Beirut is Burning Drag in the Creation of Queer Lebanese Identities

By Shereen Elsayed Advised by Professor Firat Oruc

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of Honors in Culture and Politics, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Spring 2019.

Table of Contents Introduction 1 Background 1 Note on Language and Terminology 4 Thesis Overview 7 Methodology 9 Research in Beirut 9 Theoretical Framework 13 Queer Theory 16 Postcolonial Theory 25 Contextualizing Beirut 38 Chapter 1: 46 Drag as a Hybrid: Foreign Influences and Local Responses 46 American Drag 48 The New York Ballroom Culture in Paris is Burning 48 RuPaul’s Drag Race 50 Finding Drag: The Initial Lebanese Reception of American Drag 55 Queering the Binary: The Gay International and American Drag 59 Appropriation and Transformation: The Hybridity of Drag in Beirut 63 Chapter 2: 73 Contesting Drag: Anti-Femininity and the Exclusion of Women 73 Institutionalized Heterosexuality 74 The Heterosexual Matrix and Anti-femininity 78 Drag: Exploration, Affirmation and Subversion 83 Women: Carving Out Spaces 94 Chapter 3: 99 Queer Resistance: Drag and the (Re)Making of the Self 99 Queer Organizing: Helem and Meem 102 Dragging “Resistance” 109 Conclusion: Futurities of Drag 121 References 127

1

Introduction

Background

The idea for this project began to take shape in my freshman year, when I was introduced to RuPaul’s Drag Race (hereafter referred to as RPDR). I was exposed to something that I struggled to understand as it was new but also familiar: Egyptian cinema has a long history of cross-dressing that was inserted for comedic effect and, sometimes, to enable the protagonists to claim spaces or activities from which they were barred. RPDR, however, dealt with drag in a serious manner as it was the contestants’ profession and the participants had so much to gain from the competition. The show demonstrated the queens’ various points of view on why they were doing drag and what it represented to them, giving weight to the art form while challenging normative notions of gender.

This provoked me to begin exploring the online community around the show, other drag artists in the United States and the conversations around gender and sexuality with which the LGBTQ+ community grappled. The tv series was a catalyst for me to think about the implications of denouncing gender and sexual norms and how drag performers engage with and rework these hegemonic understandings to tell their personal narratives of not fitting in and question the rigidity of these concepts. Thus the drag that I first became most familiar was the American version, which is born out of a post-Stonewall context and heavily informed by American values and a consumerist culture. It is also based upon televised and social media, not live shows.

The first live drag show I saw was in London by The LipSinkers; this gave me a profound appreciation for drag and continues to inspire me. Attending the show in person 2

removed the distance experienced of watching on a screen. One particular part of the

performance struck me: one member, a female drag queen, wore female attire and

simulated sex with a male drag queen, who was presenting as male. As the show

progressed, the performers exchanged clothes, switching gender identities and playing with

androgynous aesthetics. Simultaneously, they disrupted gendered sexual scripts by

assuming various sexual positions that did not correspond with their gender presentations.

The performance deconstructed the associations between body, gender and sexuality in

only a few minutes. Unlike RPDR, where a narrative is produced through processes such

as editing, one that caters to the sentiments and dispositions of the target audience, live

drag shows provide a greater space for the performers to present radical critique of the

associations between sex, gender and sexuality. Directing my attention to the concept of

an audience and the interaction between setting and performance in generating ideas and

feelings.

The geographical and temporal context proved to be fundamental in understanding drag performances, demonstrated by the shows I attended in Copenhagen, Denmark. The local drag, besides being inspired and shaped by the drag exhibited on RPDR, responded to and debated Danish conceptions of gender and sexuality and other cultural issues including the avoidance of discomfort in the interest of maintaining an ambiance of hygge or wellbeing. This helped me understand how the mainstream culture in each of the

countries shaped the format, subculture and aesthetics, resulting in various levels of

difference. I started thinking of how I could translate these experiences into a project that

would be relevant to me as an Arab. 3

The hosting of former contestants from RPDR in Beirut directed my attention to

the vibrant and growing drag scene there. The main challenge I faced, however, was the

fact that all my knowledge of drag was based upon its Western manifestations and its

relationships to the development of queer movements in these settings. I had to find a way

to decenter this, for such understanding of drag and the LGBTQ+ community, especially

in an American context, would have influenced my perspective, positioning me from

outside, looking in, if it had not been for my time in Beirut. My observations would have

been directed by what I expect to see in an American drag show, attempting to find

differences and similarities, rather than developing an understanding of the dynamics that

allow for a drag scene to flourish.

Yet during my fieldwork, I quickly discovered that my experience with American

drag and queer culture was shared by many drag performers, as they contended too with

what this influence means to them and their art. RuPaul’s Drag Race was their introduction to drag as well.1 The show was an integral part of the performers’ experiences, for they

conceptualized their drag personas, emulated some of the formats of the performances on

the show and dared to imagine of how successful drag can be. RPDR was a point of affinity between the interviewees and me that enabled me to relate to the performers and to decode the drag shows that were modeled on the show to a certain extent. While the drag shows in

Beirut display American influences, they are incorporated and resignified to reflect and comment on the local context, revealing a hybrid where cultural tensions are reinterpreted and navigated.

1 Sultana in discussion with the author, January 10th, 2019. 4

Note on Language and Terminology

This hybridity of the Lebanese lived experience, the drag performers’ subjectivities,

practices and expressions of queerness, point to another site of contention and negotiation,

language. Contemporary Arabic does not have a lexicon on gender, sex and sexuality that fully allows those identifying in non-heteronormative ways to express their identities,

history and lived experiences and to relate to others.2 The existent colloquial and formal

language is embedded in heteronormative cultural traditions, emphasizing the position of

an outsider of the queer person, where their queerness is described as deviance or an act, transitory and partial to the whole. Most of the colloquial vocabulary is derogatory, exercising violence on both an epistemological and ontological level, othering gender and sexual non-conforming individuals by evoking feelings of shame and anxiety. They are dehumanized as their identities are reduced to terms such as louti (sodomite) and khinti

(effeminate/faggot), which limit their sexual non-conformity to the sexual act or position and characterize their desires as fleeting and perverse, rather than as foundations for the creation of subjectivities.3 While more neutral words like mithli (derived from “same”)4,

are emerging in a process of experimentation in colloquial usage in the effort to expand the

Arabic language to encompass affirmative queer expressions, they are still tied instances

of abuse and violation in the national imagination, prompting some queer Arabs find in

English a recourse.5 Although borrowing English terms such as “gay,” “lesbian” and

2 Jad Jaber, “Arab Queer Language: What are the Characteristics of the Language Used Upon, and Within Queer Arab Culture, and How does that Affect the Identity-Formation and Subjectivity of Queer Arab Individuals?,” Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (2018): 6. 3 Ibid., 13-15. 4 A politically correct formal term used on a national scale especially in the media as a result of efforts by LGBTQ+ oriented NGOs such as Helem. 5 Jaber, “Arab Queer Language,” 20-21. 5

“queer,” a vocabulary describing different unlived Western subjectivities, risks alienating

their users as foreign, the meanings of these words are broken open to accommodate new

local understandings and definitions. The language on queerness available thus reflects the

precariousness of a queer Arab existence, where the lack of physical and linguistic space

for queer representations and modes of being to develop serve as limitations aimed at

erasure. However, the English language becomes a complex site of appropriation and self- formulation, resembling other efforts of adapting Western queer models, as will be explored later in the thesis.

Similarly, I am grappling with the dilemma of how to describe and theorize a

Lebanese queer identity reflected in their drag stemming from within the local context.

Writing from within Western academia and in English on Lebanese gender identities and

sexualities involves a degree of presumptions necessitated by theories emerging in the

anglophone West.6 These ideas, however, are constantly being challenged and

contextualized, subjected to processes of revision and translation. Acknowledging the

linguistic roots of the concepts used in this project as they are used in everyday lives does

not stipulate an uncritical approach to their perceived universality. Language is always

witnessing change, interacting in shaping and being shaped by the lived experiences and

embodiments of the subjects deploying it.7 Accordingly, throughout the thesis, I will be using the pronoun “they” and its derivatives to refer to the singular gender-neutral,

highlighting the evolving quality of language as well as the fluidity of the gender of my

interviewees. The use of English in this thesis and by some queer individuals in Lebanon

6 Sara Mourad, “Queering the Mother Tongue,” International Journal of Communication, 7 (2013): 2533. 7 Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni, introduction to Arab Subcultures: Transformations in Theory and Practice, (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2017): 5. 6

can therefore be seen as showing the “double-consciousness of hegemony: the evidence of its necessary gaps and incompleteness,” challenging the perceived American dominance, theoretically and linguistically, from within.8

Hence, the use of language in this thesis centralizes local understandings of queer

subjectivities that are simultaneously born out of the regional and national context and

affected by processes of globalization. The members of the community investigated engage

with the dominant ideologies and lexicon, using the language but in a way that suits their

reality and experiences, constituting and constitutive of how they feel, think and act out

their subjectivities.9 By using terms such as LGBTQ+ and gay as the interviewees use them, this project emphasizes the force of globalization on gender and sexual identities and expressions, while also disrupting the associations readers will have attached to this vocabulary, opening up possibilities of new understanding and meanings.10 The queer

community thus lies in a hybrid, transgressive space both linguistically and, through

language, in their lived experiences.

Mirroring and engaging with the linguistic practices of the subjects in question also serves to destabilize and, ultimately, unravel the binaries attached to Arab queer identities, such as West/East and authentic/imported, as well as essentialist views on language and culture. The centrality of language demonstrates the novelty of hybrid identities as categories of their own, in the process of forming intelligible expressions, refashioning the

8 Ramy Aly, “Hatha al-shibl min dhak al-Asad: Would-be Arab Youth Studies and the Revival of ‘Subculture,’” in Arab Subcultures, ed. Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2017): 30. 9 Aly, “Hatha al-shibl,” 29. 10 Sabry, Arab Subcultures, 7. 7

self and the society and appropriating spaces.11 The predominant use of “queer” is thus an

attempt at bringing to the fore the fluidity of sexual and gender identities and the

implications of this instability as it eddies out affecting the Lebanese social fabric, by

undermining the conception of rigid sectarian identities. “Queer” also enables us to

acknowledge the variance and diversity of embodiments of terms and the meanings

attached to them, where local contexts and practices play a significant role in forging

specific understandings, disrupting normative ones and challenging assumed universal

associations. The term “queer” thus tells as much as it leaves untold.

Thesis Overview

This thesis analyzes the role of drag performance in constructing a queer

Lebanese identity and creating queer spaces and a queer community in Beirut, bound by a

sectarian and communal context but also subjected to global processes of theorizing and

enacting gender and sexuality. The project will thus focus upon both the subjectivities of

the performers and the sociopolitical circumstances within which they operate to fully

conceptualize the novelty of hybrid identities that are not located at the intersection of

competing ideologies but, by constantly disrupting and challenging them, work to create

new selves. The thesis will be divided into five chapters. The first is the Methodology, divided into two sections, Research in Beirut and Theoretical Framework. I subsequently offer a short sketch of post-civil war Beirut, with a focus on state-LGBTQ+ relations to

situate drag and its queer performers in the domestic political and social dynamics. Next, I

explore the methods of engagement with American drag symbolized in the reality show

11 Mourad, “Queering the Mother Tongue," 2539. 8

RuPaul’s Drag Race, given that it acts as a reference for both the performers and the audience served, for most of them, as their initial point of contact with drag, in Foreign

Influences and Local Responses. Then I consider male femininity and the othering of female bodies in the drag scene in Contesting in Drag: Anti-Femininity and the Exclusion of Women, highlighting the processes by which boundaries are formed and drag is used to subvert and/or reinforce hegemonic structures and discourse. In the fourth chapter, Queer

Resistance: Drag and the (re)Making of the Self, I engage in a critique of “resistance” by comparing how formal queer organizations, represented by Helem and Meem, and drag influence the culture and politics of Beirut. Finally, is the concluding chapter, presenting the deeper implications of the project and suggesting further avenues of research. 9

Methodology

Research in Beirut

My research in Beirut employed a combination of methods: interviews with self- identified drag performers, participant observation at drag shows, discourse analysis of the online presence of the queens on Instagram and other supporting primary sources such as magazines and podcasts. I chose multiple forms of data collection in an attempt to capture the negotiations and disruptions of the drag performers’ identities and engage the ways they think, talk and present what they do. I undertook the fieldwork was over three weeks in Beirut, during which I conducted six of the ten interviews, attended three drag shows and gathered primary sources. I was contacted all interviewees through Instagram, which played a major role in my research in terms of access, digital content and finding supplementary primary sources. In my messages, I stated my goal of researching the experiences of drag queens and asked for interviews, giving the option of meeting in person or communicating through a phone call or over email. I also guaranteed confidentiality and gave them the options of using their stage names or remaining anonymous; all the

performers chose to use their drag name and the others consented to the publication of their

real names. We then used WhatsApp, as suggested by the potential interviewees, to talk on

the days of our meetings as it was more convenient.

The thesis primarily draws on seven interviews with drag queens, one interview

with a drag king and two interviews with members of Helem, to explore the individual and

collective identity of the performers and the ways in which they make meanings of their 10

realities and what they try to represent.1 The six interviews conducted in Beirut were in

person, one was through email and the rest over a video call in the during the following

weeks. Most of the interviews took place in coffee shops in the Hamra district, and a few

were located at their place of work (LGBTQ+ centers) and one at the home of the

interviewee. The average time of an interview was an hour and 15minutes, with a few

follow up questions sent through text when needed. The interviews were semi-structured as I aimed to create a comfortable and conversational setting. My role was to guide the interviewees to elaborate on certain unclear aspects they touched on and to have them

follow their own trains of thought, so I did not speak much only interjecting to ask more

questions or to agree when appropriate. My positionality as an Arab but not Lebanese, of

an English education and with similar familial background enabled me to lie between being

an insider or an outsider. I could relate to the interviewees and they showed a willingness

to talk about private issues that influence their drag. The interviews were predominantly

conducted in English as I explained that the thesis will be written in English, but Arabic

featured heavily which I translated myself.

Beginning each interview, I asked for pronouns to be able to correctly address the

interviewees and at times, the question served as a good beginning to the interview as some

found it to be a relevant topic to their person and art. The interviews featured several

questions on gender and the gender presentations of the interviewees if they perform.2

Therefore, I will refer to the performers as she when in drag and he or she out of drag or

they in both cases, following their conceptions of self and gender. Six of those interviewed

1 See similar: Verta Taylor and Leila J. Rupp. “Chicks with Dicks, Men in Dresses: What It Means to Be a Drag Queen,” Journal of Homosexuality 46, no. 3-4 (2004): 113-133. 2 See similar: Heidi M. Levitt et al., “Drag Gender: Experiences of Gender for Gay and Queer Men who Perform Drag,” Sex Roles, 78 (2018): 367, DOI 10.1007/s11199-017-0802-7. 11

used he/him/his for pronouns, three used she/her/hers. Lastly, one performer did not think gender existed and so, for them pronouns did not carry much weight. I will be referring to them as they, in an attempt to emphasize their existence outside the perceived binary of gender, even though they did not mind my use of any pronouns to describe them. All of the interviewees aged between nineteen and their early thirties; they were studying or working or both and if they did drag, it was as a hobby. Additionally, they all belonged to the middle-class and were of French or American education. The format of the interviews varied. The interviews directed at the drag performers were open-ended, following the flow

of the conversation, covering broad themes such as the individual performer’s relationship

to drag, the emergence of drag in Beirut, the LGBTQ+ experience in the city, and Western

influences on drag and the LGBTQ+ community. The interviews were sometimes tailored

to the individual performer, depending on the available online content. For the interview

conducted via email, I sent the main questions and received a response a few days later.

The interviews conducted with Helem’s representatives, the executive director and the

head of the women’s committee, were less structured. Those interviews touched on the

work of the member and their department of the organization, their relationship to drag and

their observations on the state of the LGBTQ+ community in the city.

During my stay in Beirut, I attended three drag shows: one by Kawkab Zuhal,

known for her emphasis on Arabic and the local culture; another by The House of Bombé,

their first show together as a drag family; and the Beirut Grand Ball, an annual competition

drawing prominent performers and queer figures. I was able to make observations on how the queens or host presented the show, the format of the shows, the audiences present and 12

the content of the various performances.3 The three shows were diverse, and each was

unique in what it represented. The Beirut Grand Ball was especially illuminating as it

exhibited a large number of performers, some who have been performing for years and for

others, that night was their first public performance. The Ball celebrated a number of queer

performers as well as other queer artists, further giving me a sense of the community and

the working of balls in Beirut, as this is the biggest.

Instagram also helped me conceptualize the queer community surrounding drag, as

I could see interactions with an audience and the range of activities advertised, finding

more primary sources in the process.4 I was privy to the issues facing the community I saw

physically when attending the shows such as the ban on Grindr and their relationship with

the global queer community, which they expressed through raising awareness about

crackdowns in multiple parts of the world. Using this online platform, I found and analyzed

primary sources such as the podcasts, queer magazines, posters for the events and what the

performers share on their accounts. I transcribed a few episodes of the podcasts: The Queer

Arabs Podcast and Queer Narratives Beirut, which featured several drag queens and a

prominent organizers of a number of drag events. The magazines were another avenue from

which I could collect information from interviews with highly successful drag queens in

the city. I also noted the self-portrayals and the themes present in the captions on the

Instagram accounts of the performers. Their online presence offers a profound insight into

how the drag performers present their art to each other and to their audience, solidifying a

3 See similar: Tara Pauliny, “Erotic Arguments and Persuasive Acts,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3-4 (2003): 221-249, DOI: 10.1300/J082v43n03_14 4 See similar: David Gudelunas, “Digital Extensions, Experiential Extensions and Hair Extensions: RuPaul’s Drag Race and the New Media Environment,” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture, ed. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 231-244.

13

strong sense of a community. Additionally, the practices of self-presentation reveal processes of meaning making and the implications of those meanings.

Theoretical Framework

Despite the growing global interest in drag and the accompanying field of research

examining constructions of gender and sexuality in drag performances, there is very little

research on drag outside of Europe and the United states, and none on drag in the Middle

East. The existing scholarship on drag focuses on the construction of personal and

collective identities, how the performers experience gender on and off the stage, ballroom

culture, the use of language in drag, effects of and on the audience and the subversiveness

of drag.5 The literature on drag in non-Western contexts challenges theorizations of drag

that are based on a Western subject, as will be discussed below, demonstrating the varying

premises from which drag in these contexts emerges and the different meanings drag

performers draw on and/or seek to change.6 Academic studies on gender and sexual non-

conformity in the Middle East have yet to explore the drag scenes blossoming in multiple

countries across the region. The current literature ranges from examining the role of the

state in the suppression of queer individuals and communities, documenting underground

queer communities and identities, assessing LGBTQ+ organizations and advocacy, and

5 See, for example: Levitt et al., “Drag Gender,” 367-384; Marlon M. Bailey, “Gender/Racial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture,” Feminist Studies 37, no. 2 (2011): 365-386, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23069907; Ramey Moore, “Everything Else is Drag: Linguistic Drag and Gender Parody on RuPaul's Drag Race,” Journal of Research in Gender Studies, 3, no.2 (2013): 15-26; Steven P. Schacht, “Lesbian Drag Kings and the Feminine Embodiment of the Masculine,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3-4 (2003): 75-98, DOI: 10.1300/J082v43n03_06. 6 See, for example: Kalissa Alexeyeff, “Dragging Drag: The Performance of Gender and Sexuality in the Cook Islands,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 11, no.3 (2000): 297-307; Amanda Lock Swarr, “Moffies, Artists, and Queens,” Journal of Homosexuality, 46, no.3-4 (2004) 73-89, DOI:10.1300/J082v46n03_05. 14

tracing shifts in meanings and practices tied to sexuality and gender presentations using a

historical lens.7 Until now, only Euro-American journalistic articles have shed light on the

Lebanese drag scene.8 Nevertheless, they do so from a Western perspective by highlighting

the perceived emulation of Western expressions of queerness and accentuating the threats

of the oppressive government, in furtherance of a narrative of progress where the West is

in the lead.

This thesis aims to fill this gap in scholarly work by examining the emerging drag

scene in Beirut through building on and engaging with queer theory, postcolonial theory,

and the conversation between the two and resistance theory. I complicate the debate on the

subversiveness of drag and conceptions of resistance by focusing on the context of Beirut

that shapes and is influenced by the drag performers and the community surrounding them.

Due to the effects of globalization on the city, what is local and what is foreign cannot be

easily discerned; thus the focus will be on how these various systems of knowledge are

experienced, contested and represented in the drag performances. My fieldwork enables

me to place Western and non-Western theorizations of drag in direct conversation with the

specific social and historical context of the drag scene in modern-day Beirut.

7 See, for example: Brian Whitaker, Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East (California: University of California Press, 2006); Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World (New York: Anchor Books, 2014); Ghassan Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing: Towards a more complex analysis of LGBTQ organizing in Lebanon,” Sexualities 18, no.5-6 (2015): 593-617; Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). 8 Louisa Loveluck and Ghalia al-Alwani, “Beirut’s fearless drag queens defy Middle Eastern conservatism,” Washington Post, January 28, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/beiruts- fearless-drag-queens-belie-middle-eastern-conservatism/2019/01/26/2a7abcd4-ffb7-11e8-a17e- 162b712e8fc2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e3b835439474; Thomas Aagaard, “Meet the 'fearless' drag queens of Beirut,” BBC News, 9 April, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures- 43489374. 15

This section will begin by giving a brief description of what drag is, could be and

do. Then it will turn to Western conceptions of drag, situating the thesis in the debate on

the subversiveness of drag, especially in relation to the perceived audience. Next, it will

engage with the literature on drag in non-Western contexts to destabilize the existing

theories on drag and to complicate the basis upon which the thesis builds. The focus will

then shift to postcolonial theory, pausing to concentrate on Joseph Massad’s Desiring

Arabs, not only to contextualize the subject position of the community in question but also

to stress the processes of reworking and resignification that the drag in Beirut engages in

facing globalization and American cultural hegemony. Finally, José Esteban Muñoz’s

Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics will be coupled with

postcolonial feminist theory to examine the way drag in Beirut engages with dominant

discourses on visibility, coming out and pride, as well as how political resistance or

activism can be conceived.9

Drag is a performance that involves dressing up and miming gender, usually a

gender that differs from the one assigned at birth. Performers employ a range of drag

technologies including shading and contouring to alter the shape of the face and body

through makeup, padding or packing where performers use prosthetics to create silhouettes

of their bodies conforming with stereotypical images of the gender they seek to embody,

and tucking or binding, processes by which gender indicative body parts are hidden to

prevent normative associations with the performers’ bodies.10 Drag has been defined with

references to desires, sexuality, the body and the mind and gendered clothing, recreating

9 José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). 10 Stephen Farrier, “International Influences and Drag: just a case of tucking or binding?,” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 8, no.2 (2017): 178, DOI:10.1080/19443927.2017.1317657 178. 16

the binary of sex and gender and establishing biological determinism.11 However, it is as

elusive as the term queer and harbors the potential to transgress and subvert. Drag can

subvert established hegemonies, transgress on gender norms, and reveal the performance

of gender and sexuality; it can also stabilize heterosexuality, misogyny, racism and/or other

regimes of power.12 It can be feminine or masculine presenting, thus adhering to the gender

binary or genderqueer/androgynous presenting different performance styles such as camp or baroque. The performers can have any sexual orientation, identify as any gender, and drag as any gender or no gender at all. Drag performers can sing, lip-sync, put on a dance performance or vogue; they can also not perform in this sense, existing solely on social media or presenting themselves as an art piece to be looked at and appreciated. The venues can range from private parties, bars/clubs, brunches, bingos, gay pride parades, social media and the internet, television and radio, and the streets.

Queer Theory

In this project, I conceive of queer theory according to Carla Freccero’s stance on

the term “queer:” “resistance to its hypostatization, reification into nominal status as

designating an entity, an identity, a thing.”13 Queerness is not restricted to expressions of

non-normative gender and sexuality, but is a movement, a becoming, transforming and

breaking the conception of the rigidity of unitary identity and its boundaries. This thesis

will take queer theory to be anti-identitarian and deconstructive, a means for unsettling

established foundations of identity, invoking uncertainty, indefiniteness and possibility.

11 See, for example: K. Surkan, “Drag Kings in the New Wave,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3-4 (2003): 161–186. doi:10.1300/J082v43n03_10. 12 See, for example: J. Halberstam, “Mackdaddy, Superfly, Rapper: Gender, race, and masculinity in the drag king scene,” Social Text, 52/53 (1997): 105–131. 13 Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006), 5. 17

Identity will be employed using Martin Manalansan’s definition: “not as a fixed and stable

category, but rather as one that is highly processual, mobile, fluid, and contingent.

Identities both collective and individual are also ‘imagined,’ meaning that they are formulated and re-presented in particular cultural forms or expressions, such as rituals.”14

Sexuality and gender are thus not static and fixed identities, practices and desires, but

constantly in the process of construction and deconstruction. They are also constituents

among other factors, such as race, class, religious sect and migrant status, that produce

multiple and complex subjectivities of individuals and affect their experiences of exclusion

and inclusion.

Within the context of queer theory, drag is not seen as equally disruptive as the term

“queer” as researchers hold ambivalent views on how subversive drag is, disagreeing on

the aspects or contexts that either result in transgression or the re-inscription of existing gender and sexual hegemony. Some qualify this challenge of normative conceptions of gender, sex and sexuality by examining the ideologies motivating the performances, the context in which it is presented and the stability of the gender identity of the performers.15

Others, among them is R. Tewksbury, contend that drag only serves to solidify the current

gender hierarchy and gender norms.16 He argues that drag queens, specifically, are not

challenging the gendered hierarchy as a whole, but use the image of “woman,” a further

14 Martin Manalansan, Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 2000), 185. 15 Justine Egner & Patricia Maloney “‘It Has No Color, It Has No Gender, It’s Gender Bending:’ Gender and Sexuality Fluidity and Subversiveness in Drag Performance,” Journal of Homosexuality, 63, no.7 (2016): 879, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2015.1116345. 16 For example, Steven P. Schacht & Lisa Underwood, “The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators,” Journal of Homosexuality, 46, no.3-4 (2004): 1-17, DOI: 10.1300/J082v46n03_01; Thomas Piontek, “Kinging in the Heartland; or, The Power of Marginality,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3–4, (2003): 125–143, doi:10.1300/J082v43n03_08. 18

subordinated position, to critique hegemonic masculinity which they fail to personify due

to their sexual orientation and/or non-normative gender. Rather than break the concept of

gender and question the patriarchal power exercised through the enforcement of gender

and sexual norms, drag queens oppose the gender system demanding their inclusion and

restoration of their male privilege.17

Judith Butler, on the other hand, centralizes the potential of subversion, extending

her theory on gender performativity to encompass drag. She theorizes gender as a

performance of norms, an “imitation for which there is no original,” no original ground in

culture or nature but are stabilized through constant repetition. 18 For example, she gives

the case of an infant who through the collapse of sex and gender transforms from “it” to

“he” or “she” through this act of naming or gendering leading to the construction of their

social identity.19 While she explores the performativity of gender, she is not accepting the

perceived natural quality of sex, disrupting the associations between genitals, sexuality and

gender. She also deconstructs nature as a creation of culture, where nature is not pure nor

given. Culture, however, makes this citation of norms context specific, where for instance,

in the Arabian Gulf, putting on the abaya forms the subject, who through the reiteration of

norms, comes to know herself in relation to others. Because of this production and

reproduction of performativity, she becomes an intelligible and governable subject,

enthralled in multiple systems of power. Yet this very quality of replication that establishes

17 Richard Tewksbury, “Gender Construction and the Female Impersonator: The process of transforming ‘he’ to ‘she,’” Deviant Behavior, 15, no.1 (1994): 37, DOI: 10.1080/01639625.1994.9967956. 18 Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove et al. (New York: Routledge, 1993): 313. 19 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter on the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011): 232. 19

gender as “natural,” serves to undermine it due to the imperfect formulations of this

construct.

Accordingly, she views drag as a parody of this imagined conception of gender,

possessing both the possibility of the reiteration of norms and their subversion. Drag for

Butler, “constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalized,

worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and

approximation,” which reveals the associations between sex, gender and sexuality and

contests essentialist claims of their formation.20 It is not inherently subversive however and does not simply resist gender and sexual dichotomies and reveal the limits of identity, as can also “reidealize heterosexual norms without calling them into question.” 21 Because desires cannot be wholly regulated and subsumed under the politics of transgression, one may adopt these normative conceptions in an effort to gain privilege from within the system. Therefore, drag is a product of the systems of oppression, uncovering how socially ideal genders are normalized and performed, with the potential to reinforce and uphold and/or resignify and subvert.

Protesting the supposed ambivalence of drag, Madison Moore, in Fabulous: The

Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, absorbs drag into the category of the fabulous.

Fabulousness is defined as a striking and disruptive aesthetic and hence, a performance, developed from within and in opposition to a status of marginalization. The “look” is a process of transforming shame, trauma, exclusion, difficulty, violence, and the denial of the right of those who are othered to take up space and be the way they desire, into a focal

20 Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," in The Judith Butler Reader, ed Sara Salih and Judith Butler (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004): 131. 21 Butler, Bodies that Matter, 125. 20

point of attention to assert themselves. It is therefore a constant struggle against the

mainstream, “dangerous, political, confrontational, risky,” a statement made through style

and presence that challenges systems of oppression including heteronormativity, racism

and the patriarchy.22 Despite and regardless of intent or result, even if it is merely a means

of self-expression, looking fabulous is an act of political resistance where the simple

existence of the subject subverts, defies and alters norms, risking ridicule and verbal and

physical abuse.23 Since fabulousness, among other things, aims move “past gender, to

abstract it, to end it altogether,” drag, in its engagement with gender norms, its larger than life attitude and its visual abstraction, is fabulous and thus political.24

Finally, the necessity of contextualization also plays a strong role in the debates

about the nature of drag: Egner and Maloney’s research stresses the importance of the

setting of the performances and interactions with the audience in challenging the beliefs

around gender and sexuality.25 Setting is important because drag shows offer spaces of

sexual and gender experimentation for the audience, who attended with a willingness to

have their views challenged, contested and/or affirmed. This was confirmed by my

fieldwork, where the performers stressed their desire to subvert not only mainstream

society but their audiences as well, pushing their boundaries to expose societal

constructions of gender and to negotiate, narrate and construct their own experiences and

embodiments of gender and sexuality. The performances, besides transgressing on hegemonic structures, offer affirmation of queerness and empower both the performers and

22 Madison Moore, Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 8. 23 Ibid., 24 Ibid., 15. 25 Egner and Maloney, “‘It Has No Color, It Has No Gender,’” 882. 21 the audience. Although marginalized socially and politically, the performers are in control of the audience and the space during the show.

In the process, the project will foreground context as it determines the reciprocity of the audience shaping and being shaped by the consciousness, subjectivity and identity of the drag performers. Drag queens as well as the audience work within the framework of an established structure of power that allows for small spaces of resistance in the form of rearticulation, using the hegemonic discourses and language provided. As gender is a performance done by and for individuals, it has to be intelligible for both parties, thus drag performances are heavily influenced by the performers’ subjectivities and the spaces in which they perform in the form of the audience’s makeup and context.26 The performers rework and/or restate social conceptions of gender and queerness as they interact with their audiences, choosing to adopt or defy these norms based on their perception of the audience and the accompanying pressures and expectations.

This thesis adopts a position of ambivalence too, towards drag. Drag is transgressive and subversive, especially in Beirut as it elicits a range of responses, some very extreme, reflecting the threats imposed by drag to structures of hegemony. Hence, the project aims to explore the ways in which subversion is expressed, what is subverted and how, and what alternative discourses on gender are constructed and projected.

Nevertheless, the thesis also examines the ways in which drag can also uphold and reiterate dominant discourses of gender hierarchy through a discussion of the marginalization of drag kings and the lack of presence of female bodies in the Beiruti drag scene.

26 Ibid., 883. 22

Non-Western Drag

Queer theory has been criticized for its American-Eurocentricity and assumptions of universality of white queer subjectivities. Issues of race and class were relegated in favor of gender and sexuality, further marginalizing non-White and non-Western queerness.

Although the literature on drag in non-Western is meager, it functions as a basis for decentering and contextualizing Western conceptions of drag, challenging their applicability across contexts and social makeups. This section will consider Amanda L.

Swarr’s Moffies, Artists, and Queens and Kalissa Alexeyeff’s Dragging Drag: The

Performance of Gender and Sexuality in the Cook Islands, which demonstrate the instability of boundaries of the term “drag,” as well as the significance of the locality in circumscribing drag representations and what the performers respond to.27

Swarr surveys the different drag scenes found in South Africa, namely urban and township, which operate based on distinct racialized sex-gender-sexuality systems. Drag is informed by gendered, racialized and sexed representations, reproducing and reestablishing existing hierarchies while simultaneously cracking them.28 In the township,

“gay” carries a different meaning from the white/Western conception of the term, linking gender with sexuality rather than sex. Feminine men exist in another category besides

“man” and “woman” under multiple names, depending on whether the community and individual is Black or Coloured. “Gayness” becomes its own gender category, adding to

27 Swarr, “Moffies, Artists, and Queens,” 73-89; Alexeyeff, “Dragging Drag,” 297-307. 28 Swarr, “Moffies, Artists, and Queens,” 74. 23

the binaries of sex and gender, in opposition to the biological man and his association with

normative masculinity.29

Racial hierarchies thus penetrate drag in urban and township spaces, reproducing

whiteness as the default canvass through which creativity and a range of expressions can

be formed, in contrast to non-whiteness which is specific to certain images and/or

stereotypes. In townships, drag is closely tied to gender presentations in the performers’ daily lives, from relationships to community ties and visibility.30 Black and Coloured

performers, blur the line between what Westerners would deem as drag and being

transgender, because these terms are not applicable and hold different meanings based on

the existing beliefs on gender, sex and sexuality. In the cities, on the other hand, performers

do not drag as the gender they identify with.31 This discrepancy in the conception of what

drag is or does between White “drag artists” and Black or Coloured “drag queens” mirrors

the subordination of non-white South Africans as the white conception of drag is widely

regarded predominantly by White performers and audiences as superior.32 Hence, South

African drag highlights race and class issues that affect notions of gender, sex and sexuality and correspondingly what is considered as drag, reflected in the relationship between performer and audience. Given the racial makeup and setting of the performances, drag has

the potential to challenge, disrupt and subvert gendered, sexed and racial systems of oppression and/or to stabilize these hierarchies.33

29 Ibid., 76-77. 30 Ibid., 80. 31 Ibid., 85. 32 Ibid., 86. 33 Ibid. 24

Similarly, Alexeyeff disrupts Western notions of drag by examining the ways in

which gender and sexuality are understood, enacted and reworked in drag performances.34

Personhood is constituted through performance such as through actions and practices and

through ties to the social fabric in terms of kinship, community and affiliations to the nation

and to villages. Gender in the Cook Islands is intimately linked to the self and constitutes

one’s identity, as it is tied to behavior, actions and roles, reflecting one’s essence; whereas

sexuality is not a prominent feature in one’s identity as it is with a Western subject and the distinction between sex and gender is a given.35 While in the West, drag exposes the

construction of a stabilized association between sex and gender, in the Cook Islands, it

points to the relationship between gender and soul demonstrated in one’s appearance. The

performers engage with gendered norms on movement and dance which are intertwined

with social roles and community engagement, distinctions of private and public and

biological sex.36 Due to the different premises drag is born out of and engages with in this

context compared to the West, what is transgressed is the relationship between the

individual and society, the private and the public, bringing to light what society deems

taboo to embody in public and talk about.37

Both Swarr and Alexeyeff reveal the assumption of a Western subject that inform

understandings of drag. Swarr interrogates Western notions of autonomy, revealing the

relationality employed in the construction of the self, where gender is thought of as binary

or fluid, specific to the setting. The multiple identities embodied by the performers thus

34 Alexeyeff, “Dragging Drag,” 306. 35 Ibid., 300. 36 Ibid., 306. 37 Ibid., 303. 25

titillate and disrupt or solidify the audience’s conceptualizations of gender and the images

they associate to it. In addition, Alexeyeff highlights the role of the community in dictating

the boundaries of the public and private and defining taboos. Drawing on these approaches

to drag, this thesis will contribute to these works by emphasizing the multiplicity and

contradictory lived experiences of queer subjectivities in Beirut which result in various

methods of transgression in response to the local and global discourses these individuals

face. The Lebanese self is constructed through intersections of gender, sexuality, class, and

religious sect, informing what is represented on the stage and what the performers choose to defy or adopt.

Postcolonial Theory

Complicating Desiring Arabs

Joseph Massad’s Desiring Arabs is instrumental in sketching the transnational political discourse on sexual rights.38 It engages in an extensive study of gender and sexual pre-modern and contemporary cultural productions in the Arab World to highlight the ways in which Orientalist views of Arab sexuality have been adopted and continue to influence the self-perception of Arabs. In the first part, Massad traces the process of constructing an

Arab culture through an imagined past, in order for Arab countries to be able to be seen as modern and capable of progress, utilizing a Western theoretical framework without problematizing it. He retrieves the suppressed archive of male same-sex love poetry, citing the likes of Abu Nuwas, as examples of a range of authentic expressions of non-normative desires predating colonialism, where sexuality did not define identity, to illustrate the

38 Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 26

morality imposed through colonialism that suppressed these practices. In the last part, he

surveys same-sex representations in Arabic fiction and film, emphasizing the use of

sexuality in reflecting a crisis of masculinity and national decline. He also contends that

these non-heteronormative representations shifted from being a detail in the life of the

characters to an identity marker, a move he attributes to Western influence. Massad’s

critique of the supposedly recent rise of sexual identity politics, which subtends his entire

project, takes up the middle of the book and is the focus of this section.

He ascribes this universalization of gay rights to the “Gay International,” an

imperialist endeavor, motivated by orientalist and assimilationist ideas, that erases the

multiple subjectivities of inhabiting non-normative desires and practices and imposes a

Western conception of subjecthood and identity instead. Thus, Arab “practitioners of same-

sex contact into subjects who identify as ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay,’” repressing authentic

expressions of non-normative desires, practices and orientation of self in favor of a foreign

articulation, which the Gay International posits as the only intelligible model. 39 Massad objects to the political and epistemic violence done by the norms imposed upon those seeking to be “queer,” such as coming out and publicizing one’s sexual and gender identities, encouraged by American and European organizations as this endeavor employs a rhetoric that uses non-normative sexuality as a measure of “civility” and “progress.” In

“heterosexualizing a world that is being forced to be fixed by a Western binary” of homo/heterosexual where none existed, the Middle East is again rendered backwards and violent, incapable of encompassing sexual difference.40 Massad, undermining the role of

39 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 162. 40 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 383. 27

local repression, argues that by highlighting Middle Eastern repression of this Western

constructed homosexual identity and reacting to it with interventionist policies that leads

to further repression, the Gay International “feeds upon the victimization of those whom it

supposes to liberate.”41 Additionally, he views Arab queer movements and NGOs oriented

towards LBGTQ+ issues to be complicit in furthering this imperialist agenda by identifying

with a global LGBTQ+ community and adopting organizational strategies, foreign to the

local culture and setting. 42

Massad’s critique is crucial in outlining how the imperialism of Western states,

organizations, intellectuals and queers, in attacking the Middle East for its oppression, do

so by universalizing the Western notion of a gay identity and make no effort to understand

the complexity of the forms non-normative sexuality takes there and the contexts from

which they emerge. However, it falls into the colonial trap of essentializing a Middle

Eastern tradition of same-sex behavior that is ahistoric and independent of context. He

upholds the East/West binary, regarding “gay” as a fixed identity in both the East and the

West, rather than a sign open to processes or signification and remaking, holding various

meanings depending on the temporal and geographical context. Approaching identity from

this perspective also neglects the effects of precolonial migration and exposure to

difference, of colonial sexual shaming and of the ways sexuality has been repeatedly

confined and regulated in the processes of state-formation and movements of

independence. For Massad, “tradition” is static and pure, when it is neither, as

41 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 260. 42 Ernesto Pagano and Joseph Massad, “The West and the Orientalism of sexuality,” ResetDoc, December 2009, https://www.resetdoc.org/story/the-west-and-the-orientalism-of-sexuality/ 28 colonialization, post-colonialization and globalization continue to exert influence, causing hybridity, instability and transformations.

Ensnared in the binary of East and West and nostalgic for an authentic manifestation of non-normative sexuality, Massad imposes a simplistic and reductive image of a gay identity, one derived from precisely the Western concept he criticizes, upon all queer Middle Eastern individuals. This simplification of desire, sexuality and complex local and global forces shaping identities prevents him from seeing the actual lives they live, the complex subjectivities they have developed to negotiate their equally complex cultural realities. His theorization is not exactly in tune with what queer individuals, communities and organizations grapple with, experience and choose to defy as he denies them agency and self-consciousness by labeling victims who opted for a Western identity.

He underestimates the range of methods they employ to combat Western rhetoric, which uses queer Arabs for its imperialist ends, and local governments, which also use queer citizens as scapegoats upon which public morality and order are exercised and manifested.

Several publications by queer activists across the Arab World demonstrate an awareness of what globalized gender and sexual identities entail, and debate strategies to consolidate and form locally born identities that are better suited for themselves. As Musa

Al Shadeedi writes on coming out, in “Globalizing the Closet: Is ‘Coming Out’ a Western

Concept?”, “such a model has imposed itself as a ready model, suppressed our culture as gay Arabs, and restrained us from pursuing our own way that can meet our needs.”43 His words reflect an ethical obligation to oneself and the community to negotiate a mode of

43 Musa Al Shadeedi, “Globalizing the Closet: Is ‘Coming Out’ a Western Concept?,” MyKali Magazine, March 30, 2018, https://www.mykalimag.com/en/2018/03/30/globalizing-the-closet-is-coming-out-a- western-concept/. 29

expressing queerness as a facet of oneself, between whatever inspiration they may take

from Western freedoms and the constraints of their social positions. Queer Arabs are thus

quite self-conscious about the ways in which Western conceptions of a queer identity have

threatened to normalize them, believing in the specifity of the activist movement as

globalizing it would only serve to “strip it away from the context, the history, the

environment, the language, the relationships and its specific politics.”44 Rather than

adopting a Western identity as Massad sees to be the case, activist organizations such as

Helem and Meem in Lebanon and across the region, problematize and critique this imposed

identity as it does not relate to their experiences and aims to save them from people among

who they belong. Mirroring these criticisms of Western queer identities, are the drag

queens in Beirut explored in the chapter on American drag. I will show, in detail, the

complexities of queer Beirutis’ relationship to Western culture, their self-consciousness

about the limitations and dangers of what it gives and the ways in which they use foreign

conceptions to help them negotiate a new space within their culture, an engagement that

does not fall into Massad’s cliché.

Queer Arabs thus inhabit a complex reality, a hybrid of queer being and making, a

complexity that has only intensified in the time of post-colonialism and globalization,

birthing ever more intense hybridity. Hybridization is the creation of a new form through

the violent interaction between a colonial power and indigenous cultures, one that is

44 Haneen Maeki and Sami Shamali, “International Day Against Homophobia: between the Western experience and the reality of queer communities,” Qadita.net, May 17, 2011, http://www.qadita.net/archive/queers/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%85- %D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A- %D9%84%D9%85%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9- %D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8- %D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AB%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D9%8A/. 30 unstable, fluid, contradictory, in a constant state of renewal. For Homi K. Bhabha, hybridity is a social practice of questioning, revising and withdrawing colonial authority, that

“reveals the ambivalence at the source of traditional discourses on authority,” opening up spaces for resignification and meaning making where the Other fuses with and contests the self.45 It “enables a form of subversion… that turns the discursive conditions of dominance into the grounds of intervention.”46 In a position of subordination locally and globally, queer Arabs undertake a process of negotiation between discourses, cultures and practices exercising strategies of appropriation and revision to create possibilities of advantage. They occupy a third, liminal space, “‘neither the One…nor the Other… but something else besides which contests the terms and territories of both.’”47 This site of inbetweenness, of crossing these discursive borders, allows for inventive and transformational changes, where the dominant and the subordinate produce traces, transgressions, ambiguities, alternative identities and politics. This space of unexpected encounters, contributes to the development of a mode of being, an individual with certain agency which will be explored in the next section.

Although queer Arabs find their choices circumscribed by both Western hegemonic structures and local religious, cultural and political realities, they constantly work to carve out ever-shifting spaces of defiance, reinscription and reworking. Whereas a Western conception of sexuality pervades in the local community, each one individually adapts it to suit the local and cultural context: for example, the personal narratives of queer Arab women focus upon shame rather than pride, which suppresses any negative emotions in

45 Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race, (London: Routledge, 1995), 22. 46 Ibid., 23. 47 Ibid. 31

Western queer representations. This leads to the resignification of Western identities to suit a Lebanese religious and cultural context making them thus not entirely Western nor

Eastern but refashioned according to the spaces created for and by the individuals and their diverse communities. Rather than being limited to Massad’s binary of premodern East and modern West, Arab queers have thus shown the ability to ceaselessly forge new thought, new modes of being, within the liminal spaces left to them by local and global cultural forces.

As my thesis will fully show, drag in Beirut also exists in this hybridity, complicating issues of visibility and the closet, translating, altering and utilizing them in ways that help the performers more freely and fully inhabit their personal stories and turn them into narratives that they can share with others in the community. These performers knowingly and actively face competing and overlapping discourses on modes of being and presenting themselves to the world, as both liberal individuals and selves made through kinship ties and other affiliations. They thus face choices, compromises and mediations that open spaces for them, while simultaneously reinscribe patriarchal and liberalist conceptions of the self.

On Agency, Resistance and Politics

Referring back to Massad, by reducing queer Arabs to unknowing victims who adopt the unified identity of the Gay International, he strips away their political agency. The drag in

Beirut allows us to witness the workings of subjectivities and the intersections of several fields, pushing us away from the binary of victim and rebel. Understanding the layers of complexities and priorities governing the lives of queer individuals in non-Western contexts, their political agency, self-consciousness, and subjectivity, however, necessitates 32

thinking beyond the Western neoliberal subject through which political agency and

resistance are usually conceptualized. This neoliberal subject is defined as one whose

essence is freedom, independent and unrestricted in their choices and actions, an

autonomous subject who makes their own meanings and formulates their own agenda

based on reason and self-interest.48 I unpack the concept of resistance using the works of

Lila Abu-Lughod, Saba Mahmood and Rayya El Zein as they focus respectively, on the

changing context for women of the Awlad 'Ali Bedouins in Egypt’s Western desert, the

formation of the self of women within the Islamic piety movement in Cairo, and political

feeling in Arabic rap concerts in Beirut and New York.49 Additionally. I draw on José

Esteban Muñoz’s Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics to further theorize agency and resistance, given his position of multiple marginalizations as a queer person of color, as he breaks through, himself, any universality that one might assume about Western queerness.

Abu-Lughod’s The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power

Through Bedouin Women is instrumental in delineating the workings of multiple intersecting systems of power, both local and global, through the lens of resistance. She takes resistance to be “a diagnostic of power,” that reflects the transformations of power relations and how they create the subject.50 Building on Foucault, she states that power

does not only have negative implications, as the “social domination also works at the level

48 Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology, 16, no.2 (2001): 207. 49 Lila Abu-Lughod, “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women,” American Ethnologist, 17, no. 1 (1990): 41-55; Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent,” 202–236; Rayya El Zein, “Resisting ‘Resistance:’ On Political Feeling in Arabic Rap Concerts,” in Arab Subcultures, ed. Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2017), 87-112. 50 Abu-Lughod, “The Romance of Resistance,” 42. 33

of constructing, delimiting, and giving meaning” to desire, emotions, practices and

relationships.51 Thus resistance is born out of and made possible through these systems of

power, solidifying but also subverting its dynamics on multiple levels. For example, she

explores the ways in which women protect and utilize gender segregated spaces to voice

their grievances and desires through poetry/song, undermine masculine hegemony by

ridiculing men in jokes and anecdotes and enact certain freedoms that they cannot express

in public such as smoking.52 Her work does not theorize resistance, however, but only

explores forms of its expression. She also fails to delve into why the individuals she

researches assume and cultivate these positions and attitudes of defiance, when forms of

resistance result in greater integration into other systems of oppression.

In considering the meaning making process and refashioning of the self of the

female division of the mosque movement, Mahmood destabilizes feminist

conceptualizations of self-fulfillment, agency, resistance and the guiding logic of

individual freedom.53 The binary of resistance and subordination excludes a multiplicity of expressions of desires, practices and actions, operating from another system of knowledge, that do not adhere to the feminist theoretical framework that is based on a liberal subject.

Her subject is one formed in and through relation, as opposed to liberal autonomy, where

she comes to knowledge of her self, surroundings, the conditions of her confinement, her

and cultural context through the position of subordination. She proposes a different

theorization of agency: “a capacity for action that historically specific relations of subordination enable and create,” for she takes subordination to be the process by which

51 Ibid., 47. 52 Ibid., 43. 53 Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment,” 212. 34 one is confined.54 Thus through this confinement, the self takes its form, developing self- consciousness and an understanding of her subjecthood—awareness that moves her from passivity to something like action, the capacity for resistance. For instance, some of the women Mahmood met wear the hijab and other manifestations of shyness, practices seen as repressive in the West, to train their bodies to reflect the essence their desire to cultivate.

These acts of resistance adhere to a politics attuned to a different temporality than the progressive, linear one we expect of resistance and politics.55 Hence, Mahmood argues for the historical and cultural specificity that inform the understanding of agency and political action given that they could be conceptualized and performed in a variety of ways, such as

“not only in those acts that result in (progressive) change but also those that aim toward continuity, stasis, and stability.”56 She rethinks of the political by look at the level of the individual: how she conceptualizes the self, her latent desires, responsibilities and relationships, and her positionality in her local context.

While Mahmood centralizes the development of the individual in relation to the community, El Zein focuses more upon what happens within the community. For her, being and action are relational, not born of an individual, autonomous will, as communal action cannot be reduced to simply cause and effect by independent individuals but involves complex forces.57 Her political ethnographic account focuses on the dispositions, choices and activities that underly political actions, manifested in exchanges during and after concerts that illuminate, for instance, the tensions over material and spacial objects and

54 Ibid., 203. 55 Ibid., 213. 56 Ibid., 212. 57 Rayya El Zein, “Resisting ‘Resistance,’” 88. 35

processes of community building that athwart normative political action.58 Agency is born out of affective relations between individuals and in relation to the state- not in direct

opposition but transversal to it and its normative values. The term “resistance” is thus

lacking the necessary suppleness that privileges certain actions over others and creates a

category of those without agency. For example, normative conceptions of resistance omit

practices such as those by young members of Hamas due to their opposition to liberal ideals

that render them unintelligible as a political subculture in this discourse.59 Foregoing

“resistance” enables her to posit political feelings as sites of exchange which illuminate

how individuals and communities make sense of their subjectivities, constructing and

structuring modes of being and relationships.60 Accordingly, El Zein centralizes the

between- between subjects, subjects and culture, culture and history.

Muñoz, who writes from a double position of marginalization as a queer person of

color in the United States, adds to the relationality of Mahmood’s theorization of agency

of the individual and El Zein’s conception of communal resistance by inspecting the

relationship between power and the Other, the processes of making and remaking the self

and the world. His analysis of drag centers on the concept of “disidentification,” which

involves “reformulating the world through the performance of politics,” performing the

interplay of power structures by locating power, understood to be always in flux, in the

physicality of the queer body.61 Disidentifying breaks the binary of resistance and

subjugation as it employs the dominant discourse to open up spaces for the recreation of

the self, “us[ing] this code as raw material for representing a disempowered politics or

58 Ibid., 95. 59 Ibid., 94. 60 Ibid., 95. 61 Muñoz, Disidentifications, xiv. 36

positionality that has been rendered unthinkable by the dominant culture.”62 Voguing for

instance, a type of dance originating from communities of trans individuals and drag

performers, reconstructs and reproduces the body through formulating new associations

with movement, that imitates poses on magazine covers but reconfigures them to reflect

the local subjectivities of marginalization. It is a method of “‘working on and against’”

systems of domination that aims to transform them from within by highlighting the

exclusionary aspect of these systems, while creating fractures and spaces to accommodate

those who are marginalized.63 Queerness presented on stage reformulates the self and the

community by making queer desires, presentations, visions and politics available and

celebrated.

The theorists mentioned above reconceptualize agency, subjectivity, resistance and

the political, providing a basis to understand the drag in Beirut as made up of practices, processes and subjectivities, reflecting perform experiences and interpretations of navigating lived realities and engaging with politics on the individual and societal level through the construction of an affirmative sociality. Abu-Lughod points to the

manifestation of power and resistance, how one moves between multiple systems of

oppression, drawing on one to subvert another. Mahmood allows me to develop this

concept of resistance by examining the specific context of confinement and relationality

through which self-knowledge and cultural awareness formulate, where agency is born.

Helping deepen our understanding of agency is El Zein, who centralizes the processes by

which each one makes their choices and engages with various manifestations of power

62 Ibid., 31. 63 Ibid., 11. 37 through art and daily life. Finally, Munoz theorizes acts of resistance as multidimensional spaces of possibility, becoming and chance. The Beiruti performers thus navigate their multiplicity of social positions, forged from the contradictory and enforcing interactions of local and global forces, using the stage as a site of self and communal (re)construction, where desires are understood, publicized and regulated. 38

Contextualizing Beirut

This section aims to sketch out the capricious position the state holds regarding the

queer community in Beirut, manifested through erratic enforcement of the law, making for

a volatile environment ripe with opportunities and dangers. As one drag queen states: “One

minute, the state is looking one way; the next, it’s staring right at us.”1 This section will

provide a brief overview of how queer individuals carve out spaces for themselves both on

the social and legal/political levels in a contested Beirut, a city recovering from civil war,

nurturing spaces of resistance and tensions.

The Ta ̒if Agreement of 1989, ending the 1975 civil war, institutionalized religion

in the political sphere. Sectarian affiliations, kinship and community ties, and loyalties to

villages or areas of origin govern sociopolitical representations and access to governmental

institutions. Organizations ranging from healthcare and education to media outlets are

bound by the sectarian context, which can be capitalized on by various factions of armed

forces, consolidating areas of control at times of hostility. A Lebanese citizen is thus only

a citizen through their sect, which then permeates into their life in terms of their social

spheres and the places they inhabit and frequent.2

1 Loveluck and al-Alwani, “Beirut’s fearless drag queens,” Washington Post, January 28, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/beiruts-fearless-drag-queens-belie-middle-eastern- conservatism/2019/01/26/2a7abcd4-ffb7-11e8-a17e- 162b712e8fc2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e3b835439474 2 Yasmeen Arif, “Emotional Geographies: War, Nostalgia, and Identity in Beirut,” in Life, Emergent: The Social in the Afterlives of Violence (Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), 138. 39

Confession, identity and place make the Lebanese self. Beirut reflects and

magnifies wider trends found in Lebanon, as the small city remains divided along

confessional and ethnic lines, albeit the divisions are not as definitive as they once were

during the war. Yet the various districts in the city are still haunted by the memory of the

war, marked by cultural segregation and difference, while fostering a strong sense of a shared identity and community centered around confession. The country’s multi-religious and multi-confessional features promote an attitude of tolerance that is more pronounced in the capital due to the anonymity it provides for those emigrating from smaller towns or villages. Additionally, the return of some of those who emigrated during the civil war introduced foreign identities and lifestyles when returning to mainly reside in Beirut.3

The reconstruction period after the war drastically changed the image and feel of the city, alienating some of its inhabitants who have lost their pre-war jobs and lifestyles due to this process, creating pockets of resistance to transformations of the urban space.

Beirut was rebranded the “Ancient City of the Future,” boasting an imagined cosmopolitan, tolerant national quality in an attempt to invite foreign investment and boost tourism to finance the reconstruction efforts.4 Lebanon was publicized as a place of freedom from

restrictions, especially sexually, to Arab and international audiences, while simultaneously

and erratically cracking down on queer individuals.5 The state profits from queer, mainly

gay, Western tourism6 but the visibility of a queer Beirut is modulated, forced to retract to

3 M.S. Mohamed, “Sexuality, Development and Non-conforming Desire in the Arab World: The Case of Lebanon and Egypt,” Institute of Development Studies, no.158 (2015): 9. 4 Arif, “Emotional Geographies,” 153. 5 Nisrine Mansour, “Visualising the (In)Visible: The Queer Body and the Revolving Doors of the Lebanese Queer Subculture,” in Arab Subcultures, ed. Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2017): 196. 6 Ghassan Makarem, “The Story of Helem,” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 7, no. 3 (2011): 100. 40

the margins if it is perceived to pose a threat to the existing patriarchal system on which all

facets of the country are modeled.7

Institutionally, Article 534 of the Penal Code criminalizes sexual behaviors that are

contrary to “nature.”8 Nature, however, remains undefined and vague enough to allow the

state to punish any behavior it deems immoral and unnatural, threatening its foundations

of heteronormativity and patriarchy which oppress and subordinate. This legislation is

frequently used to suppress and prosecute individuals exhibiting signs of gender or sexual

non-conformity. In addition, Article 521, prohibiting men from presenting as female and

from entering female only places, enables the state to abuse and incarcerate non-binary and

trans people, especially transwomen, thus formulating and regulating public morality.9

Article 534 was symbolically repealed on the 12th of July 2018, when the Court of

Appeals, in the governorate of Mount Lebanon, pronounced that homosexuality is not a

crime.10 This is the fifth case in which article 534, prohibiting “intercourse against nature,” was overruled.11 It is monumental however, as the previous four cases were in criminal courts. The judge’s verdict changed the meaning of the article in several ways: by emphasizing the historical context which governs the understanding of ‘nature,’ by interpreting the law in a way that promotes social equality rather than with an aim to punish and finally the judge excluded homosexuality from the definition of the criminalizing

7 Sofian Merabet, “Creating Queer Space in Beirut: Zones of Encounter within the Lebanese Male Homosexual Sphere,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi Books, 2006): 218. 8 Mohamed, “Sexuality, Development and Non-conforming,” 4. 9 Ibid., 11. 10 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 11 The Legal Agenda, “After Four Preliminary Rulings the Court of Appeals Declares that Homosexuality is not a Crime,” July 13, 2018, http://legal-agenda.com/article.php?id=4648. 41

article. Thus, Randa Kfoury’s ruling prevents any subsequent criminalization based on the

article.12

This major legal win was built on the momentum of a horrific incident in 2012 which galvanized the public and brought international scrutiny. The morality department

of the internal security forces raided Plaza Cinema in the municipality of Bourj Hammoud

and subjugated 36 men to anal exams.13 The incident brought to light the transgressions and violence the LGBTQ+ community is subjected to, sparking a national conversation to put an end to anal exams and virginity tests. Anal exams became widely referred to as

“exams of shame,” since they were regarded as rape and torture, gross violations to bodily autonomy and a tool of abuse by the state.14 Helem, the acronym for Lebanese Protection

for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgenders (LGBTs), the first queer activist state

recognized organization in the Middle East, launched a multi-pronged campaign informally using the slogan “Get off Our Asses” to free the detainees and protest police infringement on the right to privacy.15 A series of resolutions passed between 2012-2014

abolished the use of anal exams.16

Despite these major wins for queer individuals in Lebanon, queer spaces still face

brutal crackdowns that limit the existence of queer clubs and restrict the ways in which

they operate. In 2013, the Lebanese security forces raided and shut down the gay club

White Ghost, located in the northern suburb of Beirut, stripping a number of the individual

12 Ibid. 13 Lebanon Knowledge Development Gateway, “The Case of “the Exams of Shame” Comes to the Forefront Again: 36 new victims to homophobia in Lebanon,” August 3, 2012, https://lkdg.org/node/8079. 14 Ibid. 15 Mansour, “Visualising the (In)Visible,” 200. 16 The Legal Agenda, “Beyond Lebanon: the end of the exams of shame in Tunisia,” September 25, 2017, http://legal-agenda.com/article.php?id=3950. 42

caught and photographing them at the police station.17 The club had reopened under a

different name after it was shut down in 2011, a year after another gay friendly club, Acid,

faced a similar fate.18 Speaking of the forced closure of these clubs, Tarek Zeidan, the executive director of Helem, revealed that informally known “gay” clubs are allowed to exist only because their owners have close ties to influential politicians and bribe the municipality to turn a blind eye. She divulged that a club was shut down recently because the municipality demanded extra and the owners would not pay. Thus, the safety and anonymity of queer individuals attending gay friendly clubs rest on the precarious relationship between the club owners and the municipality, which can turn to prosecute with no legal basis at any time.19

Consequently, there are only a few gay friendly places covered by informal anti- discriminatory laws, making them safe for queer people to frequent, and fewer clubs in which drag performers can host shows.20 These gay friendly clubs regulate the expression

of non-conformity in order to prevent the incitement of public opinion, which would result

in closures. They have dress codes prohibiting scanty and revealing dress styles and the

bouncers patrol the clubs to stop any overt acts of intimacy.21 Drag shows can only be

authorized in so far as they are registered as “theatrical performances.”22 Additionally,

following the recent shutdown of a straight club on account of leaked photographs of an

17 Yalibnan, “Mayor of Dekwaneh forces gay residents to strip naked and be photographed,” Yalibnan News, April 24, 2013, http://yalibnan.com/2013/04/24/mayor-of-dekwaneh-forces-gay-residents-to-strip- naked-and-be-photographed/. 18 Nagib, “Lebanese Ministry of Tourism shuts down Ghost night club,” BlogBaladi (blog), May 29, 2013, https://blogbaladi.com/lebanese-ministry-of-tourism-shuts-down-ghost-night-club/. 19 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 20 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 21 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 22 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 43

erotic performance hosted,23 some drag performances, such as the Beirut Grand Ball,

prohibit taking pictures to avoid compromising the venues they are staged in.

The state’s inconsistency in dealing with the queer community also manifests itself

through the state recognition of Pride in 2017 then cancelling it the next year. Pride is an

umbrella organization coordinating a number of NGOs and other institutions holding

events during Pride Week. In 2018, the events aimed at several institutions: familial and

social, intellectual, economic, and political and security.24 A deliberately incorrect Arabic

translation of the English agenda of Pride, one which described it as rampant with sex and

drugs, circulated widely on WhatsApp, raising existing fears of the queer community and

reflecting the misconceptions about them. The security forces terminated Pride 2018 on

account of inciting unlawful sexual relations and drug use. Hadi Damien, the founder of

Beirut Pride, was jailed overnight and was made to sign a statement committing to

abandoning any organizing of Pride events that year. A few events took place in May, but

most were canceled due to fear of anticipated crackdowns. Helem and Proud Lebanon

received several threats, and the venues they booked for the events were pressured to

revoke their agreements, mirroring similar intimidations prompting cancelations in 2017.25

The events surrounding the cancellation of Pride demonstrate the dubious sociopolitical

Lebanese arena, in which rights can be taken away suddenly.

23 The New Arab, “Lebanon shuts down Beirut nightclub over 'pornographic' dance performance,” March 13, 2018, https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/3/13/lebanon-shuts-down-beirut-nightclub-over- pornographic-dance-performance. 24 Hadi Damien, “Episode 9 in Arabic: Hadi Damien of Beirut Pride!,” The Queer Arabs Podcast, iTunes, podcast audio, October 20, 2018. 25 Ibid. 44

Queer activist organizations face mounting challenges despite their relative

invisibility. A number of queer centers bloomed across the city, mainly providing medical

services and information sessions and discussions to raise awareness about several issues

facing the community.26 The organizations prefer to remain away from the public eye, even

though they are recognized by the state. I visited Tayf, an NGO aimed at “men who have

sex with men,” which does not have its address on its pages on social media nor its name

on the intercom panel at the entrance of the building.27 Emma Gration, a drag queen and

an activist working at the center, informed me that these organizations choose to operate

in relative anonymity, advertising through word of mouth and through social media to

elude harassment by the security forces.28

Although the law on the freedom of association requires only informing the state and not requiring its permission to establish an NGO, the state continues to put obstacles in the way of queer organizations such as Helem.29 Zeidan, the executive director at Helem,

explained that they are increasingly targeted by the state because of their political and

legislative interventionist policies. Helem spear-headed the work on revoking article 534 and, as mentioned above, was active in demonstrating the use of anal probing by security forces. He maintained that they are able to operate in Beirut due to the various competing factions endorsing different agendas, so they are bound to find ones that align with them on certain issues.30 For example, despite its homophobic rhetoric, Hezbollah collaborated

26 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 27 Tayf, Facebook Post, accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/pg/BeirutTayf/about/?ref=page_internal. 28 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 29 Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World (New York: Anchor Books, 2014), 269. 30 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 45

with Helem in 2006 to shelter the refugees fleeing South of Lebanon due to attacks by

Israel.31

Still, the public sphere proves to be treacherous and uncertain for queer individuals,

from sociopolitical institutions to public spaces, mirroring the difficulties of navigating the

everyday life. Coming out is not always an option, and being outed is a serious concern, as

queer individuals face familial pressures that aim to get rid of their offspring’s gender and

sexual non-conformity or kick them out of their homes. Additionally, the internal security

forces, also known as the darak, employs tactics of humiliation, including outing queer

individuals to their parents, on no legal basis.32 Outing can also endanger access to housing, healthcare and social services because there are no anti-discriminatory laws to protect queer individuals from inequality and other acts of gatekeeping. Additionally, queer individuals have no recourse when facing discrimination in the work place and might experience arbitrary dismissal.33

In a city where identity and place are deeply intertwined, a queer community emerges as a challenge to the core identity that molds the space, endorsing sexual and gender non-conformity in producing self, community and emerging spaces.34 Drag performers operate on uncertain grounds, challenging societal norms and the state fearlessly, through their gender presentation. As activists and as figures at the center of the queer community, they are shaping and solidifying a diverse force that threatens the state merely by existing.

31El Feki, Sex and the Citadel, 253 32 Hadi Damien, “Episode 9 in Arabic: Hadi Damien of Beirut Pride!,” The Queer Arabs Podcast, iTunes, podcast audio, October 20, 2018. 33 Ghassan, “The Story of Helem,” 100. 34 Arif, “Emotional Geographies,” 160. 46

Chapter 1: Drag as a Hybrid: Foreign Influences and Local Responses

First and foremost I always say that I’m fully blooded Lebanese. I was raised in a very Lebanese way, with very Lebanese parents and a very Lebanese family, that went to every Lebanese festival in California. Anya Kneez1

Anya Kneez, a Lebanese American fashion designer and visual artist, began her drag career in Brooklyn, New York. She had the chance to live on her own in the city for a couple of years; there she explored her queer identity away from familial supervision and constraints. She was then then compelled, for personal reasons, to move back to Beirut, where she deeply felt her complex foreignness—as an American raised Lebanese and a queer person—especially living in Jal el-Deeb, a district of Mount Lebanon located a few kilometers away from Beirut. Despite her ambivalence, she decided that she had to put her queerness on the “back burner” while she tried to adapt to her new setting.2 Finally, frustrated by the lack of spaces of expression, she decided to do drag again with her friend, and so, Evita Kedavra was born. Through their labors from 2013 to 2014, Anya Kneez and

Evita Kedavra, Beirut’s first drag mothers, founded drag.3

1 Cold Cuts, “COLD CUTS PRESENTS • ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut,” June 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRBB6NHrRU. 2 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 3 Ibid. 47

Thus although cross-dressing, as I will explore below, has a long history in the

national imagination of Lebanon, drag as it is now conceived—locally and in the West—

has only just begun to establish a foothold in Beirut, and it was born, at least in part, from the American experiences of one of its founders.4 It is therefore, perhaps, not surprising that the first drag show in the city, was met with a mixture of confusion and criticism. Anya and Evita stated that they had to introduce what drag and lip-syncing are to the audience, who were unfamiliar with this genre of performance.5 Drag remained relatively obscure until RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) launched it into mainstream American and global culture, promoting it to queer communities all over the world. As a result, drag in Beirut became increasingly celebrated, encouraging more queer people to start taking part. Now celebrating its fifth year, the drag scene is witnessing a massive expansion, boasting of around 30-40 queens, with more joining every year.6

This chapter explores the local conceptions of drag in light of the influence of

American drag, examining the ways in which the drag queens adapt and disidentify with

its hegemonic forms. I emphasize the geographical and temporal contexts, which result in

a diversity of drag expressions born out of various underlying motivations, influences and

pressures that they are responding to. As the local drag scene is partially modeled on its

American counterpart, encapsulated in the reality television series RuPaul’s Drag Race,

the first section introduces the structure and terminology foundational to American drag. It

begins with a sketch of the New York ballroom culture of the 1980s and 1990s documented

in Paris is Burning (1990), which is a foundational source for the reality television show,

4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 48

RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present), moving to a brief overview of the show, exploring the contours of the queer subject it creates and legitimizes. Next is an exploration of the role of RPDR in the local drag scene, the initial positive reactions to the show and what it provided them. My focus then shifts to the local critiques of the show, the constraints faced in Beirut and the self-awareness of the performers demonstrated in their own version of drag. Finally, the chapter delves into a discussion of hybridity exhibited in the way queens queer Lebanese traditions of cross-dressing, thread politics into their work, weaving relations between different strands of cultural othering.

American Drag

The New York Ballroom Culture in Paris is Burning

Paris is Burning documents the lives of African-American and Latinx queer

individuals immersed in the ballroom scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which served as a safe space of communal identity building and self-expression.7 Shunned from

participating in white queer subculture, queer people of color created their own spaces,

with social structures and a lexicon that defied and drew on their heteronormative, classed

and raced equivalents.8 The film shows how the participants aspired to emulate those bodies that, by virtue of how society perceives them, are given access and privilege, recreating how they want to be seen through a process of self-construction, expression and resignification.9

7 Jennie Livingston et al., Paris Is Burning (1990; Academy Entertainment, 1992), DVD. 8 Dahlia Schweitzer, “Having a Moment and a Dream: Precious, Paris Is Burning, and the Necessity of Fantasy in Everyday Life,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 34, no. 3 (2016): 246, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2016.1234898. 9 Ibid., 251. 49

The balls, contests divided into categories or themes and judged according to the

close approximation of the embodiment, emphasized the manufactured qualities of

identities and celebrate the survival strategies of the queer communities of color. Excluded

from white upper middle-class lifestyles and popular culture and facing homophobia for

their gender and sexual expressions, the participants compete or “walk” in categories that

reiterate norms produced by these various systems of oppression.10 The contestants

manifest, with a difference, these identities to which they have no access and try to “pass”

as “real,” or one who in fact belongs to one of those groups. Realness is achieved by

perfectly adhering to the self-presentation and behaviors associated with specific raced and

classed, heteronormative gender and sexual identities so that one’s body reads as unmarked

for its non-conformity.11

Besides presenting as “real,” competing in these categories involves “reading” through “voguing.” Reading originates from the phrase “reading the riot act,” commonly used post-Stonewall denoting the use of severe words and intimidating behavior.12 In Paris

is Burning, members of the ballroom culture read each other or use personalized witticisms

that mock and exaggerate the differences between them and their opponents, a tradition

they perfected over the years in retaliation to the homophobic verbal abuse they faced in

their daily lives.13 Mastering the act of reading, being funny and scathing, confers social

status as one who can hold their own. “Shade” is the intent accompanying reading, which

can also be expressed through voguing. Voguing, appropriated and popularized by

10 Ibid., 247. 11 Marlon M. Bailey, “Gender/Racial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture,” Feminist Studies 37, no. 2 (2011): 378, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23069907. 12 Schweitzer, “Having a Moment and a Dream”, 254. 13 Jennie Livingston et al., Paris Is Burning (1990; Academy Entertainment, 1992), DVD. 50

Madonna, is a type of dancing that cites the poses in fashion magazines such as Vogue,

comprising fast movements and freezing as if one were modeling. The contestants are

judged based on their presentation, from dancing, aesthetics and beauty, to how well they

succeeded in “passing” or looking like they belonged to the category in question.14

Helping the participants organize and rehearse for the balls are “Houses,” which

the contestants might be representing while competing against members of rival Houses.

Houses are socially formed family structures founded by “mothers” and “fathers,” who

symbolically and/or materially take in “children,” other queer individuals, creating

traceable lineages over the years. The members of the Houses are usually unable to fully

express themselves or their queerness in their daily lives, due to any number of issues, and,

as the film shows, several had been kicked out of their homes, finding refuge in this alternative kinship model.15 The parent figures provide support and guidance in all areas

of life, creating a social net, one which transcends racial/ethnic, ageist, geographical and

gender and sexual differences, on which the members of the family can rely.16 In drag

Houses, the mother or father is typically the one who introduces drag to a performer and

helps with their conception of their drag persona.17

RuPaul’s Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race (abbreviated to RPDR), pride of Logo TV and VH1,

legitimizes and situates itself in an imagined queer history through its reverence of the

14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Bailey, “Gender/Racial Realness,” 367. 17 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 51

ballroom culture.18 The show started as a parody of other reality shows such as America’s

Next Top Model, and Project Runway, following the format of progressive elimination as the contestants compete for the title of America’s Drag Superstar and a monetary prize among other prizes. The episodes are divided into distinct sections, beginning with a mini challenge, moving onto the main challenge which usually involves acting, fashion design or recording music, then a themed runway walk. Afterwards, the queens are judged by a

panel of judges, reminiscent of the balls, and the bottom two have to “lip sync for their

lives” to remain on the show. Finally, the episode ends with the elimination of a contestant.

RuPaul has the final say on all decisions, crowning the queen who epitomizes “charisma,

uniqueness, nerve and talent” (c.u.n.t) and who would go on to represent the RuPaul brand

worldwide.19 Individuals on the show frequently quote Paris is Burning and other ballroom

vernacular such as reading, xtravaganza and realness, developing the drag lexicon and

creating communities around the show. 20

RPDR catapulted into mainstream success over the years, transforming the

perception of drag within in the United States and influencing drag communities

worldwide, through online networks. The show first aired in 2009, which is called the “lost

season,” as it did not gain much traction due to its low budget, which affected the camera

and sound quality.21 Years later, the franchise is producing up to two seasons a year, Drag

Race and All Stars, has received multiple awards, including several Emmys, and boasts of

18 Eir-Anne Edgar, “‘Xtravaganza!’: Drag Representation and Articulation in ‘RuPaul's Drag Race,’” Studies in Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (2011): 136, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23416354. 19 RuPaul, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” retrieved from http://www.vh1.com/shows/rupauls-drag-race/episode- guide. 20 RuPaul, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” retrieved from http://www.vh1.com/shows/rupauls-drag-race/episode- guide. 21 Alaska and Willam, “S1E1 ‘Drag On a Dime,’” Race Chaser with Alaska & Willam, iTunes, Forever Dog Podcast Network, podcast audio, July 18, 2018. 52 several worldwide tours and massive bi-annual conventions.22 Changes in viewing habits to cross-platform viewing and social media engagement increased the popularity and status of drag in its home country. Furthermore, social media and online presence on multiple platforms became crucial in furthering the queens’ careers, influencing their chances to being cast on the show, and after the show, enabling them to feature in mainstream productions.23 There has been an explosion of online content, deriving queer slang from the show, in addition to spreading the wealth of knowledge on drag, ballroom culture and queer history and cultural references internationally, all of which have proved integral to the cultural capital RPDR has accumulated from this audience.24 The online content helped to extend the influence of the show to drag communities globally, stimulating interest in drag and resulting in an increase of individuals doing drag, as it is now seen as a highly desirable career path.25

From its inception, RPDR aimed for mainstream success through adherence to a neoliberal ideology, one which it achieved by moving from the queer oriented channel

22 Wikipedia contributors, "RuPaul's Drag Race," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RuPaul%27s_Drag_Race&oldid=891311961 (accessed March 1, 2019). 23 Part of casting involves assessing the queens’ social media following, see, for example: Ana Krneta, “16 Strict Rules Contestants On RuPaul's Drag Race Have To Follow,” TheTalko, April 12, 2018, https://www.thetalko.com/16-strict-rules-contestants-on-rupauls-drag-race-have-to-follow/; For example, Willam and Shangela, former contestants, starred in Lady GaGa’ A Star is Born. Jude Dry, “‘A Star Is Born’: Drag Queens Shangela and Willam Improvised the Film’s Funniest Moment, With Bradley Cooper’s Blessing,” IndieWire, October 12, 2018, https://www.indiewire.com/2018/10/star-is-born-drag- queens-willam-shangela-1202011727/. 24 Nathaniel Simmons, “Speaking Like a Queen in RuPaul’s Drag Race: Towards a Speech Code of American Drag Queens,” Sexuality and Culture 18, no.3 (2014): 645, DOI 10.1007/s12119-013-9213-2; See, for example: Mayka Castellano and Heitor Leal Machado, “‘Please Come to Brazil!’ The Practices of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Brazilian Fandom,” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture, ed. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 167-178. 25 See, for example: Ramey Moore, “Everything Else is Drag: Linguistic Drag and Gender Parody on RuPaul's Drag Race,” Journal of Research in Gender Studies, 3, no.2 (2013): 19. Claire Alexander, “What Can Drag Do for Me? The Multifaceted Influences of RuPaul’s Drag Race on the Perth Drag Scene” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture, ed. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 245-270. 53

Logo to the mainstream VH1. RPDR ceased to be a queer show, if it was ever, to become

a gay one, a show that instead of adopting an approach of deconstruction, is about identity

and the normalization of that queer identity. The drag on the show is not queer is the sense

of Carla Freccero’s conception of the term, “resistance to its hypostatization, reification

into nominal status as designating an entity, an identity, a thing.”26 Rather, it is part of the

efforts targeting the heteronormalization of queer life through the creation of a gayness

palatable to the American public, stressing monogamy, child-rearing and further

integration into the imperialist and capitalist trajectory of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism

dismisses structural barriers based on race, socioeconomic class and sexual and gender

(non)conformity and highlights the individual’s responsibility in achieving success.27 Part

of this success is limiting oneself to a sole fragment of one’s identities to create a

marketable brand, which often revolves around catchphrases that stick with the audience

and can then be put on t-shirts.28 Racial and ethnic minorities are thus immediately stereotyped as soon as they are introduced and only advance if they adopt these molds and play within their confines by demonstrating pride in this emphasized difference from the norm of whiteness. Queens who speak another language, most often Spanish, are encouraged to “work through” this perceived disadvantage, which hinders them from showcasing their full potential to an Anglophone audience, either through magically

26 Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006), 5. 27 Meredith Heller, “RuPaul Realness: the Neoliberal Resignification of Ballroom Discourse,” Social Semiotics, (2018): 10, DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2018.1547490. 28 Alaska and Willam, “S11E1 ‘Whatcha Unpackin?’” Race Chaser with Alaska & Willam, iTunes, Forever Dog Podcast Network, podcast audio, March 6, 2019. 54

perfecting English in the span of a few episodes or by using their accent as a source of

comedy, feeding into stereotypical representations.29

Additionally, the show limits the gender and drag expressions of the contestants,

where femininity is exhibited as a quality external to the essential identity of the subject

and aligned with the cultural norms of binary gender. Femininity is thus only deployed

according to the challenges assigned, existing in a distinct realm that is differentiated from

the “boy” behind the queen. The interjection of confessionals, where RuPaul begins each

episode out of drag and the contestants—presenting themselves as male—break the flow of the competition to comment upon their experiences, illustrate the “transformational” aspect of drag as entertainment devoid of any critique of the performativity of gender.30

Another attempt at rendering queer bodies safe for mainstream consumption is the policing

of the gender representation of the drag queens. All androgynous queens undergo the same

critiques: stereotyped as “one-trick pon[ies],” 31 they are suspected of lacking versatility and encouraged to present themselves as more identifiably feminine, suggesting that androgyny is not a valued mode of gender expression.32 Moreover, while androgyny is

disregarded, drag kinging is abhorred: it has appeared only once in the entire history of the show, and then it was condemned on the grounds that the competition was for drag queens,

not kings.33 Finally, uses the sexual and gender identities of the queens, posing sexual

29 Heller, “RuPaul realness,” 5. For more: Sarah Tucker Jenkins, “Spicy. Exotic. Creature. Representations of Racial and Ethnic Minorities on RuPaul’s Drag Race,” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture, ed. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 77-90. 30 Moore, “Everything Else is Drag,” 23. 31 WOWPresents, “FASHION PHOTO RUVIEW: Drag Race Season 11 Episode 2 with Raja and Aquaria!,” March 9, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uv7zmiWR8. 32 Edgar, “‘Xtravaganza!,’”137. 33 RuPaul, Season5, Episode 3, “Draggle Rock” in “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” retrieved from http://www.vh1.com/shows/rupauls-drag-race/episode-guide. 55

orientation as innate and gender non-conformity as the consequent expression, to propagate

the rhetoric of “pride,” “coming out” and “it gets better,”34 signifying that being

identifiably queer means “being true” to their “authentic” selves. This discourse, couples

the essentialization of sexual orientation and sex and centralizes the individual’s

responsibility to conquer the homophobia they face in their daily lives, resulting in the

strengthening rather than the challenging of the very system of oppression gender non-

conformity aims the show supposedly aims to dismantle.35

Finding Drag: The Initial Lebanese Reception of American Drag

The queens in Beirut lie on the edges of and the intersection between the dominant

discourse of RuPaul’s Drag Race and that of their country, not represented fully in either.

They inhabit a liminal space, creatively moving across these ambivalent sites, transforming both the self and these systems of power to create something different.36 The show

addresses them on account of their sexual and gender non-conformity but marginalizes

them due to their geographical location, history and positionality as citizens of a country

where foreign influence is entangled in and partially productive of the oppressive sectarian

system. On the other hand, in Lebanon, the performers benefit from male and class

privilege but suffer from belonging to an outlawed sexual minority. Therefore, the queens

move between various ideological systems and power structures, disidentifying with these

34 For more, see: Jasbir K. Puar, The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 1-31. 35 Heller, “RuPaul realness,” 10. 36 Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race, (London: Routledge, 1995), 23. 56

dominant ideologies by drawing on, working with and opposing them simultaneously,

indicating the limitations of those dominant cultures.37

Unraveling this complex structure, where hybridity and cultural critique intersect

with a certain embrace of male norms, must begin with an analysis of the initial impact of

RPDR, which served as the first point of contact that most Beiruti queens had with drag. 38

Emma Gration, Evita Kedavra’s drag daughter, for example, found Drag Race through

makeup tutorials on YouTube; it provided the framework for which she had already been

doing but had no name.39 Sultana, a young queen who has been doing drag for about a year,

described the calling she felt when she was first exposed to the show through Twitter: in

it, she finally found something with which she identified. She realized that she was not “the only gay boy out there.”40 Donna Stella, another young drag artist who employs

genderqueer drag, recalled dressing up and lip syncing as a child. Drag Race validated her

queer expression, making her aware of lip syncing as an established performance art.41 The television series thus opened up a world of possibilities for those queer artists. It put them in relation to others who shared the same motivations and feelings, creating a parallel queer culture where they symbolically belonged and enabling them to be a part of the queer history the show inhabited and propagated. The show legitimized and situated their experiences in an imagined queer timeline, granting them the understanding, language and

37 José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 11. 38 For example: Paris Glitoris and Miss Fortune; Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 39 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 40 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 41 Donna Stella, interview with the author, January 25, 2019. 57

representation they needed to survive as queer and formulate their personal narratives of

self-creation.42

For this reason, despite the scope of critique of the that the Beiruti queens engage in, problematizing many aspects of it and questioning the extent to which it speaks to their culturally specific reality, it continues to play a significant role in the local queer community and its vernacular language. The prominence of RPDR, and the references the show cites such as Paris is Burning, was especially emphasized in the show by the House of Bombé, as it was modeled on both cultural productions in terms of the setup of the show and the drag family structure. The show followed the format of consecutive lip syncs, with each member of the House: Latiza Bombé, the mother, Robin Hoes and Demetria Corset,

the daughters, performing solo twice. They lip-synced or danced to a range of pop music:

from a Turkish drums medley, to a rock song, to an emotional love song. Latiza Bombé’s

performance of Breaking Benjamin’s “I will not bow” was particularly powerful as the

lyrics invoked the experience of being erased and the emotions of asserting oneself and

standing one’s ground. The audience was an intimate crowd, predominantly men, who

knew the performers personally or were friends of those who did, the queer community

coming together for support and affirmation. The majority of the attendees were other drag

performers and other drag Houses, such as the House of Garçon and those who helped with various aspects of the event, including the owner of the venue, hairstylists and fashion designers. The DJ, Emma Gration, and the host, Sasha Elijah who is another prominent

42 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 5; Colin Whitworth, “Sissy That Performance Script! The Queer Pedagogy of RuPaul’s Drag Race,” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture, ed. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 144. 58 drag queen and model, further integrated RPDR into the event by playing songs by former

RPDR contestants and using its popular catchphrases and vocabulary.

This show represented the strength and solidarity of the House, as well as that of the community as a whole. The performers each interjected a few words at the end of their sets, explaining the meanings and emotions behind the show. After the first number, Latiza

Bombé spoke of how their House was “real” as they lived together and supported each other in multiple ways. One of the performers, in an emotional flow of words after their performance, shared their story of how they ended up there that night: they had moved to

Beirut to live with Latiza, whom they had met through social media, after their family kicked them out of the house upon discovering that they did drag. The House provided shelter, emotional support and a network on which they could rely. The House structures and queer community assume various roles, depending on the individual’s needs. Although a House does not always adopt familial roles and responsibilities, it nevertheless contests heteronormative kinship ties, offering alternative social linkages that challenge patriarchal, vertical hierarchies.

Also queering hierarchies is the virtual sphere. Besides allowing the queer community to thrive in Beirut, as physical advertisements compromise the safety of the participants and the venues, it enables them to promote themselves globally and to engage with current trends. Advertising for drag shows usually begins circulating a week before the event. The posters do not always state the venue, which is then revealed through captions on the stories or posts, as the performers promote each other’s events and share videos and pictures showing their support. The queens do not only publicize drag shows but use their shows as platforms to showcase other queer artists, such as visual artists, 59

fashion designers or other like queer cultural workers, including creators of podcasts and

publications, solidifying bonds and creating a queer economic system. In their captions,

the social media users use the vernacular of RPDR and invoke a wide community of those

interested in drag, seeking recognition and putting the drag scene in Beirut in conversation

with its counterparts in other countries. Thus by modeling their work on Western examples

such as RPDR, the queens are further entangled in a globalized world where the ways they

conceptualize and present themselves, highlighted in their online presence for instance, is

infused with local and global ideologies of the self as they cater to both, fluidly demarcated

audiences.43

Queering the Binary: The Gay International and American Drag

The relationship of queer Lebanese individuals and especially drag queens to

Western drag, portrayed on RPDR and Paris is Burning, seems to support Massad’s

argument: they are victims of the colonizing forces of the Gay International who have lost

their authentic identities.44 Drag, invested with Western, specifically American, values and

ideologies imposes a certain identity, one that is foreign and violent, on the local

expressions of queerness and erases their existence. Engaging in drag, a Western tradition,

regulates Lebanese queer bodies to present in an intelligibly manner to a Western audience,

playing into a normative narrative of progress tied to LGBTQ+ rights or lack thereof. This

reading, however, is misguided in its assumption of a practice of an unadulterated Western

drag in Beirut. Despite the undeniable influence of American drag symbolized by RPDR,

43 The queens caption their pictures using globally shared hashtags such as drag, drag race and other terminology of drag popularized by RPDR, Instagram. 44 Ernesto Pagano and Joseph Massad, “The West and the Orientalism of sexuality,” ResetDoc, December 2009, https://www.resetdoc.org/story/the-west-and-the-orientalism-of-sexuality/ 60

the Lebanese drag queens show an awareness of the limitations of adopting a ready-made model, where this Western form undergoes a transmutation through the interfusion with local traditions. Instead, they are creating hybrids by appropriating the language, practices and formats to suit their local temporality and context.

As a consequence of using American drag as a model to emulate in Lebanon, the local queens realized this method’s shortcomings, demonstrated by RPDR, for example, in its failure to speak to all the aspects of their lived experience. Although Beirut hosting former RPDR contestants, also known as RuGirls, was a source of inspiration and acknowledgment for the local drag scene, it further developed their critical awareness of their position as non-American participants in drag. Miss Fortune, a young performer who debuted at the Beirut Grand Ball, viewed the performances of popular stars off the show, such as Alaska, Sasha Velour and Pearl, as a gateway to global recognition. Seeing the famous American queens she had watched on television perform on the same stage and she and other local queens had made their own filled her, she said, with feelings of hope and reassurance.45 Donna Stella added that hosting RuGirls served to educate the West about

the various queer communities around the world, and especially the Middle Eastern queer

experience.46 Here, Donna flips the script of an Orientalist West educating and civilizing

the East, exhibiting a consciousness of a Western attempt to subordinate them that, a

position held by many queer Arabs to which Massad is oblivious.

Despite this sentiment of awe shared by many, the local queens were, in the end,

disillusioned with the discrepancy in the treatment the American and local queens received

45 Miss Fortune, e-mail message to author, January 17, 2019. 46 Donna Stella, interview with the author, January 25, 2019. 61

in the city. Emma Gration criticized Plastik, the management company who booked the

RuGirls, for working against the local queens. Contrary to other places hosting these stars

around the world, the local queens were not asked to open for them. Additionally, no

member of the audience was allowed to attend in drag, and the ticket prices were four times

the cost of seeing the same performers in the states. She protested that these restrictions do

not allow for an accurate representation of the local drag scene and only pushes them

underground as international queens appear to be of more value. Tarek Zeidan, the

executive director of Helem, was also wary of the hosting of RuGirls, whom he believes

act as “ambassadors of drag in the Middle East, thinking they are the first,” replicating the

perspective of colonizers bringing enlightenment to supposedly ignorant Arabs.47 He argues that they are often unaware of the local history of drag in Lebanon and of the rising

Beiruti scene, performing as though they are introducing drag to the local audience.48 In the face of such Orientalist attitudes by some Western queer individuals, their Lebanese counterparts respond with self-knowledge and exercise their agency over telling their own narratives.

RPDR is further problematized in the community for its rigid standards in terms of aesthetics and gender representations in the community. Emma Gration described the pressure local queens feel in having to present a certain image of drag that will be understood by other newer performers and audiences who have only been exposed to drag as represented on the show. She expressed a widely shared observation of the increase of drag artists looking like “copies” of some contestants as they conform to the beauty ideals

47 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 48 Ibid. 62

perpetuated on the show. 49 She protested that RPDR has come to be regarded as the

ultimate and only guide to doing drag in Beirut, when it does not provide a range of

representation even of the drag present in the states as she has witnessed on her travels. For

her, and several other queens interviewed, drag is whatever one makes of it, exclaiming, “I

don’t remember receiving a rule book when I started doing drag.”50 Emma’s drag family,

the Kedavras, do not adhere to stereotypical images of femininity, demonstrated by their

ambivalence towards wearing heels and wigs, tucking and removal of body hair,

representing a different type of drag from the one promoted by the show.51

The majority of Beiruti drag queens, in taking RPDR as a measure of drag, besides

limiting their self-expression and creativity, find it to be unattainable especially in the

context of their city. Some queens emphasized the huge investment that is drag, spoken

about extensively even by queens who have competed on the show.52 Sultana asserted the

lack of job opportunities as most queens are “unemployed or broke or independent,”

making the level of drag seen on tv very difficult to achieve in reality.53 The queens in

Beirut study or work besides doing drag, so in addition to the economic drain of drag, it is

time consuming and requires the queens to have a network of dedicated friends or a drag

family who are willing to help with all of the aspects entailed. Some queens spoke about

the difficulty of finding space to work on their drag, in the cases where they lived with their

unsuspecting families.54 Others recounted the lack of access to drag essentials, as drag has only started to gain popularity in the recent years and specialized stores are still

49 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019; For example: Sit Dusah, Paris Glitoris and Qaws Qozah. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Katya and Craig, “43: Gia Gunn,” Whimsically Volatile, iTunes, podcast audio, February 8, 2019. 53 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 54 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 63

unavailable.55 The queens also have to be careful when shopping for drag, assessing the

tolerance of the shopkeepers and retail workers, or seeking out stores owned by other queer

individuals.56 While RPDR provides the Beiruti performers with a blueprint of how to do

drag and promotes a local community to form in which they find support and belonging, it

nevertheless falls short of encompassing and representing their specific subjectivities. They

move beyond American drag, contesting, transforming and building on it to create a hybrid.

Appropriation and Transformation: The Hybridity of Drag in Beirut

The Beiruti drag performers conceive of a locally specific drag, adopting some

aspects of Western models, drawing on regional and Lebanese media personalities and

politics and incorporating elements from Lebanese traditions of cross-dressing to create a

hybrid, making up Lebanese drag. As much as the local queens invoke elements from

American drag, watch it, identify with some of it, examining the local drag scene shows

this hybrid quality: the Beirut Grand Ball and mini balls, modeled after the balls in Paris

is Burning, and other drag shows and representations demonstrate conscious decisions by

the queens to go against, challenge and critique these guiding works through the use of

body hair, for example, and references to the American fears, such as that of terrorism.

Throughout the year is a series of mini balls themed after Western pop stars and an annual

Beirut Grand Ball. The ballroom culture is integral to the queer community as the documentary enjoys multiple screenings in queer oriented NGOs and is frequently quoted in the community.57 The mini balls and the Grand Ball are where the majority of the queens

55 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 56 Qaws Qozah, interview with the author, January 18, 2019. 57 Helem, Facebook Post, accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/133916233311662/photos/a.495630440473571/1417238078312798/?type=3&t 64

debut and where they can start building a name for themselves in order to be able to star in

solo shows. The balls also provide safe spaces for gender exploration and reformulations

of the self, of inhabiting identities that the public deems “unnatural” and “wrong.”58 Evita

Kedavra and Anya Kneez spoke of the importance of the ball as a celebration of queer self-

expression. They emphasized how this space acknowledges queerness in all of its

manifestations, that is looked down upon by society. Evita, on her drag persona, said that

she was “everything I never was,” everything she was unable to express in public and

everything that she could never be, due to societal perceptions of her as a marked body.59

The Beirut Grand Ball, the biggest competition of the year that brings the community

together, recalls, queers and localizes American drag through the music, the categories, and

the judging system. The music was diverse, ranging from Arabic and English pop and rap

to songs by RuPaul and other queer American artists, as well as indie artists like Mona

Haydar. It was divided into four parts, comprising “The Four Elements” and Meryl Streep’s

1992 classic “Death Becomes Her” runways, a “Freestyle” segment and a “Lip-sync for

Your Life” performance. The panel of judges boasted of Alexandre Paulikevitch, a famous

male belly dancer; Lary, a prominent nightlife personality and comedian; Evita Kedavra, a

co-founder of the drag scene in Beirut and mother of the House of Kedavra; and Sophie

Garçon, mother of the House of Garçon, as well as the owner of the club. The host of the

show, Hoedy, is also the organizer of the event and other mini-balls and a voguing teacher.

The judges declared a winner at the end of the show for every category by rating the

heater. Tayf, Facebook Post, accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/BeirutTayf/photos/a.240510896463684/550259425488828/?type=3&theater\. 58 BBC News, “Lebanese Trailblazer: Proud in drag – BBC News,” July 29, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1CRG_OwJ3s; Muñoz, Disidentifications, 97. 59 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 65

performances on a scale, with “ova” being the highest one can get. The prizes, sponsored

by entities closely working with the queer nightlife scene, included dinners, makeup,

discounts at stores aimed at queer customers and dance classes.

The main styles of American drag, glamour, camp and genderfuck, were all

represented but synthesized, creating multiple hybrid adaptations. The performances showcased the spectrum of creativity of the local drag queens and other queer artists, with around 30 performers. The ‘abaya was incorporated in several performances as part of a reveal. For example, it was coupled with a turban, swaying to the theme song of Aladdin, then taken off dramatically to reveal a fishnet blouse with silver chains on top. The performers queered their bodies and other cultural objects by assigning them divergent meanings and reintroducing them into the world anew. Queens displayed a variety of interpretations in their respective categories: strutting in red latex and an updo styled wig replicating a flame, a bondage zombie look, feathers alluding to the rising of the phoenix.

Queer performers thrilled the audience with a cover of Diana Ross’s “I’m coming out,” a cross between voguing and belly dancing, and an original rap song. The lip-syncs were especially captivating as the ball explored a range of emotions, from energetic lip-syncs to

Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj to emotional ones of David Guetta and Sia’s “She Wolf.”

All of the performances affirmed a queer identity, critiquing the rigidity of the notion of gender through the use of makeup and clothing and urging the local queer community to be more inclusive of the wide variety of gender expression. For instance, stereotypical representations of femininity were not always upheld as some queens flaunted facial and/or body hair and others did not wear heels or wigs. 66

Contrary to drag shows in the West, due to the popularity of the event and the size of the crowd, certain security measures had to be taken reflecting the cultural and religious context of the city in relation to the developing queer culture. The rules sent out to the performers were read aloud at the beginning of the show, photography was not allowed; on stage, no religious symbols could appear; and nudity and indecent props were not tolerated. If the rules were violated, the performers would be immediately disqualified, and if found taking pictures, members of the audience were warned first and then escorted out.

These rules developed in response to several events including a series of raids on gay friendly clubs, the shutdown of a heterosexual club on account of leaked pictures of a nude performance, and the general heightened sensitivity with regards to religion in the country.

The queer community thus takes precautions to remain away from the public eye, in order to control its space and its representation to the outside, leading to closer community ties where the safety of one depends on the whole and vice versa. These constraints expose the relationality of the queer identity in Lebanon, one which is not based on a neoliberal conception of self, in opposition to the representation on RPDR where each contestant is out for herself and pride is in this individual identity.

Although these restrictions limit the individuality of the performers, they place certain ethical obligations on them and on the audience from which Western drag shows are free. That night, however, these rules were broken. One drag queen competing in ‘The

Four Elements’ wore an Eve inspired look, commanding the stage in a revealing outfit made of plastic leaves and flowers. After her performance, she received low scores and a warning that she would have gotten disqualified had it not been for the love they have for her in the community. The crowd booed the judges as the performance was full of energy 67

and emotion, but the warning piercing the lively ambience reminded us of the safety aspect.

Hoedy, the host, asserted that the safety of the community was more important than an

individual’s right to self-expression and that we should all strive to promote the longevity

of such events. Another incident occurred when a member of the audience was caught by

the host taking pictures. Again, it was the safety of the community as a whole that was at

stake. These incidents displayed the individual’s position in their community, as the

community creates a safe and supportive space for self-exploration, but in exchange the performers navigate the responsibilities and constraints attached to this platform.

Besides the Grand Ball, in individual shows, the drag artists explore the tensions of adopting a Western model of drag and devise creative ways of transforming it to reflect their local context. Kawkab Zuhal, is a distinguished queen in the community for appropriating drag and its vernacular into Arabic to introduce the artform to the local audience. She is known for her emphasis on Arabic as a language and Arab pop culture, as the primary medium of communication and sources of influence in her shows. English is no longer the only or dominant language to express the drag performers’ subjectivities. It loses its grip on the process of meaning making, rendering it secondary to Arabic, which challenges and subverts this cultural power. Zuhal, through translating “drag” into Arabic, breaks open the discourses manifesting in the art form, twisting, revising and reproducing them so that they no longer subjugate the Lebanese queer individuals to Western understandings and perceptions.

She introduces herself and the art of drag in her only video uploaded on YouTube where she traces an imagined history of drag from the Shakespearean theaters until today.60

,October 26, 2018 ”,ﻣﺮﺣﺒﺎ! أﻧﺎ زﺣﻞ / Zuhal, “Hello! I'm Zuhal 60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MduDAn7Ok4&t=320s 68

She playfully translates the literal meaning of “drag,” as the men in women’s clothing did

on stage with their hair and dresses in Shakespearean times, into the Arabic “jarr,” turning

“drag queens” to its equivalent “malikat jarr.”61 In a similar fashion to RuPaul, Zuhal constructs a queer Lebanese history, tied to Western drag, where despite its recent rise in

Beirut, drag performers have always had a place of belonging, an origin and a trajectory.

The video acts as an entrance into the world of drag from an Arab’s perspective, addressing misconceptions and dealing with homophobia in a comedic fashion. She answers questions regarding her gender, the difference between doing drag and being trans, the difficulties facing drag queens in Beirut and what drag queens do. Her use of comedy queers homophobic comments and perceptions of drag and gender nonconformity through ridicule, which she does by adopting multiple masculine voices that verbally abuse her, subverting their power over her by addressing them, asserting her presence as a queer artist then dismissing them as irrelevant.62

The attempts of queens like Zuhal in rendering drag intelligible to Arab audiences, traces

a historical link to a long Middle-Eastern and specifically Lebanese tradition of men in

women’s clothing in the media. Tarek Zeidan, the executive director of Helem, cited tv

shows and theater productions such as “SLSHI” and “Théâtre de Dix-Heures” which

featured “drag” as we now know it.63 These were comedy shows that ran from the late

19980s until the early 2000s mocking pop culture and commented on socio-political issues, illustrating the proximity of cross-dressing, theater and politics.64 These non-traditional

61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 64 mtvlebanon, “SLCHI – Shampoo,” October 15, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XUMJuyhizk&list=PLwkUf0RYttgRUM9183Tta9jCMZF1gP24D; Wikipedia contributors, "Théâtre de Dix-Heures," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 69

gender expressions still manifest today in theater shows such as Metro al-Madina’s “Hishik

Bishik,” which is a tribute and a recreation of Egyptian cabarets and wedding cultures of

the early 20th century. The poster of the musical play depicts King Farouk with make up

on, feathers in his tarbush, a feather boa and jewelry.65 The Beiruti queer performers,

further propagating this tradition, infuse it with an unabashed gender and sexual

nonconformity, publicizing and thus politicizing the private. In this amalgamation of the

Lebanese tradition of cross-dressing and politics and the Western concept of being out, at

least in the performances, is the uniqueness of the hybrid drag of Beirut.

Another Lebanese queer artists who have engaged in cross dressing prior to the advent of

drag as it is now known is Bassem Feghali. Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra called Feghali,

their first source of inspiration to do drag, their “mother” or the “RuPaul of Lebanon," a

drag queen before there was drag. 66 Although he does not call himself a drag queen and

uses his own name, Feghali is regarded by several drag queens I interviewed, as the first

drag queen in Lebanon. Besides female celebrity impersonation, he performs original

characters who are recognizable stereotypes of Lebanese women, subtly playing with

conceptions of gender. Anya praised him as a “genius in every aspect” because he alone is

responsible for everything in his sketches. 67 He makes his own costumes, writes the scripts, films, produces and records his own music. His fame transcends age, sects and the confines

of the country. In the 1990s, his win at Studio El-Fan, a widely broadcasted Lebanese talent

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre_de_Dix-Heures&oldid=847775608 (accessed March 5, 2019). 65 Metro Al Madina, Facebook Post, accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/events/252240612092383/. 66 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 67 Ibid. 70

competition, launched him into mainstream media and he has been on national television

since. Due to the lack of conception of drag, he was met with confusion and trepidation,

but his humor and novelty won over the audiences.68

By drawing upon these old sporadic tradition of cross dressing, he is able to stop just short

of crossing the line into non-normativity, even as he puts those norms—and a mass of other

political norms—into question. Sultana reflected on his protection from the public eye, as

he was “never seen out of drag since the 90s,” and his distance from the LGBTQ+

community as acts of “survival.”69 Despite and because of his mainstream status, he was

able to speak a double language, one which caters to a wide audience and another that queer

individuals understand. Sultana and Donna Stella recalled the power of seeing him on

national television growing up, especially his show “Alf Wayle Bi Layle,” a play on One

Thousand and One Nights translating to “One Thousand Woes in a Night,” during

Ramadan, an airing time awarded only to those famous enough.70 This show spoke to them

differently than it did others, they were mesmerized as they finally found someone they

saw themselves in. They heard the interpellation so many others missed, where gender

nonconformity was not just funny but glamourous and desirable.71 In addition, Kneez and

Kedavra credit Feghali for a lot of Lebanese references and slang, especially gay slang.

They recognize a gay sub context to his jokes which passes over the heads of the general

public, as if he is saying “this is for you” to the LGBTQ+ community.72

68 Wael Lazkani, “The Queen,” Bidoun, Spring 2009, https://www.bidoun.org/articles/the-queen. 69 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 70 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019; Donna Stella, interview with the author, January 25, 2019. 71 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 3. 72 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 71

However, the influence of RPDR and the Gay International which have reconceptualized

queer expressions has made Feghali unrepresentative as a model of queerness for the

current generation. Their desires surpass the notion of passing for at least in intimate spaces

such as within the clubs and the balls, the do not need to hide, free to openly display and

embody the multiplicity of their identities. Likewise, the television series is also unable to

capture the local meanings assigned to drag aesthetics such as the use of facial hair and other regionally specific Lebanese garments. Anya Kneez, when asked if she is interested in competing on RPDR, responded by saying that the show was “not ready for a bearded

Middle Eastern queen,”73 as she describes her character as a “fashion model terrorist.”74

Her drag is representational terrorism, interrogating American Islamophobia and fantasies

of queer Middle Eastern bodies by defiantly queering the stereotype of the Arab terrorist.

She sees having facial hair and a hairy chest as indications of an Arab identity, which she

emphasizes in her clothing choices, utilizing this popular imagery while queering its

representation.75 Performing in her previous hometown Brooklyn and in Beirut, Anya aims

to “showcase Arab queerness,” to affirm her identity and that of others, saying “We are

Arab, we are queer, we exist.”76 Similarly, Evita Kedavra embodies local phobic notions

as a form of political protest. Through her drag, she resignifies the association of beards

with religious figures and Lebanese masculine representations, while still calling them to

73 Instagram story (due to safety reasons, no Instagram handles will be provided throughout the thesis.) Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 75 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 108. 76 Liana Satenstein, “Inside Beirut’s Bright and Beautiful Drag-aissance,” Vogue World, February 5, 2019, https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/beirut-drag-queen-anya-kneez-latiza-bomba-zuhal-global-100. 72 memory, by coupling them with identifiably feminine outfits. Her drag represents local fears and anxieties of a religiously coded, homosexual, feminine male body.77

Contrary to RuPaul’s Drag Race which turns drag into a performance of homonationalism, heteronormativity and a gay identity, the drag in Beirut queers drag once more. In its hybridity, it self-consciously appropriates of parts of popular Western drag, models that promote nonnormative self-expressions that otherwise find few places to manifest.

Through this adoption and despite the allure of simply mimicry, local and Western fears and desires are hailed, questioned and transformed. Nevertheless, the freedom of self-

(re)construction associated with drag still faces threats from broader forces within

Lebanese culture, where certain marginalized groups battle to claim space and queer this penetrative oppressive power

77 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 73

Chapter 2: Contesting Drag: Anti-Femininity and the Exclusion of Women

“Look at me getting somewhere with this [femininity]” – Paris Glitoris1

Sitting in a corner at Tayf, an NGO aimed at men who have sex with men, amid preparations for the Beirut Grand Ball, Paris Glitoris told me about her drag. She has been doing drag for only a year: her debut was at one of the mini balls, where she captured the attention of the judges and audience with an androgynous take on Frida Kahlo. She found in drag an affirmation of her femininity, which she has always been shamed for, especially by her family and men she dated.2 Her drag was a rebellion against her family and Lebanese society, a rebellion against the strict gender norms that only a slight deviation from brings a cascade of social repercussions. While drag provided a space for self-expression, discovery and experimentation, it also suffered from constraints imposed upon in by the audience. Although Glitoris thus felt a pressure to conform to the gender binary in drag, she decided to undertake the challenge of breaking these expectations and presenting various genders to create different associations with the body.3

1 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 74

In this chapter, I examine the ways in which drag, as Paris Glitoris’ work shows,

complicates normative understandings of gender, challenging both heterosexual and

homosexual devaluations of male femininity, while simultaneously excluding female

participation. Beginning with a brief overview of gender relations in Lebanon and the

institutionalization of heterosexuality, I then explore how that heterosexuality imposes

normative masculinity on homosexual men, making gender a means of identification with

one’s sex. This opens into an analysis of the effects of drag’s propagation; relying upon

fieldwork and interviews, I focus on how the audience and wider society expect gender to

be embodied and how drag challenges these expectations. Yet although male femininity is slowly being accepted, women remain on the outskirts of the queer community; this leads to my exploration, using the example of the first drag king show in Beirut, of how queer women have struggled to make a space for themselves within drag culture.

Institutionalized Heterosexuality

Despite the social, economic and political changes accompanying the processes of

modernization and globalization affecting views on and portrayals of desired masculinities,

the family remains central to the social fabric and the political makeup of the Lebanese

state. According to Suad Joseph, the state/citizen relationship in the country is

characterized by political familism, whereby both entities use familial ideologies,

institutions and relationships to access, mobilize and negotiate governance.4 The family

mediates the relationship between the people and the state, as citizens exist in relation to

each other rather than as individuals. The family also undertakes several responsibilities

4 Suad Joseph, “Political Familism in Lebanon,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 636 (2011): 150, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41328556 75

that are assumed by the state in other countries, such as protection and social welfare.

Marriage and the creation of a family are thus inevitable goals that both the state and the family expect and demand. Heterosexual relationships and the family unite to create, propagate and also limit the control of the state.5

The state is not only founded on heterosexuality, but upon patriarchy and religion

as well, each aspect interacting and enforcing the other.6 The position of women in this foundational institution of the state, the family, finds its clearest expression in the law. The personal status codes, governing familial relationships such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc., situate the citizen in relation to her religious sect, from which the applicable laws are derived; as well as her social position, which in the case of women is defined by her relation to a male figure.7 Once married, the wife loses some of her civil

rights, as she becomes legally subordinated to her husband.8 The law reflects and shapes

the society’s view on women, where men occupy a position of dominance in the family,

society and all state institutions.

This normative status of heterosexuality in national institutions infiltrates the

conception of the Lebanese self, constructing both heterosexual and queer identities, which

reject and devalue all that is feminine. Masculinity, a culturally specific and relational set

of male gender presentations, behaviors and beliefs stipulating ways of being, becomes

central to one’s identity and position in society. Hegemonic masculinity, the idealized form

of this embodiment of gender, is defined as “the currently accepted answer to the problem

5 Ibid., 156. 6 Lamia Rustum Shehadeh, “Gender-Relevant Legal Change in Lebanon,” Feminist Formations, 22, no. 3 (2010): 212, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40980991. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 213. 76

of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant

position of men and the subordination of women.”9 It is formed in a “relentless repudiation of the feminine,” with the feminine symbolizing everything that is Other, subjugated in a system of power that privileges some men over some deemed Other.10 According to

Michael Kimmel’s “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the

Construction of Gender Identity,” hegemonic masculinity is one that is “strong, successful, capable, reliable and in control,” one that assumes dominance over others who cannot acquire this position due to other identities they inhabit, such as homosexuality.11

Findings from several focus groups conducted in the Baalbek region, North East of

Lebanon, demonstrate the link between masculinity and patriarchal conceptions of power,

including authority, economic provision and enforcement of morality.12 Adherence to this

image of an “ideal man,” one who performs masculinity and the associated norms and roles

perfectly, brings with it social status, while nonconformity results in social marginalization

and disdain. An “ideal woman,” a perfect embodiment of femininity or the Other, on the

other hand, is defined through her relationship to her husband and children, in terms of

obedience, devotion and sacrifice.13 These conceptions of masculinity and femininity are

highly affected by class, ethnicity and locality, but the survey mentioned above provides a

basis for understanding how gender norms and presentation are intertwined with sex and

sexuality. Nonetheless, some men reported discontent with male gender roles as fulfilling

9 R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995): 77. 10 Michael S. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity,” in The Masculinities Reader, ed. Stephen Whitehead and Frank Barret (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001), 272. 11 Ibid. 12 Jinan Usta et al., “Effects of Socialization on Gender Discrimination and Violence Against Women in Lebanon,” Violence Against Women, 22, no. 4 (2016), 418. 13 Ibid., 425. 77

the role of the sole provider is becoming increasingly difficult.14 This disillusionment with

hegemonic masculinity provides spaces of possibility for some to reconfigure their gender

and what qualities it entails. However, the unviability of this dominating form of

masculinity also induces anxiety for other men, who strive harder to emulate this ideal and

exert greater social control over others who engage in gender non-normativity in any way.

Gender and sexual non-conforming individuals are also affected by this discourse

on masculinity, with some, especially non-heterosexual men, maintaining the gender

binary and the associated gender norms and roles. Ghassan Moussawi’s findings from

interviewing ten non-heterosexual young men displays how non-heterosexual masculinity

is thought of, employed and embodied, lying between hegemonic masculinity and male

femininity.15 Hegemonic masculinity, illustrated by the “image of the rijjal… a man who

is physically strong, well-groomed, loud and proud of his sexual prowess,” was criticized

for being too rigid.16 However, many of the interviewees personified it strategically in

order for them to “pass” or be thought of as heterosexual men. They rejected this type of

masculinity, which they called “‘typically Lebanese,’” but masculinity remained an

important notion, defined in opposition to femininity, which they often ridiculed and

considered ‘“shameful.’”17

Furthermore, due to the stark distinction between the private and the public in

Lebanon and the wider Middle East, where sex is rarely talked about in public and gender

14 Ibid., 426. 15 Ghassan Moussawi, “Not ‘straight,’ but still a ‘man:’ Negotiating non-Heterosexual Masculinities in Beirut,” in Introducing the New Sexuality Studies, ed. Steven Seidman et al. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016): 159. 16 Ibid., 160. 17 Ibid., 161. 78

is a performance by and for all, gender identity becomes the primary site to signify one’s

sexual and gender non-conformity. The public tolerates non-normative behavior as long as

it is hidden, pathologized and/or denied. Non-conforming individuals succumb to “keeping

up appearances in the name of tradition or respectability and between the things they do in

private of when away from home.”18 The privileges of being a man in Lebanon are many

and the criminalization of homosexuality acts as a deterrent, encouraging queer men to

maintain a normative image and reputation in accordance with society’s perceptions of

masculinity.

The Heterosexual Matrix and Anti-femininity

Due to the nexus between patriarchy, family and confession in the making of the Lebanese

identity and thus subject, heteronormative assumptions pervade the gay community where

gender signifies one’s sex and sexuality. Butler deconstructs this collapse of gender, sex

and sexuality, where sex is assumed to be natural and pure and the body or one’s genitals

dictate their sexuality and gender. She argues that sex, and therefore “nature”, are also

cultural constructs that provide certain understandings of the body and what it should or

should not desire. This perception of sex does not account for the multiplicity of sexualities

grounded in bodily desires, nor the variety of expressions of gender which are also not

merely given, nor deviations from this notion of nature.19 Contributing to the assumption

of an interconnection between gender and sex, is the concept of hegemonic masculinity,

the perfect performance of gender. It is defined against, rejecting and excluding,

18 Brian Whitaker, Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East (California: University of California Press, 2006): 7. 19 Judith Butler, “Subject of Sex/Gender/Desire,” in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon During (London: Routledge, 1993), 346. 79

homosexuality and femininity, associating them with each other. Homosexual men perform

their gender imperfectly because of their sexual object choice. By desiring men, they are

situated in a position women occupy and so are associated with femininity, in agreement

with gender essentialism.20 Additionally, the masculinity of homosexual men is further

negated if their gender does not conform to normative conceptions of masculinity. Any

break from the alignment of male sex as a cultural construction, masculine gender and

heterosexual sexual orientation results in social sanctioning and loss of male privilege;

while adherence generates rewards. Gender thus becomes the site of the contestation of

these ideas in Beirut, where non-conforming individuals are socially policed to uphold this

presumed direct association to sex in an effort to avoid being Othered.

In Lebanon, this conflation between sex, gender and sexuality compels an

assumption that links masculinity to heterosexuality and femininity to homosexuality. One

risks the privilege bestowed by the society if one were to be found out to be non-

heterosexual, as ‘“in Lebanon, if you’re gay, you’re no longer considered a man. …even if

you are masculine.”’21 This notion of “not being a man” is echoed in another statement by

one of Moussawi’s interviewees, who viewed femininity as “’want[ing] to be a woman.”’22

Sultana, a young queen who works as a makeup artist, faced several criticisms of her

behavior and mannerisms throughout the years. She was frequently femme-shamed, told to “be a man” by her family and other homosexual men.23 She exclaimed indignantly that

she is obviously not a woman, pointing out the inflexibility of the expected masculine

20 R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 143. 21 Moussawi, “Not ‘straight,’ but still a ‘man,’” 163. 22 Ibid., 162. 23 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 80

behavior which makes no room for femininity on male bodies.24 In her critique of the

heteronormativity that pervades the homosexual community, she refuses to be named a

woman, insisting that she is a man, even though she claims the feminine pronoun. While

she stresses the arbitrary link between gender and sex, her statement still implies the belief

in a natural sex that necessitates part of her identity. She is a feminine man but a “man”

after all.

Gender is not only intertwined with sex, but gender non-conformity is widely

thought to indicate a non-normative sexuality, by both heterosexual and homosexual

individuals.25 This association increases the stigma around male femininity as it provokes

the public eye, bringing shame and harassment that can be avoided if one “passes” as a

heterosexual man. Moussawi’s interviewees emphasized the discomfort connected to

feminine displays by homosexual men and ‘“being seen’” with them in public.26 The

unease stems from being “found out” to be non-heterosexual and the repercussions

entailed. Sultana spoke about the patriarchal and machismo culture plaguing the gay

community, where femininity is seen as compromising the safety of gay men. She

emphasized the need for discretion among gay couples in order to avoid any form of

harassment and abuse in homophobic and heteronormative spaces.27 Profiles on gay-male dating websites express this necessity for passing: users articulate desires by saying,

“typical macho str8 (straight) guy who likes to meet with men at the same time...but men

24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 160. 26 Ibid., 162. 27 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 81

in every sense of the word... discrete…”’28 Sultana, however, complained that femininity

was not only rejected in the public realm to avoid scrutiny, but also in the private one.29

The dating culture also bolsters the position of heteronormative masculinity as the desired gender.30 Paris Glitoris experienced femme shaming when dating. She would be

asked to tone it down, to look and speak differently or to put distance between them in

public,31 a point reiterated throughout Moussawi’s interviews, where feminine men were often seen as not “sexually or emotionally arous[ing].”32 Anti-feminine sentiments are

restated in surveys of gay-male dating websites and applications in Beirut, such as

GayRomeo, where normative masculine behaviors are commended and sought after. One

user writes under their preferences: “no feminine, no queer, no drag queen,” revealing a

heteronormative perspective on masculinity that ascribes a certain gender to queer bodies

if they are to be seen as sexually desirable.33

The link between sexuality and gender is also formidable as sex roles are inscribed

within culture using heterosexual narratives pertaining to the sexual positions, which

defines penetration as placing one in the position that is “either active or passive, but not

both.”34. An “active” role, or being a “top,” is less shameful and might be tolerated by the

dominant culture, in opposition to occupying a “passive” role or “bottoming,” where the

28 Mathew Gagné, “Queer Beirut Online: The Participation of Men in Gayromeo.com,” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 8, no. 3 (2012): 131. 29 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 30 See similar: Francisco J. Sanchez and Eric Vilain, “‘Straight-Acting Gays:’ The Relationship Between Masculine Consciousness, Anti-Effeminacy, and Negative Gay Identity,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, no.1 (2012): 121. 31 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 32 Moussawi, “Not ‘straight,’ but still a ‘man,’” 162-3. 33 For example, see similar: Matthew T. Conte, “More Fats, More Femmes: A Critical Examination of Fatphobia and Femmephobia on Grindr,” Queer Feminine Affinities, 7 (2018): 25-32; Gagné, “Queer Beirut Online,” 130. 34 Whitaker, Unspeakable Love, 206. 82

latter is gendered as feminine and characterized as woman-like.35 Anal sex and the

associated sex roles are deemed fixed, excluding and limiting intimacy from manifesting

in various forms of contact and relations. Paris revealed that gay men would often claim to

be tops either in conversation or over dating applications, but then they would admit to the

lie at the crucial moment.36 This experience is shared widely, for men are too ashamed to disclose their sexual preference as well as their desire for those who are considered Other, the feminine, the “bottom.” Hamed Sinno, the openly queer lead singer of Mashrou’ Leila, exclaims in Unsolicited Diqpiqs: How My Body Became My Parents' Salon: “…masc for masc/top for top’/TOP FOR TOP/what the actual fuck does that even mean?/But boys will be boys–impenetrable-.”37 Sinno highlights the extent to which gay men seek to put a

distance between themselves and any acts implicated with femininity. He laments the lack

of spaces for the exploration of sexualities and the fluidity in self-expression. Upholding

one’s image of masculinity, in the face of a society that is deeply homophobic and anti-

feminine, is thus paramount even to one another, and even in the bedroom.

Male femininity, rejected in intimate relationships, is also spurned by both the gay

community and wider society, which both discriminate against and exclude feminine men

in multiple ways and contexts. Sofian Merabet, in Creating Queer Space in Beirut: Zones

of Encounter within the Lebanese Male Homosexual Sphere, documents several instances

of homophobia that represses homosexuality when it becomes too visible and thus

35 Ibid. 36 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 37 Hamed Sinno, “Unsolicited Diqpiqs: How My Body Became My Parents' Salon,” Doubt Magazine, accessed March 8, 2019, http://doubtonline.com/nodes/index/44. 83

threatening.38 These attempts at restraining the queer community from appropriating social

spaces often targets feminine men. One example, is of the dynamics leading to the closure,

in 2002, of the restaurant Café Sheikh Manoush, which had served as a meeting place for

homosexual men. As the restaurant gained popularity among this clientele, the place

became more visibly queer: some men expressed various gender identities that did not

conform to the discreet masculinity expected of them. It was not only the owner, but some

customers, too, who exhibited hostility towards these displays of femininity, eventually

leading to the dispersal of the crowd and the consequent failure of the business.39 In this

case, femininity again endangered the frequenters’ social status, risking exposure of their sexuality, which could only be protected by the ostracization of the feminine.

Drag: Exploration, Affirmation and Subversion

In Lebanon, heterosexuality imposes social marginalization and other forms of

punishment on those who fail to embody their gender perfectly, making the iteration of

these norm beneficial and non-conformity subversive. This rigidity of gender pervades the

drag scene too, implicating both the drag performers and their audiences to the extent to

which they engage with gender binaries and the implications on sex and sexuality. In the

imagination of the local community, there are expectations of embodying femininity if the

performer is male and masculinity if they are female. Drag is thought of as a perfect

adherence to an idealized female figure by men, which the performers are able to achieve

through transforming their bodies by shaving, tucking and padding. Those who do not

38 Sofian Merabet, “Creating Queer Space in Beirut: Zones of Encounter within the Lebanese Male Homosexual Sphere,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi Books, 2006): 199 – 242. 39 Ibid., 216. 84

conform, are labeled to be doing a “lesser” form of drag.40 Yet, the Beiruti performers use

their performances to interrogate these rigid conceptions of gender identities. Although

performance and performativity are not the same, drag in performing gender with the

intention to do so imperfectly reveals the latter. It does not only question, challenge and/or

reinforce the cultural construction of gender, but even of sex, as will be shown in what

follows.

Several of the drag queens interviewed found in drag a place to process the stigma

attached to male femininity and to express this repressed part of themselves.41 For Sultana,

drag gives her the freedom to finally portray her femininity, a behavior she was derided for

in innumerable occasions throughout her life. On her Instagram page, she describes herself

as “Born out of expression marinated in gender and sexual oppression seasoned with toxic

patriarchy and topped off with a dash of beauty.”42 She described her household as

propagating toxic masculinity, scrutinizing her manner of speech, gestures and walk from

a young age. Once, for instance, her grandmother launched into a tirade, criticizing her for

speaking like her mom, when she expressed affection towards her baby cousin. Although

her family is unaware that she engages in this art form, her name, a reclamation and

feminization of her last name, is a clear statement of rebellion.43 Drag thus is a response to

and an act of transgression against her family and wider society.

40 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 41 See similar: John Jacob and Catherine Cerny, “Radical Drag Appearances and Identity: The Embodiment of Male Femininity and Social Critique,” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 22, no.3 (2004): 127. 42 Sultana’s Instagram page. (For safety reasons, I will not provide any social media handle) 43 Sultana, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 85

In her debut performance, Sultana put on a video of a fight with her dad over her

gender identity and lip synced to “Hair” by Lady Gaga.44 The song begins with:

Whenever I'm dressed cool, my parents put up a fight// And if I'm hot shot, mom will cut my hair at night// And in the morning, I'm short of my identity// I scream Mom and Dad// "Why can't I be who I want to be?" To be.45 The song expresses the desire to be accepted and loved by one’s family despite of and

because of who they are. The threat of cutting a girl’s hair for the way she dresses mirrors

the silencing of Sultana’s self-expression when she is derided for her gestures, actions and

manner of speech. In order to survive, she has to hide and deform herself to fit the mold

presented by her family. She longs for being, for manifesting fully but instead, she receives

conditional love that exerts constant violence on her identity. She lives in a state between

life and death, not fully human, but on stage she is fully herself, alive. Coupled with the

video of the fight, the emotional and powerful performance portrays the conflicts and

hardships of defying sexual and gender norms and its ramifications on the person and their

social circle. On stage, however, the performers’ non-normative sexuality and femininity

are celebrated and allowed to be exhibited, as opposed to the stigma and shame associated

with them in daily life.

Similarly, drag for Sit Dusah, is a space for expressing her gender non-conformity.

She is a transwoman who presents as male in all aspects in her life, where only a selected

few know that she is a trans and use feminine pronouns when addressing her.46 At home,

especially, she feels the pressure to hide who she is, to watch her mannerisms, clothing

44 Ibid. 45 Lady Gaga, “Lady Gaga - Hair (Audio),” May 16, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okq8xHrIZ8I 46 See similar: Taylor and Rupp, “Chicks with Dicks,” 121. 86

choices, tone of voice. Drag, fortunately, is a “breather,” a space where she can channel

these daily struggles and work through her feelings.47 It gives her the power to be seen the

way she wants to. By putting on makeup and feminine clothing, a transformation perceived

to be foreign to one’s initial identity, she is able to fully express her womanhood, reflecting

the self that goes unacknowledged throughout the day. Despite the transphobia she is met

with in the queer community and the frequent questions on the difference between being

trans and being a drag queen, drag remains a safe space for her. On stage, Sit Dusah feels

gender euphoria as she presents and is treated as the correct gender.48 At the Grand Ball,

she thrilled the audience with her voguing skills. In drag, voguing, her body was hers. She

could assign new meanings, disrupt normative associations and challenge the rigid

perceptions of sex and gender held by the audience. Her trans identity and femininity,

markers of difference and invitations for exclusion and violence her societies, could finally

manifest and are affirmed through drag.

Just like drag helped Sit Dusah reveal the image she has of herself; it was a site of

self-(re)making and reflection for Emma Gration. During her childhood, she was bullied at

school for her feminine behavior, finding in makeup a way of dealing with the resulting

negative emotions. She likened putting on makeup to meditation, for while she applied it,

she is not thinking about anything but what she is doing.49 The act of painting her face deprive the memories of bullying, the trauma and the shame associated with them, from their influence over her. Through drag, she could work through and transform these feelings of pain, misery and loneliness into a site where norms and judgements do not exist,

47 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 48 Ibid. 49 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 87

where she can make freely sense of the gender contradictions she experiences every day.50

She is no longer the child incapable of protecting himself, but someone who is celebrated

for her non-conformity, lauded for her creativity and strength. Drag gave her a sense of

empowerment, validating her femininity because she uses a hyper-exaggerated image of

“woman” from popular culture to communicate desires that are excluded from this public

realm.51 Her influences are 60s/70s era fashion and cartoons, which she couples with

comedy to comment on issues felt by the queer community, such gender presentations and

intimate relationships.52 Although her Western style may be seen as an uncritical adoption of Western pop culture, these images are in fact resignified and subverted, as “‘Glam uses

symbols that pop culture creates for the expression of the desires that pop culture does not

anticipate, endorse, or provide space for.’”53 Emma’s drag is “outrageous, fearless, a clean- slate,” where she can claim the space and expresses the desires she has been denied growing up and to be and do the things she is otherwise unable to do or be in her daily life.54 Emma,

the character, can be judged, while the person behind her, her male self, is protected.55 The

character has her own backstory, feelings and personality made up of the repressed parts

of the performer that are forced to remain hidden when in public, due to the various social

pressures of expected propriety, gender presentations and social civility.56 Unlike the

repression she experiences during the day, drag, although hides or covers the bullied

50 See similar: Jacob, “Radical Drag Appearances and Identity,” 128. 51 See similar: Alana Kumbier, “One Body, Some Genders,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3-4 (2003): 196, DOI: 10.1300/J082v43n03_12. 52 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 53 Kumbier, “One Body, Some Genders,” 196. 54 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 55 Idea echoed by K. E. McNeal, “Behind the Make-Up: Gender and the Double-Bind of Gay Selfhood in Drag Performance,” Ethos, 27, no. 3 (1999): 347. 56 Emma Gration, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 88

femininized male self, it simultaneously enables her to express the deepest parts of herself

and to heal.

Even though drag provides a space for the performers’ feminine gender expression,

the performers still struggle to fully explore their identities, facing opposition from the

audience to the subversion of gender, and sometimes sex, in their performances. The queer

community expects traditional representations of drag, ones that portrays accurate images

of the embodiment of an idealized version of gender. This inflexibility of what people think

drag is manifested itself in questions Donna Stella received when they first started doing

drag. Donna Stella, who is relatively new to the drag scene, believes that gender is a cultural

construction and a performance, ideas they seek to exhibit in their performances. Their

drag resists and refuses the gender binary as well as sex as an essential category, one with

natural meaning. They recall people around them making assumption that their drag would

be feminine, that they would have a drag name, also reflecting this femininity, and that

they would have a different persona.57 These questions illustrate the common conceptions

the audiences have of what drag is and should be. Nevertheless, Stella refused to submit to

this uncompromising attitude towards drag and the perceived authenticity of sex and

gender. They began performing under their real name, emphasizing the proximity of their

drag to their gender identity and rupturing the association between name and gender. Later

on, they came up with Donna Stella, naming that part of them that likes to perform and not devising a complete fictional character as some believed it should be. Their aesthetic is not yet set, for they do not want to portray a fixed look; instead, they are in the process of experimenting to reach a point at which their style is constantly changing but recognizable

57 Donna Stella, interview with the author, January 25, 2019. 89 at the same time, reflecting the idea of a fluid, yet recognizable self.58 In their performance at the Beirut Grand Ball, the biggest drag event of the year, they wore a black man’s suit without a shirt, 6-inch heels, make up and no wig. Their image subverted the very notion of drag, contrasting and mixing gendered perceptions of both dress and body.

Another queer artist who strives to remake the concept of drag in Beirut is Mike, who, in a break from all the local performers uses their real name as their stage name. They endure the same pressures confronting other drag performers, which aim to set boundaries to what drag should be and exclude expressions that do not conform to this definition. At the Beirut Grand Ball, they performed Diana Ross’s I’m Coming Out, reinterpreted to signify homosexuality by the queer community in the United States but in Mike’s case, referred to his nonconformity, coming out of the boxes of gender and the drag imposed by the community. Unlike the majority of queens, they did not alter their body, preferring to wear androgynous clothes of a bright blue sequin jacket revealing their natural chest, paired with jewelry, makeup and heels. They did not use padding to create the illusion of a female body, nor wear a wig. On their Instagram story, shared and endorsed by several drag performers, they wrote addressing their audiences and other drag performers:

Lots of people don’t take me seriously simply cause I don’t do “full” drag. The other, more simple-minded ones, don’t respect me only cause I got some makeup on and wear what I feel like wearing (which they consider out of the norm). My dears I’m not here to present to you something that makes you feel comfortable. Your labels will not and cannot work on me. I am more than just one thing. And I couldn’t care less about you not liking what I do.59

58 Donna Stella, interview with the author, January 25, 2019. 59 Mike’s Instagram story, 03/06/19. 90

In this excerpt, Mike takes a defiant stance against the criticisms they receive,

which questions the legitimacy of their drag as it does not involve a normative

understanding of drag as a transformation from masculine to feminine gender presentation.

They are consciously positioning themselves in opposition to the norms, disrupting

boundaries of gender and performance, where one identity flows into the other. Their drag

is rebellious and provocative, one that aims to dispute the set definition of “drag.” The

agreement of other drag artist, shown in their captions of Mike’s story, indicates a shared

perception of the restrictions on gender and sex and an engagement aimed at undermining and queering these boundaries.

Reiterating and depicting this criticism in their performance is Qaws Qozah, which

translates to Rainbow. She is also intent on steering away from what is expected of her and

uses her performances to oppose and reject normative perceptions of gender in drag to

initiate conversations with her audiences. Her style is dark, gothic, conceptual artistic

performances where she mostly relies on a black and white palette despite her name.60 At

the Grand Ball, she performed a rigorous critique of the constraints the local community

and the queens put on drag. That critique began when the moment she stepped into the

spotlight: she tossed her hat, shaped like an eyebrow to symbolize the judgment passed

upon her by the queer community and many other drag queens, out into the audience—the

audience full of people who had thus far judged her. At the end, she swung her long pony

tail and eventually took it off as a symbol of freedom from these pressures. Her rejection

of rules was also the subject of a previous performance during which she wore a Victorian

style white dress, taken off to reveal a cage. These images of restraint demonstrated the

60 Qaws Qozah, interview with the author, January 18, 2019. 91

contortions done by the body in order to please others and the violence experienced in the

process. The concept behind it was a critique of the beauty standards enforced on women,

and in turn on other displays of femininity especially those of drag queens.61 Referencing

Victorian era styles is also a critique of colonialism and the resulting sexual repression

exerted on and exported to Arabs.

The platform performers gain through drag gives them a chance to comment on,

ridicule, and try to begin to change the queer community’s pervasive anti-femininity and conceptions of the fixity of gender. In a similar manner to Qaws Qozah, their drag mother,

Kawkab Zuhal, which translates to “the planet Saturn,” initiated a conversation on bottom- shaming during her solo show that I attended in January. She declared that it was difficult to find any actual tops in Beirut, referring to the stigma associated with divulging one’s preference for assuming the “passive” role and the awkward interaction that results when it is found out. She breaks the silence surrounding the devaluation of this sexual position by bringing up the issue in relation to her dating life, as part of her commentary on the gay dating culture in the city. At the same time, she was flirting with a member of the audience, publicizing the private to question and challenge the dominant discourse in the gay community. By presenting an overtly sexual masculinity that does not devalue the act of bottoming, Zuhal objects to the society’s perception on what they see as feminine and what is desirable, endorsing its expression as a sexual preference and creating a dialogue that aims at its acceptance.

61 Ibid. 92

These attempts at subverting the queer community’s beliefs stems from the

inception of drag in the city, when the performers sought to defy and confront

heteronormative understandings of gender, especially how femininity can be conceived

and how it can look like. Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, founders of the drag scene in

Beirut, faced several challenges from the audiences as they chastised the queens’ gender

presentations as not feminine enough. The audience was awaiting representations of known

standards of female beauty and gender performance. Drag for those queens, however, was

an act of gender exploration and transgression where femininity is non-restrictive.62 Their performances aimed to display the arbitrariness of gender as they displaced signifiers of gender onto their bodies, revealing the construction of gender. Anya adopts genderqueer expressions in her drag. Her trademark is a moustache and body hair coupled with a feminine gender presentation characterized by glamour. Evita also did not want to observe notions of normative femininity as she put thought into “what sort of presentation of femininity I’m putting out.”63 She employs elements that are typically feminine and queer

them with masculinity. Evita, in the beginning of her drag career, would present as the

“cutest, most annoyingly adorable little thing” wearing christening dresses and giant

bows.64 The choice of dresses references religious norms coupled with girlhood, a state of

awaiting to be washed of Original Sin, but on her body, they are queered and displaced.

She robs these symbols of their morality and attempts at sanitizing the body of all that is

sexual. This image of extreme virginal femininity is subverted by her large frame, loud

demeanor, hairy body, lack of heels and most importantly, overt sexuality.

62 Anya Kneez and Evita Kedavra, “E1 – Beirut is Burning,” Queer Narratives Beirut, iTunes, Mansion and Outpost Magazine, podcast audio, June 28, 2018. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 93

While the recognition and celebration of femininity during the performances does

not always extend to the wider queer community,65 several queens contend that it has

gotten better over the last few years because of the influence of drag. Paris Glitoris

described the gay community as going through “an awkward phase between toxic

masculinity and acceptance.”66 Some drag queens highlight their expressions of femininity

on their social media accounts, normalizing male femininity and mocking masculine gay

behavior. Paris Glitoris, for example, captioned a story on her account with “masc4masc,”

a frequently used phrase to state preference for masculine presentation on dating

applications.67 She displaced the phrase, however, as she presented as overtly feminine in

dress style and pose, not in drag. Hoedy Saad, the organizer of the Beirut Grand Ball, had

a similar Instagram story, where he added the phrase “masc4mascara” to his picture, queering its meaning to denote something feminine, insisting on the inclusion of femininity where it would be most unwelcomed.68

Women: Carving Out Spaces

Spaces have opened for the expression of male femininity, but these spaces still

have boundaries: they rarely include cis women doing drag, either as drag kings or queens.

I asked the interviewees about female drag kings or queens, but it was not a topic they had

thought of and could not point me to anyone. Luckily, I found one drag king on Instagram,

Safa El King. Living in the suburbs of Beirut with his family, he was unable to attend drag

shows or perform himself, resorting to posting pictures of his drag online until he was able

65 See similar: Heidi M. Levitt et al., “Drag Gender: Experiences of Gender for Gay and Queer Men who Perform Drag,” Sex Roles, 78 (2018): 381, DOI 10.1007/s11199-017-0802-7. 66 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 67 Paris Glitoris’s Instagram story. 68 Hoedy’s Instagram story. 94 to do so. As a young drag artist, physically away from the drag community, he did not know of any drag kings from which to gain guidance and benefit from their experiences.

Even as he hides from his family to do drag, stealing his father’s clothes and wiping his makeup quickly, drag was space for him to explore his gender identity and sexuality. It enabled him to express his creativity and queerness and connect to other queer individuals and artists in the virtual sphere.69

This discrepancy in the number of drag kings compared to queens remains overlooked in the drag community. Paris Glitoris, however, expressed an intent on creating an inclusive space for everyone through her drag. For the Lady Gaga themed mini ball, she had two of her female friends in male drag for the first time as part of her performance.

They were vying for her love and she was torn in between, but in the end, as the chorus goes “Dancing in circles, feels good to be lonely,” they simulate kissing and leave Paris on her own.70 Paris decentered herself in the performance, giving space to the drag kings to express their desires and project their fantasies. This was one of a handful of times that female drag kings or queens were performing alongside male drag queens. Only a few queens acknowledged the current exclusivity of the drag scene as they did not think that anyone would be barred from performing at the balls. Nevertheless, it was apparent to me as a woman, the dominance of men in the queer spaces I attended.7172

69 Safa El King, interview with the author, January 21, 2019. 70 Paris Glitoris, interview with the author, January 10, 2019. 71 Especially the audience attending the show by the House of Bombé. 72 For more on the dynamics of exclusion of drag kings, see similar: Steven P. Schacht, “Lesbian Drag Kings and the Feminine Embodiment of the Masculine,” Journal of Homosexuality, 43, no.3-4 (2003): 75- 98, DOI: 10.1300/J082v43n03_06. 95

Mira AbdelMalak, head of the women’s committee at Helem and organizer of the

first drag king event, spoke of this exclusion. The event was inspired by the barring of

AbdelMalak’s friend from performing at a mini ball because she was a drag king, not a

queen. Although she was later invited to enter the ball, she did not win on account of their

drag gender presentation. The poster for the drag king event thus read: “It’s time for a drag

king show.” This phrase antagonized some queens and organizers of the balls because it

subtly denounces the exclusion of female drag performers by the community of drag

queens and exposes the image of inclusivity perpetuated by gay men and queens as untrue.

73 The drag community did not want to confront its invisible boundaries, where despite

their marginalization in the Lebanese society on account of their sexual non-normativity and their engagement in drag, they were implicated in similar power dynamics informed by heternormativity in which they were the perpetrators. The resistance to the drag king show was not met with efforts at reconciliation and integration into a community of kings and queens but was dismissed like the women in the queer community, passing without most drag queens taking notice.

The show enabled queer women to gain visibility on their own terms, assert themselves, and create spaces for themselves as they were not welcomed in other “queer” spaces.74 It was part of continuous efforts on the part of queer women to appropriate spaces

for themselves, held on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and

Biphobia (IDAHOT), parallel to and in defiance of the pride events held on that day which

celebrate “rights we don’t have.”75 The drag king show, as opposed to the drag queens’

73 Mira AbdelMalak, interview with the author, January 12, 2019. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 96

shows and in protest of their capitalist and exclusive norms, did not have an entry fee and

was open to anyone who wanted to perform on the spot All the drag kings, except the one,

was in drag for the first time. The aim was to bring all members of the community together

and have fun, so there was no format: the performers could showcase any talent they

wanted. The venue was packed, with some people standing on chairs or tables to be able

to see the small stage. Because it was an unexpected success, this year hopes to see its

continuation as an annual event.76 The event did not only open spaces for drag kings and

queer women, but for all who questioned conceptions of sex and gender. It created a site

of possibilities, of new alliances to form, of interactions that might have otherwise not had

the place to manifest.

The discrimination against women in the drag scene reflects the marginalization of

queer women in the wider queer community. AbdelMalak argued that queer women in

Lebanon experience oppression as women and as queer women, that there are a multitude

of problems such as sexual harassment, the lack of anti-discriminatory laws and that

women cannot pass on citizenship to their kids, among other issues, that affect them as

women before and not because they are queer. The women’s committee at Helem works

on legal change and public awareness to bolster the position of all women in the Lebanese

society. Queerness is one aspect on their agenda as they recognize the intersectionality of

their identities and the multiple systems of oppression affecting their lives.77

76 Ibid. 77 Ibid.; See similar critique: Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World (New York: Anchor Books, 2014), 250-1. 97

Mirroring the break of drag kings from drag queens is Meem, an offshoot organization of Helem founded in 2007.78 Meem originated in response to Helem’s

strategies and goals which were founded on a perspective that universalized the

experiences of gay men at the expense of other queer individuals. Some female members

of Helem did not feel represented in the vertical hierarchal structure of the organization,

evoking patriarchal systems of power, and approaches of visibility and pride, that did not

account for a large number of queer individuals who attempt to guard their secrecy or are

still exploring their identities.79 They broke away, to create a space that caters to lesbian,

bisexual, queer and questioning women and transgender people and aims at community building.80 Although the organization was exclusive in its membership for safety reasons,

the community it built was horizontal, an alternative familial structure echoing the attempts

at queering the family by drag performers. It did not demand its members shed their

attachments to family, work and other heteronormative structure, choosing not to put them

and itself in direct opposition to the state, but initiated a queer, radical resistance expressed

through writing. Meem employed feminist critique to attack the sectarian system which

they see as the basis of their oppression, and queer theory to orient themselves against

identarian stances on gender and sexuality.81 The schisms in Helem and in the drag

78 John Nagle, “Crafting radical opposition or reproducing homonormativity? Consociationalism and LGBT rights activism in Lebanon,” Journal of Human Rights, 17, no.1 (2018): 84, DOI:10.1080/14754835.2016.1246956. 79 Ibid. 80 Dina Georgis, “Thinking Past Pride: Queer Arab Shame in Bareed Mista3jil,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45, no.2 (2013): 234. 81 Ghassan Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing: Towards a more complex analysis of LGBTQ organizing in Lebanon,” Sexualities 18, no.5-6 (2015): 602. 98

community display the deliberate omittance of women and their issues in queer spaces, but

it also highlights the efforts of women at making their voices heard and reclaiming space.82

The marginalization of feminine men in the gay community runs parallel to that of

women in the queer community. Despite the shared interest between drag queens and kings

in exposing, questioning and challenging the heteronormative culture of Beirut which

constructs the sex-gender matrix, othering and ostracizing a range of identities, they seldom

meet. Male drag performers, through drag, confront their community with their devaluation

of femininity and essentialization of gender and sex. They provoke their audiences to

accept and recognize their nonnormative gender expressions, yet, some still fall short

themselves from erasing the heteronormative beliefs that other females, queer or not. In the

end, the spaces that these drag performers seek to create, safe and supportive, are what

women also strive for. The battle women and radical drag artists undertake does not only

tackle the subordinate position of women in the drag scene, but in Lebanon as a whole.

Their deconstruction of identity and questioning of norms highlight the construction of sex,

a threatening realization that has the potential to unravel the Lebanese social fabric and

shatter the state due to the erosion of a perceived difference, one that necessitates a

dominating and a subordinated entity. The drag performers, even though they struggle to

defy their own heteronormative assumptions, utilize drag as a form of resistance to the state

and society.

82 For a similar break along gender lines of queer organizations, see: Marie-Jo Bonnet, “Gay Mimesis and Misogyny,” Journal of Homosexuality, 41, no.3-4 (2002): 266-270, DOI: 10.1300/J082v41n03_18 99

Chapter 3: Queer Resistance: Drag and the (Re)Making of the Self

I can’t really explain the emotion and the feeling that I get, and the

adrenaline rush, and the love for myself and the insane amount of

confidence, when I put on a dress, or a jumpsuit and paint my face

and put on some boots and walk out like I fucking own the world.

Anya Kneez1

The mini-documentary ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut on Anya Kneez, co- founder of the current drag scene in Beirut, sheds light on the everyday life of queer

Lebanese individuals and the constraints upon being a drag queen in the city. The camera follows Anya going through her day, making clothes, getting ready in drag, going out shopping. She speaks of her first time in drag, the ways in which she can express her queerness and how she balances her various identities. The film shows how she operates within heteronormative structures, such as family, work and her daily life, where her gender and sexual non-conformity are not expressed in direct opposition to these systems.2

Although her gender and sexual identities have to remain hidden in most spaces and even at home, except in those made safe by and for the queer community, and although she continues to be attached to heteronormative activities and obligations, one of which is

1 Cold Cuts, “COLD CUTS PRESENTS • ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut,” June 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRBB6NHrRU. 2 Ibid. 100

family, her queerness cannot be simply described as apolitical and submissive, sanitized of

any expression challenging the state. Her proximity to heteronormativity demonstrates

exclusions inherent in these systems, while subtly attacking and reworking these

propagated modes of being, illustrated in everyday interactions.3 While she does not

exhibit her queerness directly to her family, their heteronormative ideas are still challenged

as they are presented with subtle indications from Anya that break from the ideal life they envision for her. By exposing them to queer friends and a friend circle of only girls when young and through delaying her marriage, her family is encouraged to reflect on her decisions.4 Her queerness is thus shaped and channeled into other forms instead, such as drag. Drag provides her with an opportunity to evade and rework heteronormativity, as well as to simply survive within it.

For Anya and the other drag performers I interviewed, drag is not only significant on the level of the individual, but also in its effect on the queer community and the wider society. The epigraph above reflects an awareness of the influence drag has on the construction of the self: in terms of validation of one’s non-conformity, celebration of what is perceived as perverse and exploration and making of identities, ones that are only allowed to manifest themselves through drag and in the safe spaces it creates. This sentiment, of the transformation experienced when getting dressed and putting on makeup, when rehearsing and performing for an audience, and the potential of communal action built around the mood and familiarity created and enforced at the venues, is shared widely by the drag artists. The performances, by projecting fantasies and engaging comedically

3 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 152. 4 Cold Cuts, “COLD CUTS PRESENTS • ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut,” June 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRBB6NHrRU. 101

with exclusionary dominant discourses, present new possibilities of being and sociality.

Thus drag and the community surrounding it enact queer resistance, one which resides in

a transversal relationship to the state in its disruption of a progressive temporality and its

cultivation of a non-normative subjecthood.

This chapter argues that the drag in Beirut, despite the perceived limited scope of

the performances, as shared among like-minded individuals and those with converging

dispositions, should be considered as a form of queer resistance. This resistance is born out

of and operates through the relationality of individuals, where individuals develop and

understand themselves and their subjugation and agency from within the community and

social context.5 The drag performers strategically utilize their multiple positionalities to

navigate and contest the competing systems of oppression, which posit them as dominant and subjugated on the basis of the identities they inhabit.6 In order to situate drag in the discourse on resistance, the chapter begins with a discussion of the identities deployed and the practices of queer activism in Beirut. First is a brief overview and a comparison of

Helem and Meem, two queer organizations which engage differently with the political.

Whereas Helem aims at structural changes, such as those involving the legal framework and public policies, Meem was focused on community building and used writing as a form of resistance. The chapter then delves into the role of drag in the formation and recreation of individual and communal identities. Although Meem no longer exists,7 I argue that drag

and the community surrounding it are more aligned with its vision and practices. Through

5 Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology, 16, no.2 (2001): 207. 6 Lila Abu-Lughod, “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women,” American Ethnologist, 17, no. 1 (1990):47. 7 There is no information in the literature on why they shut down. 102

creating spaces for enacting desires and identities, the politicization of the private and the

propagation of an affirmative sociality, drag indirectly challenges the state and its

normative institutions by destabilizing all identities.

Queer Organizing: Helem and Meem

Lebanon’s power sharing system both offers space for sexual minorities to fight for

their rights, however limited, while simultaneously curtailing these opportunities, by

strengthening ethnoreligious groups who staunchly oppose gender and sexual non-

conformity.8 The national agenda of peaceful coexistence and communal autonomy, born

out of the civil war, is fundamental to the sectarian system. This high regard for the

independence of communities provides a basis for the guarantee of rights in the private

sphere for sexual minorities.9 On the other hand, the state conceives of the Lebanese citizen

as one who is heterosexual, gendered and belonging to a recognized sect, as it grants access

to rights along ethnic and confessional lines through the delegation of political power to

ethnoreligious groups.10 Accordingly, queer activism poses a challenge to the sectarian system as it reimagines identity along sexual and gender lines rather than religious sect.

Yet this inflexibility of identity is the underlying cause of multiple exclusions based on

ethnicity, nationality, class, gender and sexuality in Lebanon. Thus queer organizations are

required to form a collective in order to gain representation in the state and, at the same

8 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 9 John Nagle, “Crafting radical opposition or reproducing homonormativity? Consociationalism and LGBT rights activism in Lebanon,” Journal of Human Rights, 17, no.1 (2018): 82, DOI:10.1080/14754835.2016.1246956. 10 Ibid., 86. 103

time, attempt to evade the fixity of identity through the construction and negotiation of a

communal identity based on intersectional marginalizations.11

Queer social movement organizations are therefore faced with the option of

complying with the sectarian system by forming a collective identity and demanding rights

and representation, or of deconstructing the notion of identity and opposing the foundation

of the state. By adhering to the logic of separatism to achieve its goals, an organization would inadvertently legitimize sectarianism and its entrenched heteronormative and patriarchal ideals and practices. Additionally, certain exclusions would arise that would privilege some groups, who will be represented in the gains realized, such as the security of the purely private sphere, over others. In contrast, destabilizing identity would render collective action and a sense of solidarity difficult to achieve. The organization would then work from the fringes, in defiance to the state.12 Although both Helem and Meem have

aimed to end the sectarian political regime, they have employed different organizational styles and various strategies that highlight the multiplicity of their positions and their commitment to wider struggles in their navigation and denouncement of the current system.

In 2004, Helem evolved from Club Free, a social support group for queer

individuals, to be the first public queer organization in the Middle East.13 It emerged at a

time when Lebanon enjoyed a relative freedom of speech, where the internet offered an

anonymous and safe space for sex as well as sexual politics, generating an online and

physical network that eventually established the group legally.14 The organization was

11 Ibid., 75. 12 Ibid.,76. 13 Ghassan Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing: Towards a more complex analysis of LGBTQ organizing in Lebanon,” Sexualities 18, no.5-6 (2015): 601. 14 Ibid. 104

shaped by and gained momentum in its involvement in local and regional issues, such as

the highly publicized Queen Boat incident in Egypt which drew the attention of the West

to LGBTQ+ issues in the region,15 a proposal for a revision of the Lebanese penal code targeting sexual minorities and American intervention in the region symbolized in the occupation of Iraq, as well as the influx of Palestinian refugees whose case demonstrated parallels between multiple systems of oppression.16 Although Helem mainly targets queer

issues, their general approach is informed by the co-founders’ involvement in leftist and anti-imperialist movements, leading them to an intersectional view of oppression and an

“anti-sectarian, anti-racist, and anti-xenophobic position.”17 They link queer oppression to

the wider struggle for democratization and other efforts against foreign intervention in the

region.

Rather than coalesce around a fixed identity, Helem thus fosters groupness through

a shared conceptualization of subjugation across identities and a belief in upholding human

rights. The membership of Helem is not exclusive to queer Lebanese individuals, so the

collective is formed around several causes, in contestation of the state to secure civil rights

for marginalized groups.18 Helem translates and adapts Western rhetoric on visibility and

pride in a strategic deployment to carve out space for queer individuals in the public sphere,

in an effort to end discrimination and promote tolerance. Its activities focus on raising

awareness and “providing objective, factual information, initiating dialogue and refuting

15 In 2001, the Egyptian police raided a rumored gay nightclub called the Queen Boat, arresting 52 men on charges of “debauchery” and/or “contempt of religion” subjecting them to physical abuse and anal exams. 16 For a detailed discussion of these events, see: Ghassan Makarem, “The Story of Helem,” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 7, no. 3 (2011): 102. 17 Ibid., 105. 18 Ibid. 105

common misconceptions about homosexuality.”19 It annually celebrates the International

Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT), connecting the

Lebanese queer community to the global one and utilizing the day for political ends, such

as by arranging talks and other events that advocate for economic, political and social

rights.20 The identity that Helem enforces and creates is one that is opposed to the current political system but works from within and in relation to global discourse on human and

LGBTQ+ rights to form a collective with a defined set of political goals.

The ultimate objective of the organization therefore centers on enacting legal and

political change, with the annulment of article 534 of the penal code, prohibiting unnatural

sex, having been the primary goal.21 Besides, the legislative change, the organization

engages in political advocacy to enact specific political and social objectives. On its

Facebook page, it states its mission as “‘leading a peaceful struggle for the liberation of

Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgendered (LGBT) and other persons with non-

conforming sexuality or gender identity in Lebanon from all sorts of violations of civil,

political, economic, social or cultural rights.’”22 For example, it undertakes social

initiatives aimed at marginalized groups on numerous fronts, including advocating for the economic, social and political rights of domestic workers, refugees and foreign sexual minorities and launching campaigns advocating for several issues, such as those pertaining to the environment and nationality.2324 Despite its anti-sectarianism stance, Helem

19 Helem, Facebook Post, accessed March 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/pg/Helem- 133916233311662/about/?ref=page_internal. 20 Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing,” 604. 21 One which was achieved in the summer of 2018, refer to page 40. 22 Helem, Facebook Post, accessed March 21, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/pg/Helem- 133916233311662/about/?ref=page_internal. 23 Makarem, “The Story of Helem,” 105. 24 Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing,” 603. 106

unofficially works with several state institutions such as the judiciary and internal security

forces, the Ministry of Public Health and the educational system, to establish dialogue and

an understanding to ameliorate the living conditions of non-conforming individuals in the

country.25

The politics Helem participates in is one grounded in a liberal temporality, similar

to that of the state, a teleological narrative of progress, that, although successful at times,

remains exclusionary. Helem assumes a liberal subject, one with desires and a will that it

seeks to direct towards resistance against the state and emancipation from cultural

constraints. It perceives custom and tradition to be obstacles towards achieving this social

ideal of freedom, drawing on multiple systems of power to resist the national discourses

that others Lebanese queer individuals.26 While utilizing various forms of resistance, always in opposition to the sectarian system, results in positive change, it unwittingly legitimizes and reaffirms the state, leading to further and deeper exclusions. As Tarek

Zeidan, the executive director of Helem, mentioned, although Lebanese queer individuals

now enjoy protection in the private sphere, the state still targets queerness of more

disadvantaged groups such as refugees.27 Helem’s strategies thus, while promote the rights

of some, contribute to the increased marginalization of others. Normative resistance, such

as in the case of Helem, positions itself in direct opposition, dismissing other

manifestations of experiences that subvert the power of the state using non-progressive

methods.

25 Nagle, “Crafting radical opposition,” 82. 26 Abu-Lughod, “The Romance of Resistance,”47. 27 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 107

This rigidity of Helem’s conception of resistance manifested itself when “Helem

Girls,” a women’s support group of Helem, developed into Meem in 2007, in opposition

to the former organization’s approaches and goals, in which they did not feel represented.28

Meem centralized the double marginalization of queer women by focusing on women’s

empowerment and community building. They defined themselves as “‘a community of

lesbian, bisexual, queer women and transgender persons (including male-to-female and

female-to-male) in addition to women questioning their sexual orientation or gender

identity in Lebanon.’”29 Besides strengthening an exclusive community, providing

counseling and holding social events and workshops, Meem also offered legal and financial support for queer women and trans individuals.30 However, their objective remained the creation of space for those groups to “‘meet, talk, discuss issues, share experiences, and work on improving their lives and themselves.’”31

The group perceived activism in terms of empowerment through self-organization and self-expression. This emphasis on community building created a sense of groupness based on shared experiences of marginalization similar to Helem, but unlike them, Meem queered normative understandings of the political by renouncing a rights-based approach and strategies of visibility as the only methods for embodying queerness. 32 Contrary to

Helem’s emphasis on visibility and LGBTQ+ rights, Meem centralized the safety and confidentiality of their members, preferring to remain relatively underground in order to prevent the outing of any of its visitors and in defiance of the narrative of visibility which

28 Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing,” 602. 29 Ibid., 604 30 Ibid., 604-5. 31 Ibid., 604. 32 Nagle, “Crafting radical opposition,” 84. 108

ostracizes those who do not conform to the model of outness.33 Deriving their politics from

feminist and queer writings, the organization positioned itself in rejection of fixed identities

and the perceived binaries of sexuality and gender, the basis of the sectarian political

system which they saw as the cause of their oppression. Their online publications,

Bekhsoos, challenged the patriarchy entrenched in the Lebanese political system and society, as well as critiqued Western conceptions of queer mobilization. 34 Their only

publication, the book Bareed Mista3jil, tells the stories of some of the members. The book

highlights their various commitments to family, cultural values and religious ties and the

ways in which they navigate and negotiate their attachments, sufferings and desires.35

Unlike Helem’s progressive politics, Meem employed a non-linear and asynchronic form of resistance, working transversally against the state. It emphasized relationality, providing space for and cultivating certain dispositions, attitudes and relationships of its members that work against the linear time of the state. While their life trajectories are expected to adhere to heteronormative milestones including birth, marriage and children bound by the family-sect nexus, they conceive of a queer temporality where their futures are not mapped out. The queer individuals of Meem aimed at a wide structural change while simultaneously celebrating their everyday acts of resistance and queer modalities.

Their writings visualized a world unconstrained by the existing social structures and power relations, opening spaces for diverse possibilities and ways of inhabiting the world.

33 Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing,” 601. 34Ibid. 35 Dina Georgis, “Thinking Past Pride: Queer Arab Shame in Bareed Mista3jil,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45, no.2 (2013): 247. 109

Although Helem and Meem condemned the patriarchal, heteronormative and divisive logic integral to the system, they expressed these positions differently. The strategies employed by both organizations demonstrate the concessions that have to be made in creating a group identity in a state built on sectarian affiliations. Both organizations subscribe to a different temporality that informs its approach and actions, providing distinct definitions of the political. Legal and political changes require groupness and a teleological trajectory, which risks the erasure and the essentializing of the individual, where the rights of the group, or the privileged ones in said group, are promoted as representational. This approach is effective as shown by Helem’s technical revocation of the article used to criminalize non-heterosexual individuals and acts in the penal code.36 However, Meem

aimed to circumvent this dilemma by focusing on fostering a diverse community that

adopts intersectional and radical critique through writing and other social activities.

Meem’s engagement with activism is similar to the ways in which the drag performers

practice resistance through their performances which transforms both the self and the

community. Some members of Helem think of this conceptualization of a non-metric, non-

progressive resistance as apolitical, restricted to the individual.37

Dragging “Resistance”

The state tolerates the presence of a queer nightlife scene for purposes of tourism

and the projection of Lebanon as differentiated from the region, as long as it remains

politically unthreatening.38 Middle class queer individuals benefit from this agreement as

36 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 37 Ibid. 38 Sofian Merabet, “Creating Queer Space in Beirut: Zones of Encounter within the Lebanese Male Homosexual Sphere,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi Books, 2006): 218. 110

their socioeconomic class privileges them enough to live comfortably, given the protection of their private spaces, both in terms of housing and social life. Some leftist activist within the queer community see the members of this group, who reject any form of activism that jeopardizes this private sphere, as “complicit” in upholding the sectarian system that subjugates them.39 This criticism is also leveled at the drag performers, who, according to

Tarek Zeidan, the executive director of Helem, “do not do enough” for the queer

community.40 He argues that although putting on drag is a political act, it is depoliticized

by being limited to individual self-expression. Additionally, he contends that they do not

use their platform for political purposes, such as presenting overt critique of the

government or directing their audiences towards forms of political engagement like

protests. Instead, they contribute to restricting the “community” to the apolitical nightlife

in commercialized spaces that exclude low income and/or closeted individuals.41

Granted, the drag performers I met all belong to the middle-class and the drag shows were inaccessible to a majority of people, in terms of costs to attend and participate, the willingness to be publicized and the cultural knowledge needed to understand and take part in the shows. However, the drag I witnessed exercised resistance in non-normative ways, transversal to the state.42 Drawing on Mahmood’s theorization of agency, the

identities of the drag performers form and operate under multiple systems of power that

privilege them in some ways and subjugate them in others through ambivalent and

contradicting forces.43 This context of confinement and shifting possibilities informs their

39 Nagle, “Crafting radical opposition,” 83. 40 Tarek Zeidan, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 41 Ibid. 42 Rayya El Zein, “Resisting ‘Resistance:’ On Political Feeling in Arabic Rap Concerts,” in Arab Subcultures, ed. Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2017), 88. 43 Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment,” 212. 111 conception of the self and their surroundings and influences their self-understanding and awareness of the exclusions imposed by these systems. As this consciousness is relational, produced through the interplay between individuals, temporal context, community, culture and history, resistance lies in this relationality, where the self, its being and the normative beliefs and behaviors and subjecthood the state expects and requires, is questioned and reinscribed.44 The drag artists queer the dominant discourse of the state and society through linking the marginalization of queer individuals to other disenfranchised groups and creating a community where identity is unstable, and culturally set boundaries are blurred.

The communal identity at drag shows is an intersectional one, cutting across class, nationality and ethnicity, where the performer and the audience are part of an imagined audience that spans the whole of the country. Kawkab Zuhal, who employs a range of performances such as lip-syncing, stand-up comedy, spoken word poetry and celebrity impersonation in her shows, infuses politics with comedy to comment, interrogate and criticize the foundation and the practices of the state. As the show I saw took place after

Christmas and near the end of the year, the themes she dealt with were humorous recaps of the year of her personal life and of Lebanon as a whole. Her scope of critique ranges from the homophobia of families represented by her own, the hooking up culture in the gay community and obstacles plaguing the country. Zuhal’s engagement and revision of the dominant discourses points to the tensions between her non-normative gender and sexuality and her attachments, desires and aspirations, which are tied to and bound by her family and society, which she negotiates with rather than opposes and dismisses. She made her entrance, towering over the seated audience, wearing all black to mourn the bad year

44 Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment,” 207. 112

Lebanon had experienced. Her poetry recounted instances of her family policing her gender

presentation and their denial of her homosexuality, by dismissing any discussion she

initiates, focusing on prospects of marriage instead. This narrative was intertwined with

wider structural problems in Beirut, such as the constant power outages, traffic and the lack of opportunities to build futures for young people. Through coupling her personal

experiences with the problems facing the country, Zuhal weaves her queer identity into the

national discourse, attributing the oppression that she and the queer community face to

wider structural trends of state failure.

After a break of lip-syncing to Arabic pop songs, engaging the audience in a fantasy

of queer love, desires and subjectivities, Zuhal continued her criticism of Lebanese politics

and society, in which she established the source of oppression in the sectarian system and

the divisions and fixed identities it perpetuates. Her piece titled “Some of the most

important achievements in Lebanon” listed more problems that Lebanon faces, such as the

plummeting stock market and the racism experienced by migrant workers. She sarcastically

attributed these issues to the recent influx of Syrian refugees, saying: “In 2018, the Syrians

are behind the corruption in Lebanon, as 7 years ago Lebanon was paradise on earth. We

had electricity, there was no sectarianism, or racism or eating shit.” Here, Zuhal draws

parallels between the marginalization faced by the Syrians in Lebanon and the queer

community, as groups that do not adhere to the logic of the sectarian system, threatening

its viability. The identity of the Lebanese citizen, if formed through the intersection of

gender and sexuality, class, race and ethnicity, rather than the prioritization of sectarian

affiliation, disrupts the basis of subjecthood that sustains and reinforces the union between

sectarianism and kinship, the foundation of the state. Thus any divergence from this 113

identity stipulated by the political system, whether visible or not, is forcibly subject to

remodeling to ensure conformity or made to endure the consequences of Othering.

In her show, Zuhal considered a different form of subjecthood, enacting resistance

by exploring her context of confinement and the relationality of the queer community and

between the performer and their audiences, constructing a queer temporality on stage that

suggests diverse possibilities of being. Her family’s dictates of a heteronormative life,

disregarding her declarations of nonconformity, set the boundaries of what is taboo and

what is not. Through this repression, she comes to define herself in opposition, realizing

her desires that transcend those constructed barriers. Her family, society and the state

restrict those desires, enthralling her in a complex system of power through which she

becomes aware of herself as a subject and her surroundings. By recounting her experiences

with her family, and linking her marginalization to other groups, Zuhal conceives of an

imagined community, which she brings into being through her performance. It is founded

on a non-normative relationality, unregulated by patriarchal, heteronormative structures,

which opens up spaces of possibilities, where unacceptable desires are allowed to manifest

and the audience can identify, shape and interact with the performance. Throughout the

performance, Zuhal conceptualized the state as the common enemy of several vulnerable

groups, from which all forms of persecution, starting from the family and emanating to

include the society and state institutions, stem. Yet she also implicated the addressed and invoked audience in these systems, urging them to reflect on and question their relationship to these dominant discourses and their own internalizations of racist, sexist and intolerant attitudes. 114

Zuhal’s questioning and subverting of the sectarian system echoes throughout the drag scene. The enforcement of an ethnoreligious identity is decentered in the drag shows through rules excluding the presence of religion, in an effort to build a nonsectarian group identity, a community that is inclusive of all religious affiliations and gender and sexual expressions, mirroring the aspirations of Helem and Meem. Despite the dominance of each person’s sect on their identity, their relationships and community and their political representation and access to public services, the self and the community are reconfigured and reshaped around gender and sexuality rather than sect within the queer community.

The legacy of the civil war and the constant sectarian tensions which explode into skirmishes from time to time, render religion a sensitive topic which divides the Lebanese society. Accordingly, in the Beirut Grand Ball and the mini balls, the rules proclaim the immediate disqualification of any contestant who utilizes religious imagery and/or targets a certain religion in their performance. Some members of the community express strong views against the incorporation of religion in drag. Sit Dusah, for example, adopts a reinterpretation of Islam which supports and strengthens her trans gender identity, yet, she believes that religion would be seen, by some, as ridiculed if invoked on stage.45 For the mini ball held as a tribute to Madonna, she wore a little cross on her finger inspired by the diva, which she later regretted for she inadvertently offended some of the attendees, as expressed by a member of the audience after the show.46 Hence, in order for the queer community to consolidate itself and bolster the bonds between its people, religion is left at the door. In addition, however, excluding religion in the queer community subverts its dominance institutionalized in the state as it becomes privatized and personal, rather than

45 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 46 Ibid. 115

communal, and instead, the private in the eyes of the state, gender and sexuality, becomes

markers of identity and the basis of community.

The convergence around gender, sex and sexuality opens these concepts as sites of

exploration and resignification. The performances of the drag artists critique the society’s

views on gender and sexuality and the various methods of the enforcement of normative

desires and expressions by discharging this discourse of its authoritative voice. Qaws

Qozah, for example, a young queen with a distinct gothic aesthetic, commented on the state

of the LGBTQ+ community in Lebanon and affirmed a gay identity, in her performance at

the “Tribute to Madonna” mini ball.47 She used a short news audio clip against a beat in

the beginning of the track that stated: “36 were stopped and are being subjected to anal

exams at the Hbaish police station in Beirut.” Another voice continued, who seemed to be

a bystander commenting on the LGBTQ+ community, “that guy who is wearing a skirt,

who is sodomizing (haide ellabis tannoura, hay 3amel ellouat el3am byseir).” This phrase

was broken down and repeated as the music gets louder, drowning out the voice, with a

climax of Qaws’s voice saying, “leave us alone!” The word “louti” is repeated several times, a derogatory term for non-heterosexual individuals, referencing the people of Lot, used widely to verbally abuse anyone diverting from gender and sexual norms. Qaws interjected with mocking laughs saying: “shu hay eldawsha (what is this noise),” after the abuses and the shouting of “shid 7alak ya wala (hey fix your posture),” common insults hurled at queer people.48

47 Qaws Qozah, interview with the author, January 18, 2019. 48 Ibid. 116

Qaws, like many other drag performers, uses her art to draw on and queer public

discourse, imposing her own narrative and voicing her experiences in contestation. She

brought this traumatic event to the collective memory, which represents the status of queer

individuals in relation to the state and is symbolic in its violence, experienced on varying

levels by members of the audience and the wider queer community, to reconstruct the

emotions attached to the event. This closeness to the incident is reassigned to emanate from a position of defiance and control, freeing herself and the audience both from the trauma and as a consequence, from victimhood. The voice mocks and dehumanizes queerness, implying an all too familiar threat of violence, demonstrated by the mention of the anal exams. Yet, the repetition of “louti” almost renders it meaningless: she laughs in its face, it speaks but she does not listen. Qaws simultaneously deprives the word of its religious significance. The word invokes an intense religious morality, represented in the destruction of Sodom, which she resignifies by imposing her own voice, asserting her presence and silencing the condemnation. By recalling the shame and pain attached to this word, the exclusion and abuse, she constructs a parallel Lebanese history, where queerness is dominant, and trauma is generative. Her performance dethrones the sectarian affiliations governing the Lebanese citizen, centralizing the aspect of herself that is culturally, most unwanted, coming to self-identification through her nonconformity. She questions the authority of the state, society and religion in dictating her identity, challenging what is supposedly, a divine natural order.

Drag thus creates a space where sex, gender and/or sexual conformity is deviant, where besides illuminating the effects of language and power on the formation of identity,

its interrupts and contests the “natural” quality of sex, gender and sexuality. Most of the 117

performers I interviewed used masculine, feminine and gender-neutral pronouns interchangeably when referring to themselves or other drag artists, mirroring the flexibility of gender they portray on stage and further accentuating the mobility and implications of gender codes. This pronominal fluidity translates to their daily life as demonstrated on

Instagram, where some of the queens use feminine gendered language when captioning pictures where they present as male. The comments also mix feminine and masculine language, in the same sentence at times, disturbing gender binaries and the correspondence of pronoun to gender presentation. For trans performers, however, despite their gender presentation in everyday life, they are addressed as the gender they identify with both when performing and when they are not. Despite this seemingly rigidity in pronouns, trans performers break the connections between sex and gender where there ceases to be an immediate relationship between gender presentation, gender identity and assigned sex at birth. In addition to blurring gender identities and the association between sex and gender, some interviewees spoke of themselves in both first and third person, complicating the distinctions between their on- and off-stage personas.49 Both aspects of the self, the one

who is in drag and the one who is out of it, become exterior to the self at the moment. The

self distances itself from the multiplicity of identities and its surroundings, constructing

several possibilities of manifesting as means of dissolving the rigidity of imposed

identities. Both characters, the performer and the real persona, thus constitute the self

equally, blurring another binary of performance and performativity.50

49 For example: Emma Gration and Sultana. 50 Katie R. Horowitz, “The Trouble with ‘Queerness:’ Drag and the Making of Two Cultures,” Signs, 38, no. 2 (2013), 313. 118

The state’s discourse of a static, authentic and stable identity is further destabilized

by the generative force of drag that transcends the limits of the stage. Butler, by

highlighting the division between performance and performativity, where the former

creates the subject and the latter disputes that idea, dismisses performance as a site of self-

knowledge and becoming.51 Yet for Sit Dusah, a trans woman and a drag queen, who is

restricted by society from living her daily life as a woman, in drag and on the stage is where

she feels most like a herself.52 The performance is her real, a space where she can explore

her gender identity, the type of femininity she wants to embody and experience self-making through the different relations to others she engages in when presenting as a woman in drag. Similarly, the performers who have been prohibited from expressing non-normative gender identities, adopt the stage to reclaim and experiment with various embodiments of gender, establishing new sets of relationships which are equally real, constructed and performed.53

This reality of performance does not only provide drag performers with an escape

through fantasy and imagination from the trauma of their context, but also offers a locus

of projection, reformulating the self and world, a move from the internal and private

outward. Anya Kneez describes her life in Beirut as restrictive, as she says: “My

circumstances don’t fit this country. This circumstances in this country don’t fit my

lifestyle.”54 Moving from New York City to Beirut was especially difficult, due to the loss

of “freedom of being who I am, whenever, whatever I wanted to be…”55 She envisions

51 Ibid., 320. 52 Sit Dusah, interview with the author, January 11, 2019. 53 Horowitz, “The Trouble with ‘Queerness,’” 320. 54 Cold Cuts, “COLD CUTS PRESENTS • ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut,” June 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRBB6NHrRU. 55 Ibid. 119

another life for herself, the self that does not conform to the subject expected and imposed by the Lebanese state and society. She elaborates in an interview: “’I didn’t want to abide by the rules of how to dress especially as a boy, or how I should act, what I should do, or where to go.’”56 She saw in fashion a way to transcend, to “transform yourself and escape,

even if just for a minute the world that we live in through a piece of clothing.”57 Through

drag, she manages to create a life she wants to live, away from and onto the one she is

experiencing, where she is in control of her surroundings and how she is perceived. She

creates a space where her imagination, desires and identities are possible, where they can

exist and be rehearsed. The fantasy that drag materializes, as an “escape for me to explore

my queer imagination and my femininity,”58 helps her in understanding her own subjectivity and context. It is a method to work through the trauma, non-normative desires

and societal restrictions, not by detaching from reality but by critically engaging with it to

question and open spaces of possibility, becoming and failure.59

The drag performers use drag as a productive experience to carve out spaces for

themselves in the queer community and in the wider society by learning to assert their

presence and develop their voices. They seek to express themselves fully, inspecting

every part of their identities, questioning, resignifying and subverting them, denouncing

cultural claims on their bodies, gender expression and desires. On stage, a non-

56 Liana Satenstein, “Inside Beirut’s Bright and Beautiful Drag-aissance,” Vogue World, February 5, 2019, https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/beirut-drag-queen-anya-kneez-latiza-bomba-zuhal-global-100. 57 Cold Cuts, “COLD CUTS PRESENTS • ANYA KNEEZ: A Queen in Beirut,” June 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRBB6NHrRU. 58 https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/beirut-drag-queen-anya-kneez-latiza-bomba-zuhal-global- 100 59 Dahlia Schweitzer, “Having a Moment and a Dream: Precious, Paris Is Burning, and the Necessity of Fantasy in Everyday Life,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 34, no. 3 (2016): 249, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2016.1234898. 120 progressive temporality is invoked through fantasy, a futurity where these non-normative desires, practices and identities are accepted and not subjected to state and social influence. They devise another mode of being, a becoming, as they inhabit this space between what is and what could be. Drag thus transforms the self and by consequence, social relations. During the performances, the relationships between the performer and the audience, between the individuals, are reconfigured to allow for possibility and chance. These feelings, practices and actions are political, working transversal to the linear politics of Helem and the state. 121

Conclusion: Futurities of Drag

“We are Arab, we are queer, we exist.” – Anya Kneez1

The anticipation of what the drag performer will be wearing, what they will do, the

feelings they will stir up–all create a s shared mood where time stops: we are alone and together. For the period of the performance, a new world opens up on stage. We are at a moment of being and becoming, where the fantasy is real and the real does not matter.

Within this space, the performers guide us, presenting various arguments through their movements, voices and images. They are in control, but never alone. They speak to each one of us, to themselves and to no one. It is in the speech and the silence that normative meanings are subverted and fantasies become not only a survival strategy but a means to imagining a future for both performers and audiences, one that has been denied to them unless they shed parts of themselves to conform.

Drag enacts a revolution engulfing the self and the community. It may be limited to an individual in their mother’s heels, performing in front of a mirror, or a polished queen performing as part of the annual Beirut Grand Ball, one in many. To be alone, on the stage, is to reflect the position of a queer individual in the country, on display and without support.

There, however, these very feelings, the loneliness and vulnerability induced by the trauma of either hiding their desires or suffering the abuse that results from their publication, are transformed into strength. Performers take their desires, their complex sense of themselves,

1 Liana Satenstein, “Inside Beirut’s Bright and Beautiful Drag-aissance,” Vogue World, February 5, 2019, https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/beirut-drag-queen-anya-kneez-latiza-bomba-zuhal-global-100. 122

which they and their audience experience outside, in daily reality, as shameful and ugly,

and break them down: by acknowledging its failure to fulfill normative expectations, they

show it to be-despite and because of that failure-beautiful and worthy of celebration. On

stage, each performer expresses their hurt, constructing, reflecting and summoning

communal pain, connecting with the audience on an individual level. Over the course of

the performance, both parties, the speaker and the silent begin working through their shared

trauma, where pain becomes generative of their identities. The dominant culture infiltrates

the inner space of the performance, but it does not linger, does not emerge unscathed: it

shapes the performers but, in turn, it is shaped by them. Normative symbols and objects

are remade through signification, where they now come to hold different meanings, give

voice and body to rejected desires and subjectivities.

In a country where the family and sect dominate all, drag reworks and turns them

back upon themselves. One’s sect, the hegemonic marker, is left at the door. It is no longer

relevant because inside, a new family will be formed through horizontal relationships, with

multiple modes of nonconformity, rather than predetermined, normative identities, as their

ground. The queer community thus exists at a different temporality than the unrelenting

progressive linearity of the state, where life is defined by birth, marriage and death,

deconstructing its foundations and fashioning new modes of being upon the remains. The performers find affirmation of their identities and desires in foreign models, drawing on them as influences but moving beyond them: cognizant of their subordinated position as sexual and gender nonconforming individuals in Lebanon and as Middle Eastern individuals participating in a Western queer artform, they question the authority of the discourses governing these identities as much as they question the discourses and identities 123 into which they were born: they unravel the subjectivities such forms of drag offer and then transmute them. They create a hybrid specific to their temporal and geographical context, summoning and reimagining a queer local and global history from which they are born.

Exclusionary discourses do, however, still infiltrate drag, forcing it to conform on some levels, bringing it back to the reality outside the ballroom, where the performers and audience members experience societal and institutional pressures in their daily lives.

Outside queer spaces, heteronormative assumptions inform the societal perceion of gender, where it taken to reflect sex, and sex still retains its claims on the natural. Queer individuals thus adhere to these cultural constructions of proper masculinity and femininity, leading them to reject or repress non-normative gender expressions in themselves and in others.

Yet, as my research had shown, the stage becomes a space where progressive dominant discourses are confronted and debates, albeit slowly. Performers endlessly adopt, question and battle these heteronormative ideas that essentialize aspects of their identities, including their sex. In their performances, they foreground the arbitrariness of the cultural associations made between bodies, gender and sexualities. Their bodies become sites of exploration, at times to affirm a certain self and at others, to utterly reconceptualize that self. Thus the drag artists and the community that has formed around it are constantly creating new spaces to accommodate radical critiques of the sex-sexuality-gender nexus, critiques unwanted even within some segments of the community. And drag is constantly being queered, unstable yet generative.

These spaces, where norms are questioned and the self is constantly moving, challenge the very notion of the subject the state both molds and governs, conceiving of a queer form of resistance, resistant to form. In expressing themselves, the performers are 124

taking themselves apart, examining each piece and reconfiguring the associations attached

to it. The resulting multiplicities of being, of rehearsing culturally unacceptable identities,

create a different relationality that is political. By deconstructing sex, gender and other

identity markers, interrogating the processes of boundary making and othering and

operating at a non-linear temporality, drag changes the very fabric of society and how

individuals inhabit space. It opens up possibilities of unexpectedness, failure and potential,

producing unpredictable alliances and formulating a queer resistance that targets all

systems of oppression. The resistance drag engages in draws on elements from the

dominant discourses, local and global, to subvert their hegemony. It is therefore indicative

of the potential of hybrid identities, speaking to the various modes of resistance blossoming

across the region, even if in closed spaces.

Areas for Further Research

Queerness in the Middle East remains undertheorized. It manifests itself in seclusion, under threat, away from society but in connection to a wider community. The drag queens I met pointed me to other drag scenes in the region, such as Tunisia and Iran; despite official strictures, they are thriving online, with some performers flying abroad to perform. As this thesis proved the importance of the local context in shaping the drag culture, exploring drag in those countries would contribute to the reconceptualization of drag, shed light on the local understanding of sex, gender and sexuality, as well as connect drag to other efforts of resistance, including queer ones.

Additionally, these relationships, between drag cultures in Middle Eastern countries and their Western counterparts, offer opportunities to reflect on the flow of power reproduced in the concept of a global queer community: where the West exports its cultural 125

productions to the rest of the world, as symbolized by drag. While the global domination

of American drag, specifically, gave life to local practices and meanings, it was, in the

process, deeply transformed by them. This adaptation of drag reveals the agency

marginalized peoples possess as they do not submissively accept their subordination and

consume what is imposed on them, but engage in processes of rejection and transformation,

revealing the extents of Western cultural hegemony. Globalization does not only erase local

cultural and practices, replicating and enforcing current systems of power, it relays traces

of the Other as well, contesting dominant discourses.

The existing literature also ignores cross-regional queer organizational relationships. Tarek Zeidan, the executive director of Helem, described the efforts made to coordinate Arab or Middle Eastern queer events. Although there is a community and a dialogue on effective strategies of resistance and other pertinent issues, the deliberate separateness of the countries in the region, enforced to prevent all wide-ranging resistance movements, proves difficult to overcome. These challenges, and the attempts made to tackle them, would provide a basis for theorizing queer organizational resistance, adding to the literature which has, until now, taken Western examples as its guide. A reconceptualization of resistance, as practiced by the drag performers, presents possible understandings of other modes of political engagement that, through the lens of Western academia, have been dismissed as apolitical. The non-progressive, non-normative relationality created by the drag performers in Beirut, through connecting their marginalization to other disenfranchised groups such as migrant workers and refugees, invokes a cross-regional group identity. Given the regional trend of increased state 126 repression post-Arab Spring, direct modes of resistance prove to be dangerous and inconsequential, alternate methods are crucial.

Academic scholarship has also failed to fully explore Middle Eastern conceptions of femininities and masculinities. Gender is still conceptualized in a binary, uncomplicated with issues of modernization, globalization and recent waves of migration that have redefined and continue to transform what how gender is expressed and lived in each country, intersecting with nationality, class, region of origin and/or tribe. Most of the literature on gender studies in the Middle East focus on the oppression of women, but do not reflect on this very notion of womanhood, how it is conceived, embodied and regulated.

Gender holds a greater potential to subvert existing systems of oppression, as shown in the drag performances. In their daily lives, these queer individuals present multiple genders, depending on their surroundings and who they are with, engaging in a form of code switching that is grounded in the local culture. The dominant form of femininities and masculinities thus reflects the marginalization of certain groups and how they contest this subordination.

Drag illuminates the relationality involved in the construction of identities and in enacting queer resistance. In this inbetweenness, subjectivities are born and a community forms, crossing into the dominant culture but doing so with a difference. As one reenters into the normative world at the end of the drag performances, they are left with remembrances of a different temporality and being. Voices awaken in the ensuing silence, calling to something that now has been given shape and voice.

127

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