San Francisco Sentinel
May 24, 1990
Street Talk
Oh George, You Poor Miserable Thing
By Doris Fish
(Note from Tree (transcriber) Included at the end is the article Doris refers to: ‘Get a Life’ by George Buchanan, originally published in the Bay Times. TW: Nasty and hurtful comments about drag.
George Buchanan is the miserable shit who is the author of a truly mean letter published in this month’s Bay Times, which viciously criticized every Drag Queen, transvestite, transsexual, and cross-dresser on the planet!
“Sometimes I really hate gay men,” said a tearful transsexual friend of mine after reading the letter.
“But darling, its not ‘gay men’, it’s just one horrible asshole claiming to speak for the ‘over-whelming majority of gay men.’ And he doesn’t. Gay men love Drag Queens. You can’t hate the entire gay male population because one of them is so rotten.” I hoped I’d sounded sensible yet supportive. My friend was devastated by the cruelty and hate in that letter. Many of us in the blurred-gender subculture have already experienced a great deal of hate and cruelty and have sought sanctuary in the gay community. Growing up transsexual is not easy; one doesn’t survive without a great deal of scarring.
George exhorts us Queens to come into the nineties, give up our “trivial trinkets” and thereby become ‘normal’ gay men. It’s true that Drag has been a tradition for thousands of years and occurs in every culture, sometimes revered and sometimes reviled. The Drag scene predates the gym scene and the bar scene and ironically, George, the nineties is seeing a new wave of young exuberant Drag Queens. George, you need to come into the real world and see that Drag Queens are people, too.
We are not “painted geeks” (at least I don’t think any of my friends bite the heads off live chickens), nor are we “ugly and dangerous and harmful to others.” And possibly the most disturbing accusation, “one old talentless transvestite is pretty much like another,” which reminds me of those terrible racist words, “All Blacks (or Asians) look alike to me.”
What is your real problem, George? Aren’t you getting any? Do the Drag Queens you see have all the fun? Are they stealing your tricks? A miserable person sees the world as a miserable place and often blames others for his own ills while a happy person sees mostly goodness in others. It’s hard to fit hatred in your heart when it’s full of love and happiness. That may sound simplistic, but it’s devastatingly true. And I’m trying not to hate you George because then I would be just like you, but you have really angered me. Ironically you are the one “projecting self-hate” and having a “gender identification problem” while we transsexuals are solving ours.
I could write pages exposing the fallacies in that bitter denunciation but, George, you give yourself away with phrases like, “I’ve never pretended to understand…” and “I can’t imagine why…” (“He admits he has no imagination!”, notes my friend.) Those phrases denote the worst fascist/Nazi attitude — hate everything you don’t understand; condemn those who are different. I would expect such shit from Jesse Helms but, George, do you have to “aim so low, so incredibly low”?
Didn’t you read that poor miserable letter before you sent it out into the world of “vicious” Drag Queens? Did you know we would rip it to shreds and throw it back at you? “Maybe (George, you’re) just not very bright.”
George claims that “multitudes suffer” whenever a transvestite is seen on television! If only I had such power. I can imagine saying to Mr. Bush, “We need more Drag bars, or we’ll go on television and multitudes will suffer!” People in Britain and Australia must really be suffering every Sunday night as “The Dame Edna Experience” comes into their living rooms.
Transsexualism is still a beautiful and fascinating mystery even to me, but to simplify: anyone who feels uncomfortable or not completely happy in their assigned gender role is a transsexual. Not all transsexuals feel the need to cross-dress, some do it in private or on special occasions ‘go public’, while others may live in their preferred gender role, totally eschewing their originally assigned one. And others truly enjoy the ambiguity of their blurred gender, donning the attire of either with equal ease.
But no two Drag Queens, transvestites or transsexuals are the same. However, we are all entitled to the “pursuit of happiness” and full rights as citizens of the planet. George, would you extend human rights only to those people dressed ‘properly’?
Face it, George, you’ve a fascist, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. You did get one thing half right; some of my outfits are “physically uncomfortable” but never “unbecoming”! And, George, that “beautiful and precious” life you have — don’t waste it by being intolerant.
GET A LIFE
By George Buchanan
Bay Times
The current “drag queen vs. royalty” flap in some segments of the gay press makes hilarious reading, but on the overview it becomes a somewhat nonsensical non-issue. After all, as far as the overwhelming majority of gay men are concerned, it doesn’t matter if one of the local embarrassments wears furs or feathers, or calls itself Marlena or Doris or Vinnie or Miss X. All negative stereotypes are ugly and dangerous and harmful to others, and besides, when you come right down to it, one talentless old transvestite is pretty much like another.
What these gentlemen are doing, in essence, is attempting to hold on to their positions of privilege as members of the powerful class of society —men— while viciously caricaturing the desperate survival techniques and coquettish affectations of a brutally subjugated minority — women.
I have never pretended to understand the psychological motivations that would compel a man to go to the trouble —not to mention the expense — of donning unbecoming and physically uncomfortable attire and wandering around town begging to be publicly recognized as a painted geek. I cant imagine why any man would use up so much energy in order to aim so low. So incredibly low. And of course, the worst part is that the activities in which these individuals indulge is not harmful and degrading only to themselves. What they do is destructive to the lives of people they will never even meet. Everytime a bearded man in a nun’s habit or a transvestite in a tutu cavorts down Market Street (or worse, across the TV tubes of Middle America), multitudes suffer.
Maybe they don’t care. Maybe they do care and are deliberately projecting their self-hate upon those who do not suffer from their serious gender-identification problems. Maybe, being lamentably lacking in any character, they try to be a character, not realizing that it’s not the same thing. And maybe they’re just not very bright.
And maybe it’s time for someone to suggest to these clowns that they welcome themselves to the nineties and take a look around. There are more important matters to consider these days than trivial trinkets like tiaras and titles. A real life is a beautiful and precious thing, gentlemen. Get one.
