Sarah Burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the United States. She transitioned into reporting while working for Rock the Vote, Future Majority and Wiretap Magazine, covering the Millennial Generation's perspective during the presidential elections. As a political writer, Burris has had bylines at CNN, Salon.com, BNR, and AlterNet and serves as a senior digital editor for RawStory.com.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) on Thursday gave his own tribute for Pride Month on the floors of Congress: He told the congressional crowd that drag shows date to the 1800s.
The speech was nested in complaints from Republicans about "Drag Queen Story Hour," drag shows on military bases and an amendment that would ban the events in the National Defense Authorization Act.
It's part of a newly implemented process that allows the far-right House to tack on a number of culture war amendments to the bill that would regulate everything they find objectionable.
Talking about the history of drag queens, Garcia brought up World War II shows that the Red Cross hosted for the soldiers.
The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, wrote about the early USO shows that were "a necessity, not a frill."
The Army Special Services published and distributed handbooks, "known as Blueprint Specials," which had "everything you would need to put on an approved and pre-scripted soldier show. Blueprint Specials for soldier shows even included dress-making patterns and suggestions for material procurement."
They would then host what they called "'Girly' show[s]" with "choreography outlined in the publications to ensure that the GIs looked good in their highly choreographed 'pony ballet' numbers. A pony ballet is one where groups of masculine-looking GIs dress in tutus and perform ballet routines, often wearing their army-issued boots."
“This Is the Army became the prototypical World War II soldier show and established the three basic wartime styles of GI drag. These were the comic routines, chorus lines or ‘pony ballets’ of husky men in dresses playing for laughs; the skilled ‘female’ dancers or singers; and the illusionists or caricaturists, who did artistic and convincing impersonations of female stars,” wrote Estelle B. Freedman, in the book "Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II."
Garcia quipped that Reagan wasn't the only ex-Republican president who liked drag. His aide held up a large poster board of Trump next to then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dressed as a woman.
"Drag is art. Drag is culture and drag is a form of comedy," he said. "And drag is not a crime."
