In 2003, Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor published Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret, an in-depth examination of the lives and loves, ups and downs, of this troupe of drag queens in Key West. In addition to introducing readers to the fabulous girls of the 801, Rupp and Taylor have shared their own experiences of conducting on-site research for the book -- in the process of which they became "the professors of lesbian love" and for one night, became drag queens. They blend feminist methodologies with analysis, sharing their own lives as they share those of the people they study. With their permission, we have reprinted an excerpt of this story from Verta Taylor and Leila J. Rupp, "Crossing Boundaries in Participatory Action Research: Performing Protest with Drag Queens," in Rhyming Hope and History: Activists, Academics, and Social Movement Scholarship, David Croteau, William Hoynes, and Charlotte Ryan, eds. (U of Minnesota Press, 2005): 239-64, excerpt from 249-51.

We became something of a fixture at the shows as "the professors of lesbian love" as they [the drag queens performing at the 801] would introduce us. Or sometimes they would greet us with the cry, "It's the pussy lickers!" reminding us, along with the rest of the audience, that we might be college professors, but in the end, we, just as they, could be defined by our sexuality. Their use of slang terms for body parts and sex acts, like their openness about sexuality, served to blur the boundaries between the vulgar and the respectable. They grab and touch and strip willing audience members, both onstage and off. Their bawdy talk and touching shocks the audience, creating an opening for the introduction of ideas about gender and sexuality that are shocking in a different sense. Through watching this process and being involved in it, we came to understand this part of the show as a political act in that it points out the performativity of gender and undermines the binary categories of male/female and straight/gay.

Then there was the night Sushi [the house mother] put us in drag as Jinxie Dogwood and Blackee Warner. Once in drag, we went out on the street, where for forty-five minutes before the show begins the girls recruit an audience, handing out flyers, calling out to passersby, and inviting everyone to come upstairs. We had already spent a lot of time observing them there, but it wasn't until we joined them that we really understood everything that happens. That night allowed us to experience in the same way that drag queens do how gender presentation and externally marked categories of difference determine perceptions of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman.

We had quite different reactions that seem to mirror both the positive and the negative sides of the experience. Verta felt vulnerable, afraid that men staring at her would come up and touch her, as often happens. People touch the drag queens all the time, in ways that they never would anyone else, and the girls, in turn, grope them back. Occasionally people on the street will harass them, calling them names such as "faggot" or even throwing things out of cars, and the girls admit to being afraid sometimes. They aren't at all feminine on the street, they are agressive sexually, which comes off as profoundly masculine in this sense, ironically, that female prostitutes are masculine. So it is not all vulnerability either.

In contrast to Verta, Leila felt powerful disguised as a man dressing as a woman. She felt freed to say and do things she would not ordinarily, and she enjoyed the in-your-face nature of the performance in front of straight tourists. We both came to experience what we had already noted, that drag queens are neither feminine nor masculine in any conventional sense, that they are, in fact, simply drag-queenish. Immersion in their world allowed us to understand both drag queen as a gender category and drag performances as a form of social protest.

Jinxie's and Blackee's night at the 801 was not only the culmination of our immersion in the world of drag, it was also part of our exchange and reciprocity with the drag queens, which is another element of our participation. Throughout this research, we shared our interpretations of drag with the girls. When we told them what we were learning about the history of drag, and how we saw them fitting into the identity and community-building process, Sushi decided we should do a little segment in the show on drag history. But we are educators, not entertainers, and as hard as we tried to be amusing and light, we still came off sounding like professors. Our first attempt was a flop, but it made us realize how perfectly tailored to the venue their style of political expression is.