Popingay

Introducing Mizz Krissy: Adventures In Being A Giant Lady

With the exception of one Halloween where I went as Ke$ha (for which, being a drunken mess, I already had most of the parts), I’ve never done drag. Ever. Not even when I dated a drag queen once upon a time.

I’ve always had a fascination with drag, and not just because I watch too much RuPaul’s Drag Race. It just seemed like so much fun, and there’s something to be said for playing with gender roles and representation (granted, that something would probably put most of you to sleep, so let’s just skip that part, ok?).

So for this year’s Queers on Campus Gender Bender (an annual cab at the campus bar), the main question was: how do you transform a zombie-fighting, possibly sociopathic man into a pretty, pretty girl? Well, the answer is with a ton of makeup, and a lot of work.

I also found out that at 6’1” with broad shoulders, the addition of heels and a dress transformed me into a giant lady.

 It took all of my willpower not to take my giant-ladyism and run around screaming “She-Hulk SMASH!”.

To start the transformation, I needed a few things: clothes, shoes, and a wig.

Step 1: Clothes
What I needed first was clothing. Everyone knows that clothes make the man, but they also make the man into a lady. My entire outfit was found at Old Navy. I had taken my dear friend Mikaela with me, and proceeded to rip down every single dress that I could possibly see me wearing (which was a lot).

The lineup for the dressing rooms was huge, and as I stood there with a giant pile of dresses, I had a sudden realization that going into a change room and coming out to model dresses may garner some looks. Thankfully, a guy-girl couple walked out of the extra-large change room together right before our turn, and I dragged Mikaela into the change room with me. I figured that if a straight couple were likely boning in there, why didn’t we give that same impression? Especially since the truth was much more confusing.

As soon as we were in I decided that I was going to strip down to my underwear with the shameless well-practiced motion of a regular slut. After trying on dress after dress, the only thing I established was that dresses really are freeing (for my testicles), and twirling around in a circle is worlds of fun, except when you’re ready to throw up.

Part 2: Shoes
I ended up finding the perfect pair of shoes at the Payless in the mall (because they make shoes for lady with man-sized feet). I managed to strut around the aisle in my newfound shoes to test them out. In another life when I worked at Payless and a pair of guys came in trying on lady-boots, I found the process endlessly amusing (partially because what respectable drag queen shops for shoes at Payless?) and I’m sure the sales associate also had some fun stories from that afternoon. The plus? I didn’t stumble and knock over an entire shelf of shoes.

Part 3: The Wig
We travelled to the costume shoppe since I had misplaced my lovely Ke$ha wig. Fortunately, the shop had a great selection of wigs for me to try on. Unfortunately, the sales girl had horrific B.O. and insisted on putting each wig on for me—a process that involved me bending my head close to her, and her lifting her arms up. Drag queening is not all glamour I suppose.

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So after getting all my supplies together, we convened at Mikaela’s with Mizz Chelsea (our makeup artiste extraordinaire), and Ian, who was also doing a drag number. I learned several lessons when preparing myself for life as a lady:

1. Youtube tutorials from experienced drag queens make it all look so easy. It’s a lie. It’s a difficult, and time-consuming process with a ton of mistakes.
2. Your eyebrows will be a never-ending source of pain. They will not stay flat (even with glue), and will force Mizz Chelsea to give you humorous Madonna-brows circa 1982 to disguise the fact.
3. Using surgical tape to lift your face makes it look amazing. Figure out a way to do this on an everyday basis to avoid surgical intervention and needles in the face.
4. At one point when the makeup and wig cap are on, and before you add any colourful makeup, you will look like a horrifying mime that haunts the nightmares of children, and eats human flesh.
5. Your testicles don’t like being trapped. Although I didn’t fully tuck because my dress didn’t require it, I did wear some ball-crushing underwear for a full lady-like experience. My genitals were not amused.

 The efforts really were worth it, though. At the end of all of it, I was transformed into a cute, innocent looking girl whose image belied the lunatic boy underneath it all.

 Dude looks like a lady indeed.

Once at the bar, the rest of the night was a blur of mitigating logistical disasters (since I was helping to organize the shindig), and navigating a crowd of people who didn’t at first recognize me. That was nice.

The strangest thing was my wide-eyed innocent girl look was having some sort of profound psychological effect on me, and I was acting more and more the part as the night went on. The only way you’d know it was me in there was my insistence on staring at myself lovingly in every reflective surface I could find.

However, it all paled in comparison to the experience of getting on stage, and singing about my metaphorical vagina. Yes, I did exactly that:

It was all in all a pretty excellent evening. However, what evening wouldn’t be complete without an embarrassing trip to Denny’s at 3am? At my insistence, we took our starved selves to Denny’s in full drag. That’s right. Our group of two straight girls, one straight guy, and two lady-boys ventured off into the land of 24-hour diners.

By my logic, people who work at Denny’s have seen everything when working overnight. Probably just drunks, addicts, and hookers, but everything. I highly doubted they would be phased, but I was fresh off the high of the evening’s excitement (and low blood sugar from having not eaten anything), and I was feeling brave.

It wasn’t until we entered Denny’s that I suddenly remembered that not everyone lives in a giant gay bubble, and that we were entering the straight world. Whoops. The looks. Oh the looks from everyone who saw us approaching the restaurant through its giant windows.

When we got in there was a noticeable air of curiosity, and so much judgement. That’s when the group in front of us turned around to look at us, and I was worried we’d have to get into a fight because I never applied press-on nails and wouldn’t be much use without my best weapon. One of the girls looked at me, and said, “you were at the Gender Bender tonight! You were so good!”. And the tension broke, and we laughed, and I felt a little bit more famous inside.

That’s right, people. Here in redneck Alberta I dragged my friends out in drag with me to a diner in the middle of the night, and felt nothing but absolute vindication. Even as a lady I am making the world a little gayer one place at a time.

 Bring it on, bitches!