I have dressed up as a woman exactly twice in my life. And I didn’t do it to be sexually attractive to anyone, and I didn’t dress in drag to make any sort of a political statement.
The first time was my initiation into the letterman’s club, R Club, at Rawlins High School, Home of the Mighty Outlaws.
We neophytes, or initiates, were required to perform a hula dance for the veteran members of R Club at the annual banquet, grass skirts, coconut bras and all. Every athlete on the stage had won the honor of dancing in a grass skirt by kicking ass on various and sundry jocks from other schools on the athletic field of competition.
It would have been unwise of anyone interested in keeping their teeth to make fun of us outside that banquet.
The second time I dressed as a woman was forty years later in Laramie.
I was invited to the annual Drag Queen Bingo by a young artist who had done a couple portraits of me. She was planning to dress up like a Balkan gigolo with pomaded hair and pencil mustache, and I had to dress like her (his) paramour.
I decided to go to the event in the disguise of an American housewife, barefoot and pregnant.
I wore a ratty housedress that I got at a thrift store, and duct taped a pillow on my belly to signify the blessed event. I put curlers in my hair and beard, and left my Tony Lamas at home.
We had a blast! The other men (women) at our table were similarly clad as supermodels, go-go dancers or female assassins. Vince (not his real name) is six foot six, and that night looked like Heidi Klum. Vince is not a man to be trifled, and anyone who questioned his cojones would do so at their own peril.
There are only two things that I regret about that night. The first was the curlers in my beard. It took two goddam days to get them out, and I lost some facial hair over the deal.
The second was that pillow. When I went to the mens’ (ladies’) room to answer nature’s call, I couldn’t see the urinal over my distended belly and ended up pissing on my bare feet. My respect for pregnant women deepened that night.
I think photographs were taken at each event, but I don’t have them. If any reader wants to post those pics, I’d be delighted to reminisce over them about two very entertaining evenings.
As I said, I made no political statements by dressing up as a woman. I did it for the sake of fun, and for the sake of make-believe. It's sort of like going to a karaoke bar and thinking you can sing like George Strait.
So the right-wing angst over the Laramie Drag Queen Bingo Extravaganza makes me chuckle. What a bunch of grumpy losers!
If someone’s worldview and sense of personal worth is that threatened by men in thongs or eyeliner, then I question how important that worldview actually is.
I can speak from personal experience that no kids were raped nor empires topped on the two occasions when I dressed like a woman.
I wonder if the Freedom Caucus holds Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, in equal contempt for his dressing in drag to attempt to escape arrest by Federal troops.
While no photographic evidence exists of that event, I’ll go out on a limb and say that I was a much better looking “woman," curlers in my beard and micturated feet, than that gnarly old traitor.
Rod Miller can be reached at: rodsmillerwyo@yahoo.com
