Historically, most drag queens have been guys dressed as gals, typically using clothes, some fake tata’s, wigs and makeup to simulate and exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment.

More recently, though, drag has been performed by men, women and everyone in between.

The art form that is drag can be traced back to William Dorsey Swann (a.k.a. the first Drag Queen, or, as he liked to call himself, “The Queen Of Drag”), a freed slave that hosted balls in the 1880s and 90s, where formally enslaved men would dress in satin and silk dresses and dance the night away… and if you really want to make like Cher and turn back time, drag can even be traced back to Shakespearean days when women weren’t allowed to act in plays, and so men had to assume such roles.