Drag performer Francis Leon, c.1919
1 May 2023
(For more on the verb, drag racing, and main drag, click here.)
In present-day speech, drag can refer to wearing clothes associated with the opposite gender. It most often refers to men dressing as women, but the word can also refer to women dressing as men. It’s strongly associated with gay subculture, but drag is also a slang term used in theatrical circles generally. While associated with gay men, public drag performances are rarely overtly sexual in nature and are more about challenging gender roles and expectations than actual sex.
The slang term comes, of course, from the verb to drag, meaning to draw or pull. The present-day verb comes to us from the Old English verb dragan, with the same meaning, and it either developed from proto-Germanic within English or it was borrowed from the Old Norse draga during the pre-Conquest period.
The slang sense of cross-dressing apparently comes from the length of a woman’s dress, which drags on the ground, appearing in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It may have arisen in theatrical slang, being later adopted into gay culture, or perhaps the path was vice versa. J. Redding Ware’s 1909 slang dictionary records a theatrical use from 1887, but also acknowledges the term is used by gay men, whom Ware euphemizes as “eccentric youths”:
Drag (Theat.) Petticoat or skirt used by actors when playing female parts. Derived from the drag of the dress, as distinct from the non-dragginess of the trouser.
Mrs Sheppard is now played by a man—Mr Charles Steyne, to wit. I don’t like to see low coms. in drag parts, but I must confess that Mr Steyne is really droll, without being at all vulgar.—Ref., 24th July 1887.
Also given to feminine clothing by eccentric youths when dressing up in skirts.
But the 1887 theatrical citation given by Ware is not the earliest known use of the term. It appears as early as 1870. In May of that year, the arrest of several men for cross-dressing at a private gathering at a London hotel created something of a sensation, accounts of which appeared in a number of newspapers. Here is one from London’s Morning Post of 23 May 1870:
Cross-examined by Mr. Besley—Gibbins said he was coming up for a week’s frolic, and wished to give a small party, with music, in the way of entertainment. He is a most accomplished musician. He came again and said, “I think we will make it a fancy dress affair,” and that some of them would come in “drag,” a slang term for ladies’ dress.
Mr. Flowers—It is the first time the meaning of the term has been given in evidence.
The testimony described in the Morning Post also says that men in male attire were dancing with the cross-dressing men and that the men in drag were amateur actors. The latter could be taken to indicate that the origin of the term is in theatrical slang, but it could also be an excuse the men concocted to give a socially acceptable explanation for their actions. What this example clearly shows, though, is that the term was clearly part of gay slang in 1870 and likely also in theatrical slang by that date as well.
An account of the arrest printed in the Bradford Observer, also on 23 May, details testimony stressing the non-sexual nature of the gathering:
He said he was coming up for a fortnight’s frolic. A musical party was the first idea. He is a most accomplished musician. He said after that they would have a little dress affair, with music, and that they would come in “drag,” which was a slang term for dressing as females. There was nothing coarse. He believed that all knew the young men were dressed as women, as he heard the observations made round the room as to how well they were acting. There was no impropriety in the room; not in the least; not a gesture.
But that is countered by the first paragraph of the Observer’s account, which reads:
At the Bow Street Police Court, on Saturday, Mr. Flowers, the presiding magistrate, was again engaged in hearing the case against the two prisoners, Frederick William Park and Ernest Boulton, charged with having been found dressed in women’s clothes, and frequenting various places of public amusement for the purpose of committing a felony. The fact that the felonious charge had been proved by medical evidence on Friday seemed only to have added to the excitement outside the court, an immense number of persons striving uselessly to gain admission.
One wonders what the “medical evidence” was, but perhaps we better not go there. But clearly this was not what we would today call a drag show. It was a private gathering of gay men with prospect of sex ensuing, even if nothing overtly sexual happened in the main room. Today, such a private gathering of consenting adults would be no one else’s business, but in Victorian England it was a felony.
Still, it is unresolved whether the slang sense of drag arose in the theater or among gay men, but whichever was first, the cross-over was early.
Sources:
“The Charge of Personating Women.” Morning Post (London), 23 May 1870, 7/4. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2023, s.v. drag, n.1, drag, adj.1. (Green incorrectly notes: “The first OED citations (1870) imply fancy dress; gay refs. not overt until 20C.” The evidence from those citations is clearly in the context of gay men dressing as women, not a costume party, despite the use of “fancy dress” (i.e., costume) in the citation.)
“The Men in Women’s Clothes.” Bradford Observer (England), 23 May 1870, 4/4. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. drag, n., drag, v.
Ware, J. Redding. Passing English of the Victorian Era. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1909, 117. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Bradley and Rulofson, c. 1919. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.