episode details
Welcome back to episode five! If you didn’t listen to the last episode, or any of the episodes before it, no worries, baby! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along.
This week, we’ll be exploring D.C.’s Drag history. Similar to the Ballroom episode, Drag has also had an extensive history forming “houses,” or a chosen family. The District has also created large and elaborate Drag organizations that became pillars of a larger community.
This episode features drag queens trying on their first pair of heels at home, queens battling for a renowned pageant title at a dinner table, kings and things changing what Drag houses look like today, and more!
Special thanks to the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
Audio editing by Abby Stuckrath and Julia Hay
A full transcript is available below or in this pdf. You can also find works cited and in-text citations for the episode in this pdf.
transcript
[QTDP intro music plays]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Welcome back to episode five! We hope you enjoyed some peeks behind the curtain into some house parties that make up the D.C. Queer community last week.
If you didn’t listen to our previous episode, or any of the episodes before it, no worries! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along. However, if you do want to get a better feel for the format of the whole season, we recommend going back to episode one, ‘are you a homesexual?’
This week, we’ll be exploring D.C.’s Drag history. Similar to the Ballroom episode, Drag has also had an extensive history forming “houses,” or a chosen family. The District has also created large and elaborate Drag organizations that became pillars of a larger community.
This episode features drag queens trying on their first pair of heels at home, queens battling for a renowned pageant title at a dinner table, kings and things changing what drag houses look like today, and so much more!
And there’s really no better place to start than with a local historian, who’s sitting at his keyboard, preserving and sharing this history in real time.
[QTDP intro music fades out]
[Sunny music plays in the background]
[Keyboard clacks]
MARK MEINKE: It was the era of Ella Fitzgerald, Sophie Tuckers, Marilyn Monroes, and all the other celebrity names that echoed around D.C. clubs.
ABBY STUCKRATH: It's the year 2000. Mark Meinke, LGBTQ+ historian and co-founder of the Rainbow History Project, is writing his biweekly newsletter called “The Drag Rag.” Mark attends around forty shows a week, digging up the latest D.C. drag gossip to give readers an exclusive peek behind the curtain. This week's June edition was a profile on one of the longest performing queens in the District.
[Keyboard clacks]
MARK MEINKE: Barbara McNair, a willowy Black queen, takes in dollar after dollar, accepting each with the regality of a princess who feels such tribute is merely her due.
ABBY STUCKRATH: “The Drag Rag” was a labor of love that gave Mark a newfound sense of purpose.
[Keyboard clacking stops]
[Sunny music fades out]
MARK MEINKE: Drag saved my life and kept me going.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In 1997, Mark’s first husband Ed died of cancer.
MARK MEINKE: I really hit the dumps, and I was really about ready to put an end to myself. It took me more than a year to sort of get back on an even keel, but what really got me out of the dumps was drag shows.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Mark was never a drag queen himself.
MARK MEINKE: I don't know how people do drag, because I can't walk in regular shoes, let alone in heels.
ABBY STUCKRATH: So his drag legacy in D.C. was made not on stage, but through his keyboard.
MARK MEINKE: In 1999, I started the Drag Rag as payback to the Drag community, because there were no real archives in the city.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Through “The Drag Rag” and his archival work with the Rainbow History Project, Mark has become a living, breathing textbook for D.C. Drag history. So when we set out to write an episode about the history of Drag houses and communities in D.C., he was one of our first contacts for an interview.
MARK MEINKE: Excuse me, I'm just, you'll have to take this out. I see my pot is boiling. I need to turn it down.
[Mark quote fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Over his simmering stew, Mark broke down the complicated and drama-filled history of Drag in the District, which starts all the way back in the 60s, when D.C.’s longest running LGBTQ+ organization began.
MARK MEINKE: Alan Kress, who called himself Liz Taylor, started the Academy in the summer of 1961. He was living in an apartment on Monroe Street. Monroe and 18th I think. And he called his place Hollywood House.
[Swinging jazz music plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Alan Kress, aka Liz Taylor, gathered around 20 people to host private Drag dinner parties. The group became known as The Academy and was known for giving out ‘Oscars’ every year, where Drag queens competed for titles, like Best Actress and Best Actor.
MARK MEINKE: And they used his apartment for dressing in drag, for training people in drag, and for gala parties.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In the 60s, Drag Queens, then known as female impersonators, would take on the persona of a famous actor, hence the name Liz Taylor. The Hollywood House, located in Mount Pleasant, had rented rooms that were named after other stars, like the Judy Garland room or the Bette Davis room.
The Hollywood House became a breeding ground for rising drag stars, who would later become drag icons.
MARK MEINKE: Carl Rizzi retired from the Navy, and he went to a Halloween party at Hollywood House, and they pressed him to do drag. Week later, he bought his first wig,
[Cash register dings]
he borrowed a dress, and he went to a party at Hollywood House, and he became Mame Dennis.
[Crowd chatters indistinctly]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Years later, Mame Dennis would rise to new heights as a drag icon, becoming the mother of the D.C. Drag community, but we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. For now, she’s just one of the many new Queens making waves in the Academy. As new voices joined, Liz’s grip on the group started to slip in the mid 60s.
[Swinging jazz music fades out]
MARK MEINKE: Unfortunately, Alan couldn't really hold his liquor, and he's one of those people who doesn't like to be ignored. And when he saw that people were having more fun than he was, he would stand up and he would say, “I want to hear a pin drop.” And if it didn't get instantly quiet, all hell broke loose. Liz won an Oscar every year, and if she didn't, hell broke out. So she tried putting her foot down, and it went through the floor.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Thus beginning the D.C. drag wars.
[Sweeping cinematic music plays in the background]
[Swords clang and crash]
[Voices yell indistinctly]
MARK MEINKE: It's hard to have a democracy in room full of drag queens.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Academy saw a major rift when some of its members defected and formed their own organization: the Awards Club.
[Sweeping cinematic music fades out]
[Dramatic string music plays]
MARK MEINKE: And they gave out Emmys, not Oscars.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Mame Dennis was a part of the group that split off to create the Awards Club, along with Fanny Brice, another popular Drag Queen at the time, and the new club’s founder, Beulah Buskirk.
MARK MEINKE: The town kind of divided.
ABBY STUCKRATH: That is until a local bar owner, Bill Oates Jr., started brokering a treaty.
MARK MEINKE: He was like a man on a plank between two stools. So he did his best to bring peace. He probably could have got a Nobel Prize in those days.
ABBY STUCKRATH: They decided to combine the clubs creating…
MARK MEINKE: The Academy Awards Club of Washington.
ABBY STUCKRATH: But this time its leadership would be more than just Liz.
MARK MEINKE: Liz Taylor was going to be queen of the Academy, but Mame Dennis was going to be president, and Fanny Bryce was going to be vice president.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The new monarchy of the Academy Awards Club of Washington functioned much like the politics of England. A front-facing Queen, which everyone is expected to adore, AKA Liz, and then a prime minister who led the group AKA Mame Dennis. After almost five years, this new established structure ended the treacherous drag wars.
[Dramatic string music fades out]
Meanwhile, the Drag scene in D.C. began to create family lineages.
MARK MEINKE: This isn't unique to D.C. It is fairly unique to Drag, because if you are a popular drag performer, other people will come to you and say, okay, teach me how to do it. And then, because you learn from Mame Dennis, you become a Dennis. So there are Ken Dennises and Dennis Dennises and Alan Dennises and Jolene Dennises all over the city.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Drag Mothers, like Mame Dennis, would then establish a house with their drag children. Mame’s was called Beekman Place, one of the three stronghold houses of the Academy, alongside Henry Street run by Fanny Brice, and the Maryland House run by Patty Duke. Other notable houses at the time were Butterfield 8, Dragonwyck House, Phoenix House, Liberty House, and Twelve Oaks.
It’s important to note, that at this time The Academies lacked diversity, mostly featuring white drag queens. It would be more than decade after Liz started the group in the 60s before they welcomed their first Black queen.
And that queen was none other than the legend herself…
[Jazzy organ music plays in the background]
Ella Fitzgerald.
ELLA FITZGERALD: Thank God for Mother Mame, thank God for The Academies.
ABBY STUCKRATH: We learned all about Ella’s lore and rise to fame in our first season, but we would be remiss to not mention her impact in this episode. She was invited to the Academies in the late 70s by Mother Mame and joined the Beekman Place house.
Ella wasn’t just the first Black drag queen to join the Academies, she was also the first to win one of the most coveted D.C. drag titles—Miss Universe.
Now, there are several pageants and titles for drag queens in the District. The first pageant created by the Academies was, of course, The Oscars, where the top prize was Best Actor and Actress. But other prestigious awards started popping up, like Miss Gaye America and Miss Gaye Universe.
[Jazzy organ music fades out]
One Black drag queen created her own path outside of the Academies: Ken White, AKA Black Pearl.
[Soulful music plays]
In the 60s, Black Pearl ran drag shows on boats cruising along the Potomac.
[Boat horn toots]
Though drag was never illegal in D.C., it was banned from hotels. Black Pearl is noted to be the first drag queen to break this ban in 1968, when she hosted the Black Pearl International Award, a drag queen pageant at the Cairo Hotel. Black Pearl’s shows and pageants were so successful that it persuaded business owners who were previously skeptical that Black queens could garner crowds, to start booking Black drag queens and provide space for them to perform.
Now in the late 70s, almost ten years after Black Pearl’s pageant, Ella was being inducted into The Academies and competing for the illustrious titles that reigned over the District for decades.
[Soulful music swells, then fades out]
Winning these titles is probably not what you think. There’s no panel of judges that watch you perform and rank you as such. At the beginning, it was less of a performance and more of a judgement of your hosting abilities.
[Plucky vintage music plays in the background]
[Whisk mixes in a bowl]
[Wine bottle uncorks]
[People cheer, chatter indistinctly]
ELLA FITZGERALD: You had to throw a dinner party and feed all these people, and whoever gave the best dinner party was crowned Miss Universe. And whoever was best, next best, you were first runner up, and they had second runner up. Second runner up, first runner up, Miss Universe. Then after, when the economy changed in the 80s and the food got too expensive, they decided we're just going to pay cash. So we have to pay to wear the crown stars.
[Chimes jingle]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Getting the Miss Universe title also depended on your drag mother rallying and campaigning for you to get the title.
ELLA FITZGERLAD: And she told me, after I'd been in the Academies a year, “Oh yes, my dear, you will, you will be a Miss Universe. You'll be the first Miss Black Universe.” And I was. Took me 10 years, and I was crowned in 1986.
[Plucky vintage music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: By the 90’s, Drag in D.C. had taken over. Pageants were no longer ruled by drag families or organizations, but became rooted in bars, like the Miss Ziegfeld pageant or the Miss and Mister’s Bachelor’s Mill pageant, which we covered in the episode, “An Ode to the Children” in season one.
However, the pageant scene, like much of the Drag and gay bar scene in general, was segregated.
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: You would think in the 90s, it would have been more open. But it wasn't. The first time I went to go work at Remingtons, at a country in western bar, they saw me. They was like, ‘Who is this Black bitch coming up in here?’
ABBY STUCKRATH: Simone Blue Sterling is a part of two drag houses in D.C.: the Blue family and the Sterling family. She first joined the Blue house in 1995, when she was recruited by house founder and mother, Maxine Blue. You see, in the early 90s, Maxine Blue entered the drag scene without the typical gown and heels.
[Pop beat plays in the background]
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: They used to do a lot of boy illusion as boy bands and stuff. There weren't really too many groups doing boy drag as boys. And then for Maxine to come up with this whole master plan, ‘let me switch it over and let me expand.’ I think it's been the best thing ever.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Blue’s boy band quickly rose to public stardom. With this newfound popularity, Maxine expanded the house to feature drag queens, including Simone who was one of the few transgender drag queens in the scene. Simone says the accelerated ascension of the Blue name in the D.C. Drag community ruffled the feathers of some queens who had spent years trying to climb the ladder of success.
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: In a lot of other of the older houses, you had to, like, start off, like, as an amateur performer or let somebody discover you to be a part of a house. That didn't happen with Maxine. Maxine came out with her group of the boys as Boy Blue. They did their thing, and then Maxine expanded, and because of the competition that started forming, because they were like, ‘Oh, who the hell are these people?’ and ‘Why the hell they're always on these places? And who do they know?’ And we didn't really know a whole lot of people, but we knew what we had.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Blue name also ushered in new invitations to perform in typically white gay spaces, like the Dupont Bar, Mr. P’s.
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: Either you had to kiss some ass to get in on the other side, but that didn't guarantee you a spot. Or you had to really be good. And that wasn't always the case. Even if you were at your excellent, to some people you weren't shit. So you saw a lot of that. You saw that in the beginning at Omega. They really weren't featuring too many of the dark girls there or the Black girls there, but we've eventually broken in.
[Pop beat fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Blue house was essential in breaking down the racial barrier in gay spaces.
So what made them so successful? Simone says talent, of course, but also, the strong familial bond that Mother Maxine fostered in the house. The Blues would gather weekly at Maxine’s home in Capitol Hill to rehearse and…
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: Get pissy drunk.
[Retro guitar music plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Over glasses of liquor and full plates of Maxine’s fine cooking.
[Meat sizzles on grill]
[Whisk mixes in a bowl]
[Knife cuts quickly]
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: Ribs, sausages, hamburgers, everything had its own twist. The mixed vegetables…
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Blues would just have downright fun together, and at the end of the day, Maxine always made sure they were taken care of.
[Group of people laughs]
SIMONE BLUE STERLING: We always had a place to stay. She always made sure, ‘You lay your ass down. You're drunk, you're drunk, lay your ass down.’ She would just or she would take keys, whatever the case is, to keep you there, to keep you sober and keep you alive. So how could you not love somebody like that?
[Retro guitar music ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Private homes are where the Blue’s found solace—drinking, eating, and laughing together—creating a community in a Drag scene that fought against their inclusion.
The Hollywood house in the 60s served a different, but similar purpose. It invited people to play with their gender and artistry. After their day jobs in the military or federal government, these men would don their wigs and gowns to drink, to eat, and laugh too.
These private spaces are where family is bonded and societal norms are expelled.
But most importantly, private homes provided safety. This sense of protection is what helped shape the first prominent Latina Drag Queens in D.C. in the 1980s.
JOSÉ GUTIERREZ: La Bomba, Fiorella Bandorfino, Sophia Carrero, Marylyn Sulay and another drag queens. They start acting in private parties because immigration was a big issue in our community, so people was taking care, you know. We didn't have any electronic devices or invitations, that was more like calling people by phone
[Phone rings]
and saying, you know,
(Through phone filter)
‘We're going to have a party.’
[Latin beat plays]
And they came with Latino food or Mexican food, and Latin music, and you know, they meet, and then they do Drag shows. Yeah, and then…
ABBY STUCKRATH: You might remember José Gutierrez from last season. He is a Latino Queer historian and archivist based in D.C. He says Latina drag queens later transitioned out of private parties after the historic opening of…
JOSÉ GUTIERREZ: El Faro. El Faro was the first Latino LGBTQ bar.
[Latin beat fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Like we discussed in season one, El Faro was located on 18th street in Adams Morgan and was a safe haven for many of the Latine Queer community, especially drag queens.
JOSÉ GUTIERREZ: They performing, you know, songs by Latino singers, like Lola Beltran, Lucha Villa, Gloria Estefan…
ABBY STUCKRATH: Using El Faro’s jukebox…
[Coins clink into jukebox]
[Latin dance music plays]
Queens performed their favorite songs, many of them in Spanish, inviting Latine Queers into drag shows that now shared their language, style, and taste.
While bars are where the Latina queens flourished, it was homes that gave them the foundation to thrive.
Private homes and houses were a safety net, serving as their birthplace and proving ground for exploration.
[Latin dance music swells then fades out]
A home is also where a lot of drag artists’ firsts are. The first wig, first dress, first heels.
For one drag queen, it was a bedazzled glove that got her hooked.
[Curious music plays]
STEVEN BRANDT: We went over to Jerry's house because he was getting ready for a pageant or something was coming up, and he wanted to show us the gowns, and um…
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Steven, a secret drag hopeful.
STEVEN BRANDT: And this one was kind of like, whoa. I was like, Oh, let me try this on, or let me try this hat, or whatever. He–
RICK BOYLAND: I had no interest in doing drag whatsoever.
STEVEN BRANDT: –until Jerry pulled out a pair of opera gloves, and we're in the bedroom. I'm trying to zip my dress up because it's way too small, and this one is sitting there going–
RICK BOYLAND: Oh my gosh this is so neat! Can I have the other one?
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Rick, Steven’s boyfriend who claimed he wasn’t into drag.
STEVEN BRANDT: Yeah, and he puts the other one on. And..
RICK BOYLAND: And I was like, ‘Can I try on that dress?’ And of course, I was too big. Jerry was a tiny little guy, and I couldn't even zip it up. But it was like, oh, man, that was the beginning.
STEVEN BRANDT: And from that moment, we were like, our curiosity was peaked.
[Curious music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Steven Brandt AKA Diana Spencer and Rick Boyland AKA Melody Lane, are the founding couple behind the Miss Adams Morgan Pageant, an amateur drag competition in D.C. Steven and Rick never thought they’d be drag queens, let alone start their own exclusive drag pageant. But that one opera glove changed everything. It created an itch that Steven and Rick couldn’t help but scratch. Every year, they kept creeping out of their shells, slowly building their confidence and drag personas.
STEVEN BRANDT: We were like, ‘Let's get together and watch old Bette Davis movies.’
[Film project whirs]
So we went to a friend's house. There were probably 10 of us, between eight and 10 of us, and for some reason, I don't know why, but we wanted to watch in nightgowns, so we borrowed nightgowns from our mothers or from our siblings and tried on a little makeup, and we sat there until four in the morning watching old Bette Davis movies, kind of semi in drag.
[Popcorn pops in microwave]
[Popcorn bag shakes]
[Person chews popcorn]
And I think it weirded us out so much that we didn't do it again for like two years.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Intimidated and scared to fully commit to drag, Steven and Rick would use Halloween as an opportunity to get glammed up. Until one Halloween, in 1987, they decided to make it official, to create their own personal pageant.
Steven and Rick, along with their five closest friends made a little program, got all dolled up in drag, and went to Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse on 17th street.
Steven, AKA Diana Spencer won…because she did five of the seven queens’ makeup.
The next year, they hosted the pageant at a friend’s Mount Pleasant house.
[Door opens, disco beat plays in the background]
Rick AKA Melody Lane took home the top prize. But the party had maybe one too many martinis.
STEVEN BRANDT: We trashed the place. It was a mess when we left. There was there was peanuts ground into the rug like peanut butter, and someone had gotten sick and thrown up in the bathroom, all down the wall. It was a mess.
[Disco beat distorts and fades out]
So our friends very politely said, ‘You guys can't come back here again to, you know, our our house is off limits.’ And from that point, we were like, ‘Okay, well, we had fun,’ and that was it. We there was no, nothing drove us to have another pageant.
ABBY STUCKRATH: It wasn’t until the next Halloween that Steven felt the need to keep the pageant going.
Steven, Rick, and some friends were dressed in drag, yet again, for Halloween that year. They were walking through the Dupont Circle neighborhood when a group of teenagers approached them.
STEVEN BRANDT: They literally stormed us. And, you know the name calling, the ‘fag, this,’ and all, just everything you could think of, grabbed my wig, threw it in the in the ground, soaking wet. I was just, I was just completely paralyzed at the moment. But I picked up the wig, I shook it off, I put it on my head, and said, ‘You know what we're going we're going to the bar. I don't care. You know you're either coming with us or you're not.’ So we all four decided we would go out and continue our fun. And it was that night, that incident, that I said to to Rick and to Carlos and Steve. ‘You know what? It is a shame. It is it is it is disgraceful that we can't be out in our own city on Halloween, celebrating who we are, celebrating our friends.’ And I was like, ‘We're going to do this thing again. We're going to, there will be a Miss Adams Morgan Three.’
ABBY STUCKRATH: And they did.
[80s pop music plays in the background]
And then they did a Miss Adams Morgan Four…Five…Six…and on and on as the pageant kept going and kept getting bigger.
[80s pop music swells underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Soon enough the shows were selling out bars, then ballrooms, then even hotel convention rooms. Despite the growing venues, the event remained reserved for a select group.
STEVEN BRANDT: We kept it very private, and that exclusivity caused there to be this buzz, like, ‘Do you know somebody?’ ‘Can you get in? Can I get tickets?’ ‘Oh, no, you have to know somebody, and we don't know anybody…’ And before you know it, we were like the hottest thing in town.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In the 80s when the AIDs crisis began to wipe out a generation of Queer folks, Steven and Rick lost the third winner of the Miss Adams Morgan pageant to AIDS. Steven and Rick thought the pageant was through, until they realized the community needed drag. They needed the pageant.
[Thoughtful music plays in the background]
RICK BOYLAN: I was at a funeral, and somebody came up to me and said, ‘Are you doing a pageant again this year?’ And I was like, ‘I don't know. We haven't kind of decided.’ He was like, ‘Oh, you have to do it. It's the best party in D.C. It is so fabulous. You absolutely have to do this!’
ABBY STUCKRATH: They became not just a performance outlet but an essential resource.
Mark, Drag Rag author and D.C. historian, says many drag artists with AIDS relied not on their biological family for support, but their drag families.
MARK MEINKE: To be gay and a drag performer, lots of families could maybe do the first one, but the two together, they couldn't. So if you got really sick with AIDS, you had no support. So they raised money for themselves and for each other.
ABBY STUCKRATH: So, the Miss Adams Morgan Pageant started a donation fund to help support those living and dying from AIDS.
This kind of mutual aid work sprung up all across the city. In fact, the first ever Latina Drag Pageant, Miss Gay Hispanic, was a fundraising event hosted by Salud, an HIV/AIDS health center for the Latine community. That pageant, alongside Salud, worked to provide bilingual resources raising awareness about AIDS, and financially provide support in housing, medical fees, and more.
The Academies also raised thousands of dollars to help support those living with AIDS. They called it the HOOP Fund, which stands for Helping Our Own People.
Chris Monroe, an Academy member, remembers how devastating the disease was to their social club.
CHRIS MONROE: AIDS took a lot of the Academy members, and it probably took around, I'd say, at least 400 members out of round, maybe 800 members. It took half of the Academy just wiped the Academy out. So Maryland House has, even though they had a big house at one time, AIDS really hit them the hardest of all the houses. And then I can remember, they only had 12 members at one time.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The lineages created by these Drag houses contributed to the Drag community’s tenacity during the AIDS crisis. The familial bonds created in Drag, made sure that its artistry would be passed on.
For Chris Monroe, her relationship with Mame Dennis, her Drag mother and leader of the Beekman Place house, is a bond that she will never forget.
[Thoughtful music fades out]
CHRIS MONROE: I think about Mame every day, because we talked every day, every morning, eight o'clock, my phone would ring.
(Through phone filter)
Says, ‘Hi Chris. It's me, your mother.’ I said, ‘Hi Mame!’
So we'd talk, and then we talked about the upcoming show. We'd talk about going out to lunch and everything. And she said, ‘What do you think about last week's show?’ I thought, ‘Oh, it's okay.’ ‘What? Tell me what you didn't like about it?’ ‘I didn't like any of it.’ ‘What did you say?’ I said, ‘I'm kidding you, Mom, it was okay.’
ABBY STUCKRATH: Thanks to a gentle nudge from Mother Mame, Chris became a drag mother herself to Lady Tula, a close friend who had been doing her makeup for years.
LADY TULA: She called me one day in an emergency because the makeup artist, the makeup person that normally did her makeup, wasn't available for a show we were doing. And I said, she'll come over to my house and, you know, and and I did her makeup, and then I started a couple times again, and, and we bonded. You know, your drag families, you know, not all your siblings were your best friends, but that's how families are. But you had a place to be. You had someone you could call if there was, you know, if you had something going on with you, and to share things.
ABBY STUCKRATH: It was this camaraderie and unconditional love that made drag king Barry White wanna stick around in the Academies.
BARRY WHITE: I had joined the Academy in about 1991. And when my mother passed, she died in 1995, and, you know, I let the people that I felt was important know that I wouldn't be coming to a function. Well, Fanny Bryce was my house mother at the time. The only thing Fanny Bryce knew about me was what she saw every Sunday. Fanny Bryce and Cat Stevens drove to Baltimore to view my mother, and to me, that said a lot. And this is Fanny, the Sunday afterwards, she goes ‘Oh, my God, Barry, I thought that was you lying in the casket!’
[Barry and Abby laugh]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Barry wasn’t in the Academies to become a drag star. Barry simply loved the art of drag and the community it fostered. Barry was much more of a listener and observer.
[Light Italian music plays in the background]
BARRY WHITE: My first mother in Henry Street was a guy named Rita Marino. He was Italian. Found out later that his uncle was connected, if you get my gist, and his mother was named Rose. Authentic Italian cooking.
[Sauce bubbles in pot]
[Knife chops on cutting board]
On Saturday nights, Rose would cook, and about six to eight members would come over, and they’d play poker at night, just sitting there playing poker. It was hilarious. I didn't play cards, but to hear the banter between them was simply awesome.
[Light Italian music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While drag kings were accepted into the Academy, they weren’t exactly equal to the queens.
CHRIS MONROE: The real girls, did a lot of work, they wadn’t allowed to do a lot of the title like, they couldn't run for Miss America. They couldn't run for Miss USA. They couldn't run for Best Actor. They couldn't, they just couldn't do it. They wasn't allowed.
ABBY STUCKRATH: But the rules and standards of drag started to change in the late 90s, and drag kings started creating their own organizations.
In 2000, D.C. established its first drag king troupe: the D.C. Kings. Run by the legendary King Ken Vegas.
PRETTY RICKY: Ken is like the granddaddy of like drag kings in D.C.
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Erika Lewis, AKA Pretty Ricky, a drag king in the District. I chatted at Her Diner with Ricky before he performed with his troupe Pretty Boi Drag.
PRETTY RICKY: The nickname for D.C. was Chocolate City, but the drag king scene was looking more like white chocolate city. And so, we started Pretty Boi Drag, not to be exclusionary of anybody, but to uplift, in particular, Black and POC-identified folks.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Pretty Ricky, like many kings across the District, got his start in the D.C. Kings. The performance troupe reigned over D.C. for 15 years, welcoming in and training over 400 kings, who you might remember hearing about last season.
After moving on from the D.C. Kings and creating Pretty Boi Drag in 2016, Ricky wanted to prioritize having a drag troupe–not a house.
PRETTY RICKY: For me, the difference between having a troupe and having a house. I think sometimes people who put themselves in positions like that in houses probably feel a lot of pressure from the people looking up to them. It is, it can be, it can be daunting, and it can be a little suffocating at times because you feel like you're not allowed to make mistakes.
ABBY STUCKRATH: For Pretty Ricky, being a troupe instead of a house lifts off some of the personal pressure that comes with Drag families. But that doesn’t mean Pretty Ricky isn’t dedicated to passing on his expertise and ushering in a new era of drag kings.
Today, learning the basics of being a drag queen is more accessible than ever with endless YouTube videos, and with the popularity of Drag Race. The visibility of drag queens today has demystified some of the old secret tricks of the trade.
PRETTY RICKY: Kings don't have that. Who are we looking up to? So you have to, like, look in your community and figure out who's the person that I'm looking up to and looking to to help me, like, up my game. So it's just really hard when you don't have that like to look up to. And then you see that your counterparts very much so do and get paid more than you. I could tell you for sure, Pretty Boi Drag’s men, people have reached out to book us for things, and then told us that the kings would not get paid, but the queens are getting paid.
ABBY STUCKRATH: To be a guiding light and mentor for the community, Pretty Boi Drag has started Drag 101 classes. From Vancouver to Brazil, people from all over the world have attended their virtual lessons.
In doing so, Ricky has seen the drag scene change dramatically.
PRETTY RICKY: Drag has gotten a lot less binary. And so you see a lot of like, you know, it depends on who they are. They may call themselves a ‘drag thing’ or ‘drag in between,’ but there are so many people who just don't fall into the binary of being a king or a queen, and that I think has been relatively new to the scene.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The binary nature of drag isn’t the only shift the scene has witnessed in the past decade. The District also lost a foundational pillar to the drag community.
Mame Dennis, the President of the Academy’s, died in 2015.
[Sad soul music plays in the background]
CHRIS MONROE: It was devastating to the Academy when she passed away and died. And after she died, the Academy just sort of started going downhill.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In that same year, the Academy disbanded.
MARK MEINKE: When you start an organization, once it gets going, if you don't leave it alone, it becomes so centered on you, that if something happens to you, then something happens to the organization.
ABBY STUCKRATH: After 54 years of glamorous service, and now more than 10 years after its dissolvement, the Academies remain beloved and missed.
BARRY WHITE: I cannot tell you how much I miss the camaraderie that I had. On the weekends, it was a wonderful escape.
LADY TULA: The Academy made everyone feel like they mattered. It didn't matter if you were old, young, big, small, we embrace everyone. Everyone had their moment on stage. Everybody felt special. Everybody was was important, and they made you feel important.
CHRIS MONROE: I want to thank the Academy. If it weren't for the Academy, I don't know if my drag career would have continued. I really don't think it would have. That probably would have all been put in the closet and gone away. But no, the Academy was a lifesaver.
[Sad soul music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Lady Tula and Chris Monroe are still performing today, and they say the pace and camaraderie within the drag scene feels so different without the Academies.
LADY TULA: There's a generation of drag now that learned their drag off YouTube and influencers, which is fine, but they don't know and don't have any experience of what we had, you know, where you were in a family, where you had support, where you were helped and learn things, or somebody taught you things.
CHRIS MONROE: A lot of these kids that entertain today now, they book themselves in clubs, and it's all about money to them. They come, they entertain, then they leave. They don't hang around. They don't socialize like we did. We always socialize with people after the Academy was over. We go to a bar and sit and talk and laugh and talk to everybody, but these kids today, they come to entertain, they get out of drag, and they go home and everything. So it's a whole completely different world of Drag.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The end of the Academies created an undeniable gap in drag leadership and drag houses in D.C., one that Chris and Tula feel has made the community more singular.
While there hasn’t been another Drag organization to replace the structure and formality like the Academies gave D.C., other Drag families and houses today are still thriving.
[R&B music plays in the background]
XAIVER STERLING: I'm Xavier Hodge during the day. I'm Xavier Sterling, when I'm on stage.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Xavier is the founder and father of the House of Sterling. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Xavier started performing at 19 years old as a male drag artist. He was an instant hit, and straight out of high school began touring across the east coast with drag queens.
But when he reached Richmond, Virginia, he was stranded by a jealous drag queen in 1990. Despite this bumpy start, Xavier stayed in Richmond to found the Sterling house, but life took a big turn when he fell for the wrong guy.
[R&B music fades out]
XAIVER STERLING: I met a guy that I fell deeply in love with, and we, he was a crack addict, and I couldn't figure out. And again, I'm, this is early 20s, I'm trying to figure out why this dude won't come home, and what is keeping him out there. And in my crazy mind, I and he, I told him, ‘You don't have to do it in the streets, just bring it home.’ Biggest mistake of my life. Ended up being addicted with him, which kind of derailed me performing for some years.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Years later, Xaiver moved to D.C. to get treatment, and it was there that he began to reconnect with performing. He lived in the Oxford House, which is a home for recovering addicts, run by its residents.
XAIVER STERLING: God, I was starving for some kind of creative outlet, because I had spent that three years just going to meetings, staying clean, talking to my sponsors, working the steps, all of this really, really heavy lifting and heavy healing. So I was starving for something to do, as far as creativity, so I did this fashion show for Oxford House.
[Groovy beat plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: And it was a hit. Xaiver started running fashion shows across the country for Narcotics Anonymous groups.
[Camera shutter clicks and flashes]
XAIVER STERLING: Our fashion shows were not just like regular runway, which you would see on TV. I do fashion parades. I tell you, I love a theme. We just an example. We were quite known for a scene called “unbe-weave-able,” and that's where all the clothing is made out of hair weave.
ABBY STUCKRATH: These shows gave him the momentum and confidence to perform again and rebuild the Sterling family.
XAIVER STERLING: I've probably gathered…there's about 20, maybe 23 Sterlings so far.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Sterling families have been killing it in the pageantry scene lately, they have drag kings, drag studs, trans queens, cis-women queens, male illusionists. The Sterlings are all over the board.
[Groovy beat stops]
They don’t just perform–they are truly a family.
XAIVER STERLING: My house is ground zero.
[Key unlocks door]
[Soft guitar music plays]
I have a little tiny house in Southeast. It's three bedrooms. Probably about half of my kids have lived with me at some point or another. Pretty much all of them have keys to come and go.
[People chatter and cheer]
[Glasses and plates clink together]
If they have an emergency, they have a safe place to go. We do cookouts, birthday parties.
[Noisemaker blares]
So it's very, very much traditional family, but very much not.
[People laugh]
[Plates clink]
[Soft guitar music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: What I’ve learned from this history is that drag houses and families give these artists the strength to redefine themselves. They create networks of trust, and they push each other, challenge each other to do more, be more.
Another house, who is more new to the scene, is doing exactly that.
INSULINA ROSE: Literally, two months before I started drag, I like, flatlined from a surgery I had. And I was like, okay, my big sister, like, gave me the push, and she was like, ‘Hey, you love this shit for so long, and you've never done it, and you literally died. So I think you should do it.’ I did it, she gave me some dresses…
ABBY STUCKRATH: And just like that, Insulina Rose joined the stage. Her first show was an open bar performance at Freddies Beach Bar, a prominent gay bar in Arlington, Virginia.
She wore bright blue makeup with thick Betty Boop eyelashes, and performed a Tom Holland inspired rendition of “Diamonds” by Rhianna.
After years on the side line handing out tips, Insulina was now cashing those in.
[Lively dance beat plays in the background]
Insulina was recruited into the Haus of What, which was founded in 2022, by its Mothers and co-founders Vettick What and Mx Jazz What.
She says their leadership has been instrumental to her confidence on and off stage.
INSULINA ROSE: Even today, I was stressing out about my makeup, and they're like, ‘Mija, calm down. Mija, calm down.’ You know, it’s just having them there, I guess is the best thing.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Mx Jazz What says they started the Haus for this purpose exactly: to provide guidance, leadership, and family.
Drag, especially female illusionists, can have a very strict limitation on what Drag is. Your hair has to look a certain way, your nails have to be a certain way, everything is precise. But in the Haus of What, Mother Vettick What says they celebrate not being in the mainstream.
VETTICK WHAT: Even our drag daughters, all of them are completely different. They all do a different drag style. They all have a different drag style. And we always tell them the same thing, ‘You're different, and that's completely fine. That's why we're together. So that way whatever you're you can bring is gonna bring that spiciness that we all need.’
ABBY STUCKRATH: Their emphasis on individuality is what Sister Chode loves about the Haus of What.
SISTER CHODE: I think homogeny is where art goes to die, and at this point, like we have such a mixed bag of drag queens that all do something different…
[Sister Chode quote fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: From having bearded queens to deaf queens, to a self-described “premier chaste nun” queen, the Haus of What is a home for the one of a kind.
The house also established a monthly Latinx drag and dance party in D.C. called “Qué El.”
MX JAZZ: It has been such a blessing to have that show because we have had the opportunity to open the doors not just to the Latinx community, but in addition to that, we have been able to give opportunities to other performers that regularly, probably they're not very seen just because of whatever reason, they don't get booked, or they're new in the scene.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Since the rise of ICE raids in our streets and the federal takeover in the District in 2025, the Haus of What feels more empowered than ever to create a space for their community.
VETTICK WHAT: We have been doing this for a year and a half of the Qué El show, and we have seen, unfortunately, the change of the Latinx community being afraid of being out. Having the Qué El show, it helps us like speak out. Giving that opportunity to tell them, like, go support your neighbors, go support your family.
[Lively dance beat fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Although Drag today looks very different from the Liz Taylors and the Hollywood House gatherings in the 60s, the legacies of these iconic drag houses lives on as house parents pass down their knowledge, educating the next generation of drag artists.
[Sunny music plays in the background]
[Typing on keyboard]
MARK MEINKE: “She has seen it all. She's been here for the birth of the Academy, the integration of gay clubs, the competing, striving, learning, and politics of gender illusionists, the rivalries, the pageants, the clubs coming and going, the artists debuting, and retiring, and dying.”
[Typing ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: When Mark started the Drag Rag, a weekly newsletter covering the D.C. Drag scene, it was his lifeline…a way to find himself amidst the grief of losing his husband.
Today, Mark is happily retired and married…to a drag queen.
He, along with all the performers, mothers, fathers, and leaders we’ve interviewed for this episode, have shown me all the joy that Drag has brought to the District. Drag helps Queer folks carve out a place for themselves, whether that be on a pageant stage or in their living room watching Drag Race with their friends.
Drag isn’t just a performance; it’s a reflection of our history. Drag is a physical manifestation of Queer people defiantly creating space for themselves. Not allowed to wear a dress in public? Great, I’ll invite 20 of my closest friends to my apartment, and we’ll trade wigs and pantyhose. Have nowhere to stay? Don’t worry. My drag mother’s already got a bed made for me.
The Beekman Place House, the Maryland House, the Henry Street House, the Blue House, the Sterling House, the Haus of What–all of these Drag families and troupes are only a small part of D.C.’s Drag history. But they are a brilliant example that Drag isn’t just a form of entertainment, it’s a network of love born out of the desire to be glamorously different.
[Sunny music fades out]
[QTDP theme music plays]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Hey baby, we’re so glad you’re here, and thanks for listening until the end of the episode.
Don’t worry, we promise we won’t leave you hanging too long. Next week, we’ll be learning about the history of housing and care during the AIDS Epidemic in the District.
We want to thank the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who have really helped inspire and guide us through this process.
And shout out to the rest of the QTDP team, Julia, Andrew, Ellie, and Mads for making this podcast happen.
You can find a transcript for this, and every episode, on our website at queeringthedistrictpodcast.com and linked below in the episode notes.
If you want to learn more and stay up to date on all things Queering the District Podcast, follow our social media pages @queeringthedistrictpodcast! You don’t want to miss exclusive interview clips, juicy voicemails, and bi-weekly spotlights.
Do you have a story to share? Do you think we missed something? Give us a call, and bare it all after the beep at 202-753-6570.
If you’re still with us, as always, we finish every episode with a Phi-Phi voicemail left by a local Queer. This week’s voicemail was left by somebody who just finished up their performance at Sinners and Saints.
[QTDP intro music fades out]
LIONEL BITCHIE: Hello, my name is Lionel Bitchie, and I just performed at Drag Duel. Honestly, it was such a great opportunity. I have a great community, and I somehow found my way to Saint.. [Sinners and Saints]. My friend is DJing and have a good one, thank you!
