Drag Phobia in India is something which is put to display quite often. With people calling some one wearing a pink shirt as "gay" to a man wearing a dress as "demeaning". Majorly every drag performer has to go through this so called Drag Phobia. where a regular artist is given open space to perform and present their art, A drag performer is rarely given opportunity to present his work even in open mics or a co-creation venues as people think that drag is not appropriate to be presented in such places. many a times curators are not allowed to curate an event if there is a drag element. sometimes, its asked to be hidden under the carpet.
To call out the different situations where Dragphobia is displayed. Dragvanti bought you some instance to make this relevant as given below.
With events moving online, the #Dragphobia became a very part to turn drag performers to be victim of online abuse. A few days ago a drag queen got creepy messages such as "are you a shemale ?", "Use footballs to show big breasts?", "are they lemons?"and "why dont you shave?" . Also a similar instant of a gender non confirming person's picture from last years pride was used as a meme to promote political agenda with the subtext "Ye dekho desh ke jawan , kya kar rahe he ?". A tiktok video of a drag performer was used with a tagline " if you dont use condom , this is what happens". these are clear instances of drag phobia.
Dragphobia exists because we have Homophobia , Bi Phobia and Trans-phobia in the society. this is a product of the very same stigma. for if Transphobia is addressed and we are successful in creating a Trans Friendly society then there wont be any 'Dragphobia' in its first place.
Its high time for communities to call out any such phobia in public sphere and ensure to curtail it from the very crux. this is a constant fight but unless we question, these stigmas wont be address. With hope that one day , a kid of any gender can wear anything he/she/they want to wear and fault with Pride, we ensure to voice out time and again.