The Night I Cried At A Drag Show

This is not a post about homosexuality.
This is not a post about religion.
This is a post about humanity. Because that’s all I saw tonight.

I tagged along to my first drag show with two friends who had been before. I didn’t know what to expect, and the fear of the unknown was creeping up and making me nervous.

As we waited for the show to start, a rush of calm came over me.
It wasn’t the kind of calm you experience when you crawl into a bubble bath after a long day and the scent of a lavender candle fills the air.
It was a new kind of calm-the kind you experience when you join with several hundred people in belting out a Beyoncé song while waiting for a show to start.

The performance began, and I was expecting to feel a little uncomfortable.
But I didn’t.
I thought the target audience of drag shows was LGBTQ people.
But it isn’t.
I thought I would be the odd one out because I’m straight and just wore a pair of jeans.
But I wasn’t.

In the audience, there were many white people, many black people, many of Asian descent, and a Muslim woman. There were college students, parents, and even one of my TA’s from last semester.
And there was harmony.
There was happiness.
There was camaraderie.

Nobody in that room cared about sexuality, or race, or religion.
They just cared about each other.
They saw the performers on stage having the time of their lives dancing and entertaining.
The drag queens and drag kings were up there because this was a space where they are accepted. Because they were having fun. Because this makes them feel alive.
(And because they like glitter a lot.)

And the audience? No one was there to promote a political agenda.
It wasn’t about being homosexual or bisexual or any other label.
The people in that audience came to have fun. They came to show support for their friends.
And that’s it.
That’s all it was.
It was community, in its purest form.

After the show, a bunch of us from the audience joined some of the performers and did “The Wobble” together in the front of the room. We danced and sang along to pop songs, and I knew in that moment that nothing I wore or said or believed mattered to any of the strangers who I spent the night laughing alongside.

People in this community understand what it means to love someone for who they are, and they love one another better than any other community I’ve witnessed or been a part of.

So I cried. 
Partially because I was relieved that I wasn’t left out.
Partially because I was sad about how I, along with so many in the Christian community, have viewed & treated those who identify as LGBTQ in the past.
But mostly because I was happy-happy to see people who are often judged and ostracized thrive in a place where they are known and loved. 

That’s the kind of community I want to be a part of.
One where it’s not about sexuality.
It’s not about religion.
It’s just about the accord of humankind.