On Jan. 26, Dalhousie’s Interntional Development Education and Awareness Society (IDEAS) hosted a “You Do You Drag Show” in support of the Youth Project.
IDEAS is the International Development department’s society; Event organizer Cassie Hinchliffe says that “queer, transgender, and LGBTQ+ is a development issue; international development is more than just international, it’s in your own backyard too.”
Deva Station kicked off the night with a Cruella Deville performance.
“My name is Deva Station because I went out one night with red hair and this guy, Will, says ‘you look just like this lesbian Porn Star named Deva Station’ and I went home that night to look her up; and I said, ‘Fuck, I do look like her!’”
Deva Station says she’s been doing Drag for 20 years now. When asked how Drag has influenced her life, she responded, “It’s my creative outlet. I suffer with anxiety and depression and stuff and Drag actually protects me.”
We Laugh, We Cry, We Live a Little
Mona Pleasure says that she is a part of Dalhousie’s IDEAS. Hinchliffe says the event was inspired into reality after fellow student Jonah Ray approached her and expressed his excitement to put on a drag show. She said that she put in a lot of work in order for the show to get to the point where it’s at. After reaching out to the DSU, and using Jonah’s connection to the drag community, Cassie says that she couldn’t have pulled it off without the large amount of support she received.
Hinchliffe confirmed that the Youth Project will receive $650 from the show’s proceeds.
Pronouns in drag
Throughout the show, hosts Eureka Love and Deva Station kept switching which pronouns when referring to the performers and themselves using him, her, it, or them.
In an interview with Deva Station, she said “I’ll just use whatever comes to mind first. I call most people ‘baby’ because then I can’t get in trouble. I don’t even really think about it.”
(After speaking with some of the other Queens, I realized after the fact that I was also using pronouns interchangeably and the Queens and I thought nothing of it. Yay 2018!)
The Queens are extremely comfortable with how they express themselves, and the hosts with how they address their sexuality. Maybe it’s because of the close-knit community that the Queens have established for themselves.
Queen Deva Station says, “These are my kids. Eureka is my sister. I’m Auntie Deva to all of them. Pretty much every Queen in the city calls me Auntie Deva because I am basically like a grandmother to all of them. I am basically the grandmother to all of them, in the way that we’re all related.”
Vanity Matrix pitched in and said, “Whenever someone needs help they go to Deva.”
Deva Station said after her performance that she hasn’t done this act in years, but the “baby Queens” wanted to see the performance.
“Anybody who has ever been to our house on Canada Day knows its epic, you never know what’s going to happen” Deva told the audience. “One year, we had some friends down from the valley – I won’t say that they’re redneck, but a little bit – and I don’t know how it happened but somehow we ended up in the drag room with this box of dildos. The next morning, dildos were all over the front yard. Our neighbors are now in therapy, and we’re not allowed to have parties anymore. You know how it is when straight people turn 40 and they get flamingoes on their front lawn? Well gay people get dildos.”
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