A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.
People do drag for reasons ranging from self-expression to mainstream performance. Drag shows frequently include lip-syncing, live singing, and dancing. They typically occur at LGBT pride parades, drag pageants, cabarets, carnivals, and nightclubs. Drag queens vary by type, culture, and dedication, from professionals who star in films and spend a lot of their time in their drag personas, to people who do drag only occasionally. Women who dress as men and entertain by imitating them are called drag kings.
Those who do occasional drag may be from other backgrounds than the LGBT community. There is a long history of folkloric and theatrical crossdressing that involves people of all orientations. Not everyone who does drag at some point in their lives is a drag queen or a drag king.
Terminology, scope, and etymology
Drag
Drag refers to an entertainment style wearing stylized clothing. Most commonly, it is men wearing women's clothing cross-dressing, generally for the purpose of a performance.
The origin of the term drag is uncertain. The first recorded use of drag in reference to actors dressed in women's clothing is from 1870. It may have been based on the term "grand rag" which was historically used for a masquerade ball.
Drag queens and kings
In 1971, an article in Lee Brewster's Drag Queens magazine described a drag queen as a "homosexual transvestite" who is hyperfeminine, flamboyant, and militant. Drag queens were further described as having an attitude of superiority, and commonly courted by heterosexual men who would "not ordinarily participate in homosexual relationships". While the term drag queen implied "homosexual transvestite", the term drag carried no such connotations.
In the 1970s, drag queen was continually defined as a "homosexual transvestite". Drag was parsed as changing one's clothes to those of a different sex, while queen was said to refer to a homosexual man.
For much of history, drag queens were men, but in more modern times, cisgender and trans women, as well as non-binary people, also perform as drag queens. In a 2018 article, Psychology Today stated that drag queens are "most typically gay cisgender men (though there are many drag queens of varying sexual orientations and gender identities)".
Examples of trans-feminine drag queens, sometimes called trans queens, include Monica Beverly Hillz and Peppermint. Cisgender female drag queens are sometimes called faux queens or bioqueens, though critics of this practice assert that faux carries the connotation that the drag is fake, and that the use of bioqueen exclusively for cisgender females is a misnomer since trans-feminine queens exhibit gynomorphic features.
Drag queens' counterparts are drag kings: performers, usually women, who dress in exaggeratedly masculine clothing. Examples of drag kings include Landon Cider. Trans men who dress like drag kings are sometimes termed trans kings.
Female impersonator
The term female impersonator was commonly used in the past. In 1972, Esther Newton described a female impersonator as a "professional drag queen". She considered the term female impersonator to be the one that was (then) widely understood by heterosexual audiences.
Female impersonation can be traced back at least as far as ancient Greece. There was little to no gender equity then and women held a lower social status. This meant male actors would play female roles during theatrical performances. This tradition continued for centuries but began to be less prevalent as motion pictures became popular. During the era of vaudeville it was considered immodest for women to appear on stage. Due to that circumstance, some men became famous as "female impersonators", the most notable being Julian Eltinge. At the peak of his career he was one of the most sought after and highest paid actors in the world.
Female impersonation has been and continues to be illegal in some places, which inspired the drag queen José Sarria to hand out labels to his friends reading, "I am a boy", so they could not be accused of female impersonation. American drag queen RuPaul once said, "I do not impersonate females! How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, four-foot wigs, and skintight dresses?" He also said, "I don't dress like a woman; I dress like a drag queen!"