothing they had to be wary of allowing them into dressing rooms to try on silky undergarments. They could get so aroused by certain fabrics against their skin that they would leave cum stains on them. Until I had this conversation with Terry I hadn’t realized how much drag was a fetish for some. There were several of those cross-dressing men who came to The Night of a Thousand Gowns ball with their wives.
In the 90s when I was playing at being a drag queen the difference between drag queens, transvestites, cross-dressers, and transexuals was less nuanced than it is today. This terminology has been mostly rejected by young queer people today who have now created so many varied identities around gender and gender expression. However for us boomer queers drag queens were professional and amateur performers who had usually had no intention of passing as or becoming women. Transvestites or the derogatory term trannies was used most often to refer to the men who dressed as women to engage in sex work. Cross dressers were men who fetishized wearing women’s clothing in both sexual and non-sexual ways. Transexuals were biological males who identified as female and used medical interventions which were sometimes quite illicit and messy, to become women.
Also at every ball there was a contingent from Miss Vera’s School for Boys Who Want To Be Girls, who were always easy to spot as newbies to drag in public for the first time. Veronica Vera seems to be still operating her classes online today, but looking at the website it’s not clear where her academy fits into vastly different drag culture of today which is dominated by the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise. Now that drag has become a more visible sector of mainstream pop culture entertainment and less a niche underground segment of gay culture, I’m not sure where the Imperial Court System and all the drag balls across the country fit into the current queer cultural mix today. I haven’t been to an ICNY event for many years. I don’t know how large the membership is presently in New York City or other towns, but my feeling is that the participants are skewing older and they are not attracting a lot of new younger members. The Imperial Courts’ archaic faux coronations with old men in beaded gowns and huge wigs and tiara’s may look pretty tame compare to what’s happening in the more edgy queer clubs today.
The summer of 1995 David and I managed to find enough house mates to fill all the rooms in the Lone Hill house for the summer, but it took some effort. As the lease-holder I was on the hook for the full amount of the rent and there were some anxious moments leading up to the start of summer, when it looked like we might not have full house, but we did manage in the end. Not everyone in the group were as compatible as one would hope, but we added some more ICNY members to the mix which made the drag weekends more part of the house’s esthetic. I would renew the lease at Lone Hill for two more summers and reluctantly became more adept at managing the complications that are an inevitable part of a Fire Island summer share house. As lease-holder I became the de facto house mother and mediator of conflicts and complaints. In spite of some of the personality incompatibilities that sprung up that summer it was a mostly pleasant summer for me and I was still enjoying the occasional dress-up event. However, wearing wigs and makeup in the summer at the beach was becoming a bit uncomfortable for me and a little less enjoyable. Being closer to David who was much more committed to over the top drag than I made me start to reassess my commitment to it. There days when David would be at the house working obsessively on an outfit for hours when everyone else in the house were at the beach or relaxing by the pool enjoying a beautiful day.
February 1996 in San Francisco is when I can recall the first signs of my disenchantment with my drag queen life. I was there to attend the San Francisco Court’s coronation ball as part of the ICNY contingent. I was staying at the Mark Hopkins Hotel with friends, David Mandel and Rod Fernandez. We were have a great time being tourists. We did the Alcatraz tour and the Beach Blanket Babylon show. On the day of the ball we lost track of time over a lovely long lunch in a beautiful neighborhood restaurant we had stumbled upon. We got back to the hotel a bit late and had to rush to get ready for the ball which started at 6:00pm. This is what we came to San Francisco for, I should have been looking forward to the joyous fun-filled evening ahead of us, but I was not. I was beginning to resent having to slather my face with makeup and put on five pounds of beaded gown, feathers, rhinestones and a wig. As we stood in front of the hotel waiting for a cab in the bright sunlight my head started to ache from the huge tiara I was wearing, I started to question whether I was really enjoying any of this. Three.drag queens in full royal regalia hailing a cab was not an unusual sight on the streets of San Francisco and passers by paid no special attention to us. Months earlier I would have reveled at how ridiculously fabulous we looked, but that afternoon I couldn’t stop thinking about how physically uncomfortable I was and how I would much rather be wearing jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt sipping cosmos in a nice restaurant. I’m not sure what changed. As the evening went on and I really tried hard to have a good time at the ball. With the help of prodigious amounts of alcohol, I outwardly I put up a good front. We laughed and carried on like the silly queens we were – sneaking a smoke in the ladies restroom (there was no smoking in venue) and convincing a pizza place to deliver some pies to a group of drag queens in front of the Moscone Center (there was no food at this ball, which lasted for hours). However that little kernel of discontent never completely left me.
The next morning Empress José’s delightfully surreal brunch and cemetery dedication ceremony cured my hangover and renewed my appreciation of José’s vision of the Imperial Court centered on humor, pride, and acceptance. Aside from the silly matching hats that all of us in the New York group wore, I was dressed comfortably in ordinary clothes. I was glad that dressing up was not required for this event, as a few of the attendees did, otherwise I would not have been there. On the flight home I had some time to think about things. The New York coronation ball was less than two months away and I was ready to attend and felt obligated, but I was starting to feel that perhaps I wasn’t cut out to be a drag queen. Being part of the ICNY had provided me with some very interesting and fun experiences, but the expense and physical discomforts were starting to overshadow the pleasure. I didn’t have any desire to nurture an alternate persona as many of my drag sisters had. David and Charles answered to Shonda and Coco even when not in drag. None of my friends referred to me as Deanna Jean when I wasn’t in a dress and I wasn’t going to encourage it.
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The photo taken at the 1996 NOTG ball that appeared in Susan Brown’s book and the last time I would attend in drag. |
The 1996 Night of a Thousand Gowns coronation ball was the last that I would attend in drag. It’s kind of ironic that at this ball, photographer Susan Brown had set up a room near the entrance where she was taking formal portraits for book that would be published the next year. I had adapted a gown that David (Shonda) gave me with a peacock feather collar that along with some fabulous borrowed jewelry looked good enough for Susan to take my photo that evening. Her book, Persona, included my photo along with many other Imperial Court members and friends like Coco, Shonda, Billy Anne, and José. There was an introduction written by John Epperson aka Lypsinka and photos of some other famous professional queens like Charles Busch, Lady Bunny, Coco Peru, and Sherry Vine. At the reception for the book release I was pleased to be in such company, but also I felt like a fraud since the book documented my last appearance as Deanna Jean. I had determined many months earlier that my drag queen days were ending.In the book each photo was accompanied with an interview which Susan’s husband Steven compiled. The heading for my interview was “Suffering for Her Art” in which I talked about how I had given up on doing drag mostly because “I’m not dedicated to the art form enough to tolerate the pain and the discomfort and the hassle of it… The shoes, the waist cinches, and all that elastic stuff. The tiaras are painful… But if you’re having a good time you get past it for a while.” All the other interviews in the book are much more interesting and positive than mine. I did talk about how much I had enjoyed the experience, but what got printed in the book is mostly my bitching about the physical discomfort that drag requires.
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Not in drag with Rod Fernandez aka Nana
at the 1997 NOTG coronation ball and the
last I would attend as an ICNY member. |
I did do a few dress up events on Fire Island over the summer, but it was mostly in camaraderie with my house mates and involved more comfortable outfits. The summer of 1996 was the last time I did elaborate drag on Fire Island when several of my housemates and I went to the White Party in matching outfits that David (Shonda) had spent many hours creating. In the spring of 1997 I attended the Night of a Thousand Gowns ball, but it was not as much fun as it was in drag. It was lovely to be with my friends, but I couldn’t whole heartedly enter into the spirit of the festivities. No matter how many rhinestones you wore on your tuxedo, it wasn’t the same experience. While none of my drag sisters said anything negative to me about my decision to give up drag, the comments I got from Court members had undertones of disappointment. Like I had given up on something and I had. However, I had no regrets about it. I had a great time. I had proved I could do a thing well, but it wasn’t a thing that was going to be a major part of my life moving forward. Later that year I decided that I wasn’t going to be an active ICNY member. José’s founding philosophy of having silly fun while raising money for serious causes became harder to maintain as the ICNY membership grew. The fun cos-play aspects of the Court were often over-shadowed by the petty jealousies and cliquish social groups that reinforced the many personality conflicts that can be part of any non-profit charitable group. Coco was the most disappointed of all my ICNY friends. His social life was the almost completely centered around the ICNY and the Imperial Court System, so when I quit it affected our relationship quite a lot. We remained friends, but in retrospect I think that watching my friend become more immersed in drag that contributed to my decision to step back from it. We still did things together, but it was never the same after I was no longer a drag sister.
My experiences from some 38 years ago provides me with a link to the drag queens of the generation that preceded me in the early 20th century, but only a tenuous one to the current world of drag. It’s been astonishing to me to witness the assimilation of drag entertainers into mainstream pop culture in the last 20 years. The rapid acceptance and visibility of queer culture in the 21st century is something I could not have envisioned when I was in my 30s. The current generation of gay men having fun with drag, both professionals and amateurs alike sashay through a different world than I did. I envy them, but I’m happy to be on the sidelines – an appreciative observer with first-hand knowledge of effort and artifice it takes to be in drag and deserve the title, Queen.
Lastly, forty-seven years ago when I was languishing the summer away in my parents house recovering from hepatitis that had caused me to leave school, I never would have believed it if someone told me I would discover the possible source of my illness forty years later from reading a history book. The summer of 1969 it was a total mystery how I had come down with a case of non-infectious hepatitis that is usually the result of poor sanitation or hygiene. There were no other cases at my school and I was always pretty careful about my personal hygiene so I didn’t think it was because of insufficient hand washing as my mother seemed to think. In any case it wasn’t serious and I never felt sick. I just had to stay home for many weeks and suffer extreme boredom until my yellow jaundiced eyes returned to normal. Many years later (probably around 2005) while reading Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter, I read his description of the Stonewall bar and how there was no running water behind the bar and how they washed the glasses by swishing them around in a tub of dirty water. He went on to note that there had been an outbreak of hepatitis among some of the regulars that spring that may have been caused by that filthy water. A lightbulb lit up in my head as I read this. In April of 1969 I was at the Stonewall and I had several drinks there. I had come to New York with my best friend on spring break from college. I was nineteen and thrilled to be in New York on a Saturday night in one of the hottest gay clubs. I had worked several odd jobs to earn enough for the plane fare to New York. I have a letter that my mother had saved that I wrote to her at the time describing everything I did on that trip — well not everything. I didn’t mention going the Stonewall even though that was certainly one of the highlights of my visit. I had been to gay bars before, but the gay bars in Indianapolis at that time were small and unsophisticated compared to the places we went to in New York. The Stonewall had two dance floors and was packed with well-dressed handsome young men enjoying themselves fearlessly. Or so it seemed to me at the time. I was too naive to know that the music could stop abruptly at any time if the police decided that it was time to put the faggots in their place. It had happened before and it could have happened the night I was there. I remember being kind of overwhelmed by the scene at the Stonewall that night. As excited as I was to be there, I was too shy and unsure of myself to strike up a conversation with any of the sophisticated men surrounding me. The friends I had come with were not so shy and I ended up taking a taxi alone back to the apartment where we were staying. My only souvenir from a night at the legendary and future historic Stonewall would to be a nasty microbe that would turn the whites of my eyes yellow three months later. This past weekend I told this story to a group of strangers and two park rangers in The Stonewall National Monument. 
