![]() ![]() She hopes to eventually take it to other Midwestern cities. What she did was create an event in Des Moines she says you'd be hard-pressed to find in other Midwestern cities because it features only drag kings and not drag queens. "I could continue to complain about the lack of visibility or I could do something about it.” ![]() She thinks the best way to build support for a community is by “normalizing” it.įemale-to-male drag is a subset of gay culture that she says isn’t broadly spoken of or represented even within that culture, which tends to be male-dominated. ![]() She wants this form of female-centered performance art to get exposure with a broad general audience by bringing it out of the confines of the gay bar scene. She’s also in the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute. That's been a goal of Carruthers, who waits tables for Goldfinch and Americana restaurants, has a business-management degree and worked in corporate real estate for 13 years. Tickets cost $20 in advance or $25 at the door, and the show has community sponsorships from Raygun, Blazing Saddle, Ephemera, Americana and Mandarin restaurants and Two Rivers hospitality group, among others. Two straight marriages have even resulted from meetings at past shows, Carruthers said. It will bring performers from seven major cities, one of whom - Spikey Van Dykey, aka Jamie Kalman of Orlando - was recently featured in Elle magazine.Īttendees are gay, lesbian, straight and transgender men and women, and performers are almost as diverse. Now in its seventh, Carruthers expects the show known as "Drag King DSM" to bring nearly 600 people to Wooly’s in Des Moines’ East Village Dec. After spending years struggling to fit ideals of femininity like keeping her long hair and wearing makeup, Carruthers and her friends were embracing what she calls their true selves, which have a more masculine affect. They were dressing in men’s clothing and performing as "drag kings." That meant flipping gender roles from the more commonly seen male-to-female drag queens.Įvidently, interest in this is a lot more widespread than just her group of friends, because the event gave way to a ticketed one that drew 100 in its first year. At first Jennifer Carruthers just wanted to throw a party for her female friends where they could feel free to be themselves. ![]()
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