The term ‘drag queen’ is synonymous today with extravagant make-up, flamboyant clothing and a formidable personality. But how did drag develop from female impersonation into a world-dominating art form?
From female impersonation to drag
Words by Kirsten Riley
- In pictures

The term ‘drag’ appeared in print around 1870, referring predominantly to theatrical female impersonators. One suggestion is that it referred, literally, to the long crinoline skirts that would drag across the stage. Another suggestion is that drag may have been an acronym for ‘Dressed Resembling A Girl’. Whatever its origins, the term stuck.

Female impersonation had been an established practice in English theatre for centuries, with Shakespeare using it to his advantage in the gender-confusing storylines of several plays, including ‘As You Like It’. At the time, men played the parts of female characters due to the restrictions placed on women appearing on stage. The relaxation of these conventions from the 17th century onward represented the beginning of a new type of theatrical performance.

As women began to assume the roles of female characters on stage, female impersonation developed a much more comical tone, satirising female characteristics, rather than impersonating them. This developed into the popular ‘pantomime dame’. George Wild Galvin (1860–1904), who went by the stage name of Dan Leno, was a famous English music hall comedian and actor well known for his dame roles in pantomimes during the latter half of the 19th century.

Theatrical impersonation wasn’t exclusively a domain reserved for men. Matilda Alice Powles (1864–1952) was an English performer who went by the stage name of Vesta Tilley. She became one of the most famous male impersonators of her time and was a celebrity in both Britain and America for over thirty years.

In the United States, Annie Hindle (c.1840–1897) was so persuasive as a male impersonator on stage that she managed, on two separate occasions, to marry a woman, convincing the clergyman she was a man named Charles Edward Hindle. In 1892 the Daily Illinois State Journal reported: “In fact once she was a bride; twice she has been a groom. Once she had a husband and twice she had a wife. Once she was a widow, once a widower and now she is a husband again.”

For some trans performers female impersonation was an accessible route that allowed them to construct an identity that society considered unacceptable through the guise of an acceptable fiction on stage. Stella Boulton (1848–1904) was one such performer, remembered as one of Victorian England’s most beautiful female impersonators and the centre of a sensational show trial in 1870 with their companion Fanny Park.

Overall, the gender identities or sexual orientation of those pictured dressed in another gender’s clothes can never be assumed, as not all those engaged in gender impersonation were cross-dressers or exploring their sexuality. Many historical photographs, like this one from 1910 which shows an unconventional family with the husband in drag, have little or no information that reveals more about the people themselves.

Female impersonation became a growing international phenomenon during the early 20th century, often involving men who appeared to epitomise a stereotypically masculine persona dressing up as women for parties, revues and other comical stage productions. The all-male group ‘Splinters’, formed in 1915, consisted entirely of ex-servicemen, and their popular interwar performances went on to spawn three films. This popularity belied the fact that men wearing make up in public during this period were often arrested for homosexual offences and viewed as a danger to the prevailing social order.
In the early 20th century, the American vaudeville performer and film actor Julian Eltinge (1881–1941) became one of the original proponents of the ‘glamour dame’ genre and subsequently one of the most famous and highest paid actors in America. He even had a branded cold cream and a magazine that provided women with beauty advice and guidance on femininity. To quell rumours regarding his sexuality, Eltinge cultivated a hyper-masculine persona off stage which included boxing and cigar smoking.

In Britain, the English actor and cabaret performer Douglas Byng (1893–1987) was one of the great stars of the English variety stage and, alongside Eltinge, one of the great representatives of the respected glamour dame genre. Byng became a regular on the cabaret circuit during this time, playing clubs frequented by upper-class audiences in London, Paris and New York.

Female impersonation was respected as long as the audience, and society at large, were confident that those underneath the clothes were not questioning or expressing a sexuality counter to what was acceptable at the time. In the 1950s, ex-servicemen who had been performing as female impersonators were growing older and could no longer use the respectable backdrop of the patriotic soldier to shield their art form from the moral gaze of society. As younger men entered the scene, drag saw an increased association with homosexuality. For over a decade, drag would languish.

Danny La Rue (1927–2009), a famous Irish-English performer, was instrumental in developing drag into an art form. By the 1960s he was among Britain’s highest-paid entertainers. While La Rue is considered one of the early proponents of drag as art, other acts in the same style, such as Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna Everage), were more closely related to the tradition of comic female impersonation and the pantomime dame.

Female impersonation also made its way into mainstream cinema, featuring as the central plot device in comedy films such as ‘Some Like it Hot’ (1959), ‘Tootsie’ (1983) and ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ (1993), to name but a few. However, in most of these films the storyline revolves around the classic ‘boy meets girl’ trope, reinforcing heterosexual values and societal norms to avoid any of the morally-dubious implications associated with cross-dressing. In 1994, ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ became a surprise box office hit and helped introduce drag to a mainstream audience with its positive representation of the LGBT community.

Flawless Sabrina (1939–2017) was an American LGBT activist and drag queen instrumental in fighting for the rights of gay and transgender people performing in drag throughout the 1960s. Flawless was herself arrested over a hundred times for cross-dressing in public which at that time was against the law in America. Given the moniker ‘Mother Flawless Sabrina’ for her maternal commitment to drag queens everywhere, she remains an influential figure and inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community.

In 1988 Divine was described by People magazine as ‘the drag queen of the century’. Born Harris Glenn Milstead (1945–1988) and brought up in a conservative middle-class family, Divine became a counterculture icon, challenging the glamorous image of drag with their radical and subversive persona. The 1980s and early 1990s saw a continuation of drag being represented in popular culture, music and television with acts such as Boy George, Pete Burns, Julian Clary and Lily Savage, to name a few.
RuPaul Andre Charles, known as RuPaul, developed and refined drag performance and drag culture from the early 1990s. RuPaul was responsible for many firsts in the drag community, including being the first drag artist to sign a modelling contract with major make-up brand MAC cosmetics in 1995 and the first to host his own talk show on VH1 in 1996. The hit TV show ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ has done much since it first aired in 2009 to bring drag from the heart of LGBTQ+ counterculture further into the mainstream. So much so that in 2018 more people googled RuPaul than Jeremy Clarkson and Emma Watson combined!

Today, drag artists can feel comfortable not only to dress in drag but to subvert drag norms through the reintroduction of traditionally masculine features. One of the latest bearded acts to hit the headlines with their appearance on ‘America’s Got Talent’ is the award-winning international cabaret and performance ‘glamonster’ Gingzilla. Drag has come a long way from female impersonation and is now not only a bona fide art form but one that is loved by millions of people around the world.
About the author
Kirsten Riley
Kirsten is Wellcome Collection’s Digital Editor for Social Media.