Local drag queens speak about a ‘magical form of self expression’
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POCATELLO — The Pocatello community had a successful pride festival on Saturday with minimal interruption from protestors.
Southeastern Idaho Pride organized the event for the second time and held it at Caldwell Park. Throughout the day, drag queen performers took to the stage under the pavilion to dance to songs of their choice.
While there were some protestors walking around the edge of the park holding signs that said “SAY NO! to kids at Drag Shows in IDAHO,” most were gone by around 3 p.m. All of the protestors that were present declined to be interviewed.
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During the festival, local queens spoke to EastIdahoNews.com about what they love about doing drag. As the queens were in drag for the day, they’ll be referred to by their stage names in this article.
“It’s the most magical form of self expression I’ve ever come across,” said Goldie Holden Hardwood, whose name is Hannah Patrick and uses she/her pronouns when she’s not in drag. “Drag is an art form. It is an expression.”
Tauri Zodiac, whose name is Cierra Rivas and uses she/her pronouns when she’s not in drag, called it, “my fullest form of self expression.”
“It is an art form where we use social constructs of gender to mold these personas that we have and we use that to escape our realities, which can be trivial, kind of tedious,” Tauri said.
“It’s a way for us as a community to express the inner side of ourselves,” said Tinkerbell, whose name is Nathan Ward out of Drag and has a non-binary gender identity.
“I feel sometimes like I’m more of a female than a male, so drag actually helps me approach that and be more open with myself as a person than what I was when I had to keep everything bottled up,” Tinkerbell said.
Goldie said that she’s been called a pedophile and a sex offender while in drag, and it happens at least several times a year. All the drag queens EastIdahoNews.com spoke to agreed that rhetoric against them has increased recently.
She said the biggest misunderstanding people have about drag, “is that it’s used as a way to entrap or encourage any kind of deviance or anything else like that.”
“Most of us give up a lot to be able to do this and are so focused on what we’re doing. That — anything else that these people try to put on us — is the furthest thing from any of our minds,” Goldie said.
Tinkerbell said the biggest misunderstanding they see from people is that they’re trying to, “push something on them or that we were pushed into this, when in reality this is how we can be expressive.”
Tauri said that she thinks the biggest misunderstanding people have about drag is when people see it as inherently sexual in nature. While she said that it can be done that way in an adult setting, it’s an art form and can be done in many different ways.
Tauri also pointed out the way people perceive drag has to do with how women are hyper-sexualized.
“If we really get down to the core of it, the big issue is how people separate gender,” Tauri said. “They perceive women as sexual beings whether they are wanting you to or not.”
Goldie pointed out that her and the rest of the community aren’t going to, “come out and start protesting because they’re straight and have certain political or religious beliefs.”
“If you want to have certain beliefs, you’re welcome to have them. But on the same token, I’m welcome to my own beliefs,” Goldie said.
Tauri said that she’s met people who get enraged about drag, and ask something like, “Why would you want to dress up as a woman?”
“For fun,” Tauri said.
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