Koala,
Interesting quote you took from the wiki page, you should have shown the reference as to where that statement came from. I will do that for you.
^ Ryan, Caitlin C & Futterman, Donna (1998), Lesbian and Gay Youth: Care and Counseling, Columbia University Press, p. 49, ISBN 0231111916
Nothing in their title about being TG.

Next is how wiki defines a drag queen and king. Drag is a term applied to clothing and make-up worn on special occasions for performing or entertaining as a hostess, stage artist or at an event . Generally the terms drag queen covers men doing female drag, drag king covers women doing male drag, and faux queen covers women doing female drag.

So with the the definitions you can ask, which group is bastardizing the other. Transgender as in HBS, or Gays and Lesbians?

Wiki's definition makes drag kings and queens a non gender or sexual oriented thing, basically a form of entertainment. Society as a general rule has given the drag queen label to gays looking to be the female role of an all male relationship. Gay use to mean happy, like a gay ole time. Now nobody wants to use the word gay unless they are referring to homosexuals. Which is right? The original dictionary definition of gay is still there.

After saying all that, does it really matter or does it need to be nit picked. I believe there is a good general understanding what was being referred to in the original comments. Is it now ok for me to refer to you with he or him. It is not ok with me to be referred to that way.

Bottomline is I hope we are not in competition with each other here.

Love and hugs,
Marsha

Hey All!

Im a magazine writer from Sheffield and I'm doing a story on a friend of mine who is a big player on the local drag scene. He's had a bit of a bitch fight with another drag performer and some individuals on the gay scene, who have been bad mouthing him around town, stopping him from getting work etc.
I'm just interested in any similar experiences anyone might have had, any funny stories or comments on the competitive nature of the business for my article.
Would really appreciate any help anyone can give me.

Daniel Locke
Taboo Magazine
Sheffield, UK

Geez Dan,
To start with drag queens are fricken gays that dress in female clothing, not transgendered gals. No wonder society has crazy ideas about us when people like you write stories that are so unreal. Could there be drag queens that are actually TG, sure, and there are definitely some that think they are TG that are probably more likely gay drag queens.

Competitive nature of the business? God I'm glad you are in the UK, I would slap you silly if you were near me. I'm surprised you found us in the first place, odds are you searched for shemales. Get your head out of the porn and realize many of us are normal people trying to live normal lives.

Marsha

I'm sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone.
I know the difference between Transgenders and Draq Queens. The magazine I work for - Taboo - is committed to offering people a voice without judgement, the article I was doing was about a friend of mine, and like I said all I am just trying to reach similar people.
I'm sorry if this isn't the place to reach anyone, but there isn't many forums like this one online, and I did post it in the 'general' bit of the site, but it was a bit of a long shot.
Sorry again, but maybe you need to address you misconcieved views of all Journalists?

Regards, Dan
Taboo Magazine

Dan,
I respect the fact that you attempt to write without judgement. The overall way you came across in your original post was as if we are putting on a show and somehow there is competition amongst ourselves for some sort of prize. You consistantly referred to your friend as "he/him" which to me says you do not recognize a female side in your friend. That is the basic difference between TG and gay.

One thing that TW has tried to accomplish and in my opinion has done well is making this a safe social and support site for transgendered gals. In essence we try to keep the shemale hunters out of here.

I hope you find some stories to help your story out. Some may even come from here. I can only speak for myself and often do, lol, so I'm sorry if I have offended you in anyway.

Marsha

Please do a google search on Taboo Magazine, then tell me how well that fits in with TW. If you choose to be ignorant, you will be.

Marsha

Hello again

Well my post has created quite a stir! Again I want to apologise for any offence given, it was a little clumsy of me.

Just to explain why the magazine did not return any google hits - I am a final year Journalism student at Sheffield Uni, the magazine first started out as a project for a module, but it received such good feedback from everyone who read it we have decided to try and make it for real. As yet, the website is under construction and we are working on the first issue.

As I mentioned earlier, this might not be the best place for the info i'm looking for, but there isn't a wealth of these forums about so you can understand my mistake.

Regards, Dan

Dan,
Although I don't regret anything I said in my original post, I hope you read my other posts in this thread to give you a better idea where I was coming from with my comments. Being that this is an early stage for your magazine development maybe in the end this controversy was a good thing. So often in the media coverage about transgendered the topic immediately goes to sex. Sure like the rest of the population we have sex, some kinky some not so kinky. But the real story that rarely gets out is that we are normal people trying to lead normal lives. I wish your magazine success and hope one day you will help dispel those negative stories about the transgender community.

Hugs,
Marsha

Dan,
there isn't a single transsexual in the country who has a misconceived view of journalists...everyone one of us is painfully aware of the fact that journalists choose to lie, twist and distort the facts about transsexuals in order to ensure their readers will continue to seriously misconcieve transsexuals as being nothing more than the 'bloke in a frock' like your friend (you really got a drag queen friend?)

Juts the fact that you came into this chatroom shows you automatically link transgendered peope with the gays so for your next piece I suggest you go into a few gay chatrooms and ask what they think of transsexuals.

But to answer your question: I can't think why your friend got problems with other dragqueen and gays unless your friend makes a better queen? Or maybe gave the gays the impression they were sick or effeminate?

Hey, chill out, girls, it was a harmless question. Drag-queens are pepole too,
Dan, as you may have guessed there aren't likely to be many members of TW who have anything to do with the draq-queen business so, sorry, you won't find any such experiences here.
We ARE nice people though, even if some might bite your head off for daring to mention the D-Q word!
xx

A little off-topic but still...
Drag Queens count as transgender last I looked and that is one of many reasons I think transgender is a poo term to use and should be used as little as possible.
As a lot of you already said, people with HBS (TS) and drag queens don't have much in common but this is what wikipedia says for instance:

"[...]transgender identity includes many overlapping categories. These include transsexual (TS); cross-dresser (CD); transvestite (TV); androgynes; genderqueer; people who live cross-gender; drag kings; and drag queens. Usually not included because it is considered to be a paraphilia (rather than gender identification) are transvestic fetishists."

If people on this site disagree with wikipedia and most of the mainstream media about drag queens being TG then I guess I'm about as lost as the original poster and everyone else for that matter... and maybe it's time to stop using the TG term all together.

Hi Marsha,

I think maybe I didn't really make myself clear enough so I'll try again even if this is very off-topic

Transgender may or may not be interpreted as including both transsexuals and drag queens.
Because of that people who come to a TG site might think there are drag queens about.
Transgender is a vague term and leads to confusion which is why I don't like it. Confusing transsexuals with drag queens is one of those reasons.

I hope you understand me better now.

Well I feel a little sorry for Dan, and at least he apologised. I'm sure he's gone away with a wonderful view about how bitchy transgendered girls 'aren't'

We really should be better than this and keep the claws away until they're really needed. I'm sure the situation could have been explained to him without the nastiness.

Nikki

Dan,

To respond to your original question.

Your friend is right. All business is competitive and some businesspersons are unethical/unfair in how they conduct their business. Some even do illegal things to get business away from other businesses. Why it would be any different for drag queens I can't imagine. If you continue your research outside the specific situation, I think you will find this is true. This is the message we are trying to convey here. We are just like any other group of people. No better, no worse, statistically a bit more intelligent on average...probably related to our cross-brain connections and living in a more intense survival mode all our lives. Please understand that we come from a lot of pain, misunderstanding and abuse and tend to also be a bit more touchy than the average person as well, even with each other. Please consider this when writing your article.

Ladies, unlike other journalists I see on television, Dan did not laugh at us as some do even in stories of painful situations. He came to us, perhaps a bit misdirected but I remember the days when I was full of ignorance even of myself. You are welcome at TW, Dan, as it's clear you seek the truth. We should not expect the searcher to already have it.

Hi Dan, [should you pass once more through these hallowed portals…]

And I hope you do because, as a journalist, you would clearly identify so much rich material here – and that’s only from this thread.

But let me add slightly to the responses regarding your comment: ‘…but maybe you need to address you misconceived views of all Journalists? ...’ [sic]. I read this, one hopes, as being somewhat tongue in cheek.

It has been pointed out, whenever these topics hit the press, [of any sort, and I’m sure it’s the same elsewhere as it is in the UK], that we’ve all seen the headlines and we’ve all seen the slant put on the copy.

As a writer, I’ve met with people from all area's of the field including many journalists. I will point out that journalism isn’t my forte. I hold a BA (Hons) in Performance Writing from Dartington College of Arts. Dartington, as you may be aware, is the arts world version of Oxford or Cambridge. I write plays, verse, radio, some articles and am currently sketching out a sit-com. My main interest, however, is the use of verse in dialogue. Not as exciting as journalism, I’ll be the first to agree, just wanted you to know my antecedence.

I have a close friend, now my lodger, who has spent all his life in journalism. Hence some of my contacts. He’s written for all the broadsheets, some of the tabloids, has edited a host of magazines, has [and still does] feature on BBC Radio 5 Live and, so far, has authored four books. He knows his stuff.

All that personal waffle was for a reason. So you can see that when I say journalists – in general – have a tendency to deceive, connive, cheat, exaggerate and generally do whatever they can to wheedle information from a source. [I’m not suggesting, for a second, that you would consider such a route]. I say so with knowledge and experience.

And even if an honest-to-goodness journalist wrote a balanced, fair and humane article, he or she would still have to accept the work being edited - without any authorial input. You write your piece and you have no real say in how it turns out. [One of the reasons I never fancied journalism. I write what I write and I hold complete editorial control, if it doesn’t go anywhere, that’s fine by me].

So I’m sure you’ll forgive a little touchiness in the ranks.

Which, finally, brings me to my point. [Yes, I do hear that collective sigh of relief!]. There is a far better and far more interesting article waiting for your pen. And it’s all laid out nicely in this thread.

The article I’d want to write would be sketched out along the following lines: Rather than concentrate on a localised spat between my friend the Drag Queen and others, I’d now be wanting to look at the difference between the perception in some quarters – i.e. TG / TS people are seen as little more than Drag, and the reality of the situation. Exploring aspects of drag and relating it to the reality, pain, anticipation, ups and downs of life in the real lane. I would want to look at the feelings, the lives, the interactions of TS and how society fails wilfully to understand. I'd want to look closer at the huge diversity that exists under the current umberella of TG. It would be an excellent opportunity to shine a light on this community and to help – even in a small way – to educate the general public. It would also be a series as opposed to a one-off. If only I could get it passed an Editor…

Just my view.

Much love

Rae x

Hi Marsha,

Our posts crossed in the internet mail...

I also googled 'Dan Locke' as well as 'Taboo Magazine Sheffield' but with no results that could verify either's existence.

I just gave both the benefit of the doubt on the basis that, if the magazine is small, it may not have an online presence.

But you'd have thought it would have had a cross reference through 'Sheffield'.

There are, however, quite a few adult oriented magazines with the not quite original and totally uninspiring title of 'Taboo'...

Much love

Rae xx

I googled as soon as there was a name to.



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