FEATURES Genderfukt: The Kings of Queens Toronto's drag kings subculture is growing fast, with more women taking the stage to act out fantasies of becoming symbols of exaggerated machismo By Amanda Buckiewicz, The Eyeopener (Ryerson University) TORONTO (CUP)—I’m at the mirror in the ladies’ room fixing my hair when a girl next to me catches my attention. Her name is Bruce and she’s having issues with her moustache, so I do my best to give Bruce a hand. Anxious to get the sticky mess of glue and hair off my fingers, I try to run them under the faucet, but I can’t—a pink strap-on penis obstructs the sink, waiting for its owner to finish getting dressed. It’s getting packed in here and women are queuing up to get to the counter, which is scattered with makeup, spirit gum, and little plastic baggies filled with hair clippings. “Fuck this,” says someone who tells me her name is Wayne. “Tonight, I’m a man. I’m going to use the men’s room.” As she marches off, six other girls follow suit. Outside, tensor bandages stifle breasts, and a swarm of women wearing penciled-on beards and phallic replacements are already squeezing toward the stage. Wiping my hands on my pants, I leave the restroom. It’s drag king night at Sneaky Dees, and the enter- tainment’s just getting started. The show is called “Genderfukt,” and it’s a venue for women to do just that: Fuck with gender. They’re not necessarily transsexuals, they’re not even necessarily lesbians. These are women who dress up like men and jump onstage to lip-sync, dance, or just recite poetry. Ask them why they do it and they'll tell you they’re living out a dream or appealing to the desire to just play dress-up for the night. “Presenting different genders is important,” explains drag king and Genderfukt organizer Skylar Rocket. “For people who don’t live “normal” lives, like trans(sexual) people, they at least get their three min- utes on stage to be who they are without worrying about the repercussions.” Historically, the idea of women “masquerading” as men was an abomination. Joan of Arc did it and was eventually burned at the stake. During the American Civil War, women did it to overcome military discrimi- nation, and Marlene Dietrich was the first famous woman to put on a silk hat and men’s tailcoat in the 1930 film; Morocco. But these are different times in Toronto, a city that welcomes those desiring a little gender bending. Tonight’s packed house at Sneaky Dees seems to be an indication that’s true, as 250 people—most of whom appear to be students—cram into the dimly-lit upper level of the bar. A line-up continues to snake out the door. Still, Rocket admits the response wasn’t always this popular. “Outside of our immediate friend circles, no one really came to our shows,” she says. “It’s just in the past few years that this has really started to explode.” The drag kings scene had its humble beginnings in the early 2000s at the Buddies in Bad Times bar at Yonge and College. There, a typical show drew an audi- ence of 30-50 people, most of whom were friends and opfeatures@gmail.com He family members of performers. “In those days, our shows were a lot less refined,” says Rocket. “It was done more out of a need to fuck things up. Now it’s for us and for society.” Although Genderfukt is still getting its feet wet with shows at Sneaky Dees, the bar’s manager, John Diamantouros, says that the shows have all been this successful so far. “I definitely was not expecting this much of a crowd,” he says as the audience jockeys for the best view of the male impersonators. “Not for this.” In full fireman regalia, drag king Flare takes to the stage. She strips off the suit, revealing a tuxedo under- neath, and I hear the whispers coming from a girl at my side: “Holy shit, that’s not a woman, is it?” Flare answers her question when she rips off the tuxedo, exposing her breasts and a generous purple strap-on penis. She’s good, but she’s had a lot of practice, having been a drag king for more than a decade. In 1994, out of a need to perform, Flare co-created the Toronto Drag Kings with fellow drag king Christopher Noel. Back then, there was a wave of support for the kings, but that soon faded—auntil recent years. Now, about 40 drag kings perform regularly in the Toronto area, with countless others joining the audiences to entertain club crowds at Tango, Studio 54, and Sneaky Dees. But in spite of the rebirth of the drag kings scene in Toronto, it’s still not quite a big-cash business. Tonight’s performers receive a cut of the $6 cover charge from the show, but there’s also the issue of tip- ping. In the US, Rocket says, customers tend to tip more often because of paper $1 bills. “It’s a lot harder to stick a loonie in someone’s ass crack—trust me,” she says. To solve the problem, Rocket and Genderfukt co- organizer Danielle invented “drag dollars,” a paper cur- rency in denominations of $1-$5. Tonight, several drag dollars flutter onto the stage, but no one walks away with more than $20. “Tl admit it would be a lot easier to do this if there was more money involved,” says Rocket. “That’s why drag queens are so much mote successful, because gay men usually have a lot more disposable income than gay women.” Unlike the queens shows, which attract more mature crowds, drag king entertainment usually draws crowds of cash-strapped college kids, she says. Then, Rocket takes her turn to gyrate on stage. To the very vocal delight of the audience, she grabs the microphone stand and straddles it while lip-syncing to Billy Idol. Behind her, backup dancers shake their asses. “T do this for me, most of all,” she says later. “I really love performing, but I can’t act, and I can’t sing, and it’s hard to find a venue where you can act out your deepest fantasies without worry.” It’s been a fight to get the scene going in Toronto since the beginning, but it’s been worth it. For Rocket, life is a drag—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.