Rarely have I felt so comfortable as that one time I interviewed someone about their drag ego. His name was Sander, he was Lady Galore in the evenings with glitter and high heels and he exuded more hospitality than the average Van der Valk hotel (and those are fine hotels, you can imagine). Sander wondered aloud at 11:30 am whether it was time for an espresso martini (‘I only do this because it’s the weekend and I hadn’t cleaned up my cocktail stuff yet’) and before I knew it, I was sitting with my feet under my buttocks on his couch sipping a cocktail and almost forgetting I was interviewing him.
I think he had that gift because he himself was unwelcome for a long time. He was fifteen when his suitcase was packed in the hallway of his parents’ house. “I don’t want faggots in the house,” read the note that came with it. Sander left the note, took his suitcase and left.
He told me that sometimes he feels a bit like a poppy. They add color to the driest places in the country and the ugliest roadside verges, but they are delicate. The leaves are so thin that the wind can blow them away and the sun shines through them effortlessly.
As soon as a poppy is picked, it falls apart.
In Groningen, employees of a drag show bar were assaulted last weekend. In Eindhoven, a rainbow flag was removed from the COC building. This group is also having a hard time in America: a law was recently suspended that would ban their shows. If that law had been passed, drag queens would no longer be allowed to go near children.
Drag queens in combination with children: I had never thought about it, but apparently there are people who think that their offspring should not be confronted with beautifully dressed people who are full of color and glitter and guts and be yourself. While that should be the most important recipe for happiness that you pass on to your child: become who you want to be.
In Rotterdam, parents demonstrated at the library because of a reading afternoon with drag queens. They looked very angry, as if something very bad had been done to them, and they carried a banner. “Protect our families” it said. Nothing wrong with that, families want to protect, but what matters is what you want to protect them against.
I thought of Sander, who explained to me that his urge to express himself so expressively came from his toes. That it couldn’t be stopped. Probably not even if his parents had been standing with banners at a library. I wonder what would happen if one of the protesters’ children felt that drag urge bubbling in his, her or their toes. How that must be, if you feel that, while you have learned that another orientation or appearance is not allowed. Can not. Not hear.
There are a lot of poppies that don’t dare to look up to the sun. It is up to us, as a society, to stand around those colorful flowers and keep them out of the wind.
