In this episode of Ladies First, Kori and Taylor talk about the history behind ballroom culture. We consider how drag culture factors in, and how ballroom reflects the complex relationships between race, gender, and class.
Some Key Ballroom Terms:
- Butch Queen
- Femme Queen
- Houses
- Kiki
- Realness
- Voguing
Resources:
- Green, Jesse. “Paris Has Burned.” The New York Times (1993)
- Hesse, Barnor. “8 White Identitites.” @barnor_hesse – Twitter (2018)
- Jackson, Lauren Michelle. “We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” Teen Vogue (2017)
- Potapchuk, Maggie. “Doing the Work: Unearthing Our Own White Privilege.” Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building (2005)
- Sian, Katy. “Resisting Racism in the Academy.” Discover Society (2019)
- Woods, Scott. “5 Things No One Is Actually Saying About Ani DiFranco or Plantations.” Scott Woods Makes Lists (2014)
Further Reading:
- Kori, Taylor. “Cultural Expectations on Coming Out.” The Fandomentals (2020)
- Kori, Taylor. “Ladies First Examines Toxic Fandom Behaviors.” The Fandomentals (2021)
- Kori, Taylor. “Transmasc: Ladies First Talks 101.” The Fandomentals (2021)
- Michelle W. “Pose brings a touch of the fantastic into a realistic exploration of queer lives.” The Fandomentals (2018)
Sources:
- B. Jeanne. “Hooker of the Year: Justine Piaget.” Gendertrash From Hell. vol. 1 #2 (1993) (p. 28)
- Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in Films. Viking Press (1973) (pp. 3-4, 25)
- Brammer, John Paul. “The Difference Between Appreciating and Appropriating Queer Culture.” Oprah Magazine (2018)
- Bronski, Michael. “When Gays Wanted to Liberate Children.” Boston Review (2018)
- Brooks, Daphne. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850–1910. Duke University Press (2006) (pp. 270-272)
- “Caper in the Castro.” LGBTQ Video Game Archive (2015)
- Cottingham, Ariel. “YOU’RE PROBABLY GUILTY OF DIGITAL BLACKFACE. YES, YOU.” Indie Mag (2021)
- Chakrabarti, Meghna; Bauman, Anna. “The Growth (And New Contexts) Of LGBTQ Ball Culture.” WBUR (2019)
- Chauncey, George. “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940.” (1994)
- Davis, Jamie Geneve. “Femme as a queer identity.” The Evolution of Femme
- Dr Kat. “Dr Kat and the Molly Houses.” Reading The Past – YouTube (2020)
- Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. Penguin (1992) (p. 68, 73)
- Frost, Natasha. “How the 18th-Century Gay Bar Survived and Thrived in a Deadly Environment.” Atlas Obscura (2017)
- FYeahHistory. “What were Molly Houses? – The LGBTQ+ history you have to know!.” F Yeah History (2019)
- Goodman, Elyssa. “Drag Herstory: A Drag King’s Journey From Cabaret Legend to Iconic Activist.” Them. (2018)
- Goodman, Elyssa. “The Historic, Mainstream Appropriation of Ballroom Culture.” Them. (2019)
- Goldstein, Richard. ““Go the Way Your Blood Beats”: An Interview with James Baldwin.” (1984) – published in James Baldwin: The Legacy, edited by Quincy Troupe. (1989) (pp. 179-180)
- Howard, Madeline. “What Is Digital Blackface? Experts Explain Why The Social Media Practice Is Problematic.” Women’s Health (2020)
- Joseph, Channing Gerard. “The First Drag Queen Was a Former Slave.” The Nation (2020)
- Kallgren, Kyle. “The Watermelon Woman – Who Are We Forgetting?.” KyleKallgrenBHH – YouTube. (2018)
- Koerner, Brendan. “Where Do “Cakewalks” Come From?.” Slate (2003)
- Lorde, Audre. “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions.” Homophobia and Education (New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children) (1983)
- Matthes, Ana; Salzman, Sony. “In the Kiki Ballroom Scene, Queer Kids of Color Can Be Themselves.” The Atlantic (2019)
- Mohenu, Max. “Here’s everything you need to know about the ballroom scene.” Red Bull (2018)
- “Miss Muff’s molly house in Whitechapel.” East End Women’s Museum (2016)
- National Museum of African American History & Culture. “A Brief History of Voguing.” Smithsonian
- Netflix. “The Queen.” Twitter (2020)
- Nolfi, Joey. “Andy Warhol judges cutthroat 1960s drag pageant in The Queen doc trailer.” Entertainment Weekly (2019)
- Paulson, Don; Simpson, Roger. An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle. Columbia University Press (1996)
- Parham, Jason. “TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface.” Wired (2020)
- Queer as Fact. “Fanny Park and Stella Boulton.” Queer as Fact (2019)
- Raga, Pippa. “‘The Cheetah Girls’s Sandra Caldwell Opens up in ‘Disclosure’.” Distractify (2020)
- Ryan, Hugh. “Ballroom Culture’s Rich Alternative to the Trans/Cis Model of Gender.” Slate (2016)
- Schroeder, Daniel. “Is Taylor Swift Any Good at Playing a Man?.” Slate (2020)
- Sears, Clare. Arresting Dress: Cross-dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Duke University Press (2015)
- Sears, Clare. “Electric Brilliancy: Cross-Dressing Law and Freak Show Displays in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco.” Women’s Studies Quarterly. vol. 36, #3-4 (2008) (pp. 170-187)
- Snorton, C. Riley. Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. University of Minnesota Press (2017)
- Stabbe, Oliver. “Queens and queers: The rise of drag ball culture in the 1920s.” National Museum of American History (2016)
- Street, Mikelle. “5 Things to Know About Ballroom Icon Crystal LaBeija.” Billboard (2018)
- Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1993) (p. 286)
- Tarantino, Luisa. “Fashion Flashback: BALLROOM CULTURE.” Dress To Kill (2020)
