Blackmoor Vituperative

From time to time, I will see a story about the Stonewall riots, or about a person like Ruth Coker Burks, and the story will use a phrase like “drag queen”. And some well-meaning but painfully naive person will wag their finger and comment, “Correction! It’s not ‘drag queen’, it’s ‘trans woman’.”

I don’t (usually) argue with them, because I try to follow the admonition of picking big fights with my enemies, not small fights with my friends. But what I want to say is,

You little snot, you have no fucking clue what DRAG QUEENS did for you. DRAG QUEENS hurled bottles at cops. DRAG QUEENS held fund-raisers for AIDS patients. DRAG QUEENS marched to remind the straights that they existed and would not be erased. You want to sneer at your allies and “correct” them for not using the term-of-the-moment? Be my guest. Today, it’s “trans woman”. In two years, it will be something else. Just know that you can keep “correcting” people on your own side from now until the end of time, and you won’t come close to doing what DRAG QUEENS did for human rights in this country in a single day.