Drag show at the College

The Gender and Sexuality Alliance club held a drag show last Friday evening in the SUB at North Idaho College.

“You guys having a good time tonight?” Naomi D’Lish said, asking the audience who respond in cheers.

Naomi D’Lish has been Master of Ceremony for 10 years hosting the GSA drag show.

Performances varied in talent mainly lip-syncing to songs, with a cabaret-style performance.

The Drag Queens wore elaborate costumes. One reminiscent of a mime while another wore a top hat with a green coat and pants, holding a cane.

Drag queens are sometimes male or female-identifying who perform often in exaggerated outfits with a specific persona through gender expression.

The drag queens were performing to various music choices performing on stage, where one drag queen cartwheeled off the stage.

GSA president Mia Birmingham said the drag show was “a great community building activity.” That the show focuses on fundraising and bringing activities to campus.

The Drag Queens interact with the crowd, who give them tips.

Attendees pay five dollars at the door.

They walk through the entrance covered in green streamers where some people were waiting for the event to start.

There was even a black screen for people to take polaroid photos, whether with friends or drag queens in the upper floor foyer of the SUB.

“Drag is important because as a drag you’re a rebel,” D’Lish said.

D’Lish said drag queens are a pillar of the community, helping the gay community go places.

“Anybody who’s gone to an actual drag show and sat down and watched an actual drag show will realize it has nothing to do with kids,” D’Lish said. “It has nothing to do with pushing [a] political agenda, has nothing to do with anything besides people getting together not judging each other and having a good time.”

The GSA club has been doing drag shows for the better part of 15 years, though has dealt with around 60 calls by some community members to cancel the show.

Show protest

As the Drag show was about to start, there were seven protestors in front of the SUB.

Six held signs imploring people walking by that “the solution is Jesus Christ.” A protestor held a sign directing viewers to Mathew 18:6 about millstones.

“Your identity can be found in Jesus alone,” read one sign.

Kurt and Lucy Schwab were in attendance protesting the event. They held signs comparing drag to wearing “women face.”

“We’re here to make a stand against woman face,” Lucy Schwab said.

Lucy Schwab thinks drag makes a mockery of women who use “really harmful stereotypes.” She compares performances in drag to wearing “black face.”

“So, when you do blackface, you’re putting on the immutable characteristics of a group of people in order to make a mockery of really harmful stereotypes. And that’s what I believe drag is doing to women,” Schwab said.

Lucy’s husband said he was there to protest, standing for the fact that “objectifying women is wrong and that’s what a drag show does.”

On the opposite end were three protestors holding much bigger signs, telling people “Jesus loves you” as people were walking by.

John Meyer came to protest what he saw as an agenda, that the drag show is “just another cog in the machine” trying to “normalize” the idea of gender-affirming care for kids.

“I get it, a lot of these kids here aren’t children, they’re 18 or older, but it’s basically starting wherever they can get a foothold in,” Meyer said.

Edit: Name attribution and small edits.