When I started at Brown University I declared myself a philosophy concentrator. I loved philosophy. Mostly modern. And I wanted to take it further. But I quickly felt frustrated by the department. Why were we required to learn ancient philosophy - texts and frameworks that felt so distant and antiquated? Logic that was so disconnected from our life in the present day? Old men who preached and didn’t give a shit about women or people outside of their very niche audience. I began to question why I wanted to study philosophy in the first place. And what I had hoped to gain from it.

I enrolled in a Queer Dance class and loved it. Under the Gender Studies department, the class lived at the intersection of performance studies and queer theory. After half a semester into Queer Dance I changed my major from English and Philosophy to English and Gender Studies. To me, it felt like modern philosophy. A philosophy of people who live now. And want the world to evolve in open and explorative ways.

I was specifically interested in queer performance. As an avid fan of drag, theatre, and alternative performance art, I began to merge these interests with the literature existing in the gender and performance studies canon. I wrote papers on drag in modern literature. I surveyed and wrote a journalistic paper on the local drag queen scene in Melbourne, Australia. I explored the unusual relationship between drag and transphobia in mainstream media. And I ultimately wrote my capstone paper on drag things: looking to the history of drag performance to explore the space between the drag queen and king.

During my capstone project, I noticed a lack of literature relating to drag outside of the ‘queen’ designation. There were some sources related to drag kings, but overall, it was increasingly difficult to find anything substantial related to drag things. This felt unusual. I knew many drag things. And the majority of the live drag I saw in bars was led by drag things. But where was this in gender studies literature? Seemingly nowhere. I took note of this, recognising the gap in both documentation and discourse.

I also noticed that most of the literature surrounding drag felt removed from the performers who actually did drag. While there was much literature on ‘what’ drag is, rarely did the reader hear from people within the community on what this performance meant, felt like, or how it was experienced. There was a hole here - a disconnect between theory and lived practice.

‘Dragged’ emerged in this context. I wanted to create a project led by the people currently performing in drag, positioning them as its primary voices and authors. A project that allowed space for the people leading the scene on the ground to speak and be heard. To be platformed. To be supported. To be recognised. To be documented. On their terms, in their words.

This work was also motivated by the urgent political moment we are witnessing in the United States now. Drag sits at the centre of a cultural battlefield in the US, and queer people are currently facing renewed political attack. In this context, creating a project focused on archiving queer performance is more than just a process of recording: it becomes a negotiation of power. Archives act as gatekeepers of memory: what, how, and who we record drastically shapes our understanding of the past and our imagination of the future.

On February 13, 2025, the National Park Service eliminated references to trans people from its website for the Stonewall National Monument. A site that commemorates a 1969 riot led by a trans woman of color, and foundational to the contemporary gay rights movement. This was not a neutral edit. It was a blatant act of historical erasure.

This act does not stand alone. In February 2026, a US House bill sought to ban federal funding for public school materials involving “gender dysphoria or transgenderism” and LGBTQ+ literature. In New Hampshire, legislation advanced to prohibit the teachings of “LGBTQ+ ideologies” in schools. Federal surveys have begun removing questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, quietly narrowing who can be counted and recognised. Lawmakers have introduced proposals to restrict drag performance, under vague language about ‘protecting children’.

Together, these actions reveal a coordinated movement to reduce and eliminate queer people’s voices. They expose the rate at which history can quickly be rewritten, and how easily experiences can be excluded from official narratives and records.

These conditions fueled this project. I began to ask:

How can I create a project that highlights and promotes my local drag community?

How can I respond to a lack of lived experience in gender and performance studies literature on the current drag scene?

How might I respond to the current cultural battles in the United States, with performances targeted by conservative backlash, and trans and queer communities under renewed political attack?

How can I care for and protect my local community, to resist queer erasure?

Who deserves to be seen, heard, represented?

By archiving drag, I insist these voices matter.

This work resists queer erasure. It is an assertion that care and preservation are power, and an insistence that safeguarding marginalized expression is essential to a functioning democracy. I argue it is urgent and necessary - an effort to protect queer people, freedom of expression, and the democratic ideals these communities embody. The project insists that queer performance and community be seen, valued, and remembered.

Bold, tactile, and designed to come alive through digital interaction, ‘Dragged’ begins as a physical object - portraits and interviews gathered into a book - and extends beyond print through a linked and more widely accessible website. Together, these formats push how print and technology converge, creating a participant-centered archive. ‘Dragged’ challenges expectations of the archive as fixed, neutral, or exclusively textual. Foregrounding movement and embodied presence, it disrupts the assumption that history must be preserved through static records and objective documentation.

My process is grounded in participation in NYC’s drag community. I do not observe from a distance: I have performed in drag, photographed events, and listened as performers reflect on gender, politics, and community in the makeshift dressing rooms that define bar culture. This work is grounded in intensive participation and collaboration.

Beyond documenting drag, the project helps protect New York City’s cultural fabric - its nightlife, artistic communities, and civic spaces that sustain dialogue, joy, and democratic participation. In preserving these practices, the work honors the city as a living archive of creativity and resistance.

IN-PERSON WITH RUBY O’KEEEFFE

IN-PERSON
WITH
RUBY O’KEEEFFE