{"id":4106,"date":"2026-06-04T12:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=4106"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T18:36:22","slug":"the-queens-english-youre-quoting-drag-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/the-queens-english-youre-quoting-drag-queens\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queens\u2019 English: Just in Case You Didn\u2019t Know You\u2019re Quoting Drag Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Clipping
The arrest notice from one of William Dorsey Swann\u2019s balls noted attendees were in female attire \u201cof many colors,\u201d which I thought was nice. (Note: There are no known photos of Swann. That one’s a man named Jack Brown.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to start with the assumption that most people don\u2019t actually believe straight, white, cis people invented<\/em> \u201cslay\u201d and \u201cthrow shade\u201d and \u201cspill tea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This could be, as they frequently are, a dangerous assumption.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019m also going to start with the knowledge that when fun, sassy slang lands in people\u2019s laps, the tendency is often to pick it up and start throwing it around without any consideration of where it came from, or at best tracing it back to RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em> and werking away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, the origin of that language is a significant part of Black and Latino LGBTQ+ culture that goes back further and wider and deeper than you might know, and it\u2019s important to understand where the language we use comes from, and<\/em> I just think ballroom culture is really cool and want to tell you about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here\u2019s how Black and Latino drag queens have taught you how to talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strictly ballroom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It starts in the ballroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ballroom culture as we currently know it (\u201chouse ballroom\u201d) emerged largely in the late \u201860s and early \u201870s, but its roots are in a history of drag balls going back to the mid-1800s. William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black man, was the first person known to call himself the “queen of drag” and hosted secret balls in Washington, D.C., attended largely by other formerly enslaved Black men in gorgeous silk and satin gowns. Despite constant legal harassment and assault from the authorities (you\u2019re shocked, I know), the culture grew and spread from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll also be shocked to know that as the tradition of drag balls grew within the LGBTQ+ community, they became white-dominated, and even at integrated balls, Black attendees were faced with racism. So (per basically every nice thing Black people have had throughout history), they started creating their own balls. Harlem drag queens Lottie and Crystal LaBeija are credited with founding the first house, the House of LaBeija, in 1972, which is generally when drag balls started evolving into house ballroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House ballroom wasn\u2019t just (and isn\u2019t just) a fun party or glamorous entertainment \u2014 it was a place of acceptance and even shelter for Black and Latino queer people in a society that often rejected them. Early on, the houses arose as \u201cfamilies,\u201d led by a \u201cmother\u201d who mentored \u201cdrag daughters\u201d through the scene but also provided social support and guidance. The families, with mothers and fathers and children and siblings and other family roles, all taking the name of the house as their last name, really do function as families and havens, often for people who\u2019ve been disowned by their original one. Not just<\/em> fun, or glamour, or even community \u2014 home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boots the house down<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Close-up
When protesting what she considered to be a rigged pageant in 1967, Crystal LaBeija was told, \u201cYou\u2019re showing your colors.\u201d She replied, \u201cI have a right to show my color, darling<\/a>.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Ballroom culture has also been a major producer of fabulousness across the U.S. Balls can be an hours-long production of performers competing in themed categories (judging face, body, costume, ability to walk in heels\u2026), walking the catwalk and dancing spectacularly in spectacular outfits. (My words fail to do it justice, but I will assign you Paris Is Burning<\/em> followed by Kiki<\/em> to see both the spectacularness and the history of it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re in any way familiar with ballroom, you\u2019re familiar with voguing (the dancing with the posing and the duck walking and the intricate hand movements), of which Madonna\u2019s version is a pale approximation so don\u2019t let anyone tell you she came up with it on her own. That could, in fact, be referred to as \u201cnoguing,” or misappropriating voguing, which finally brings us to the language thing. As they built their own space \u2014 and even among the greater LGBTQ+ community, the drag community didn\u2019t always find acceptance \u2014 they defined it with things and people and also language that brought them together and created a sense of unity. They were queens because they were. They slayed because they did. They were mothers because they needed mothers. And they still are and do and are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time slang has trickled down into common usage, you\u2019re probably not cool enough to use it anyway, but it can be hard to resist. At least if you\u2019ve ever read someone, spilled tea, or served cu\u2026 y\u2019know, anything, you can know whose stiletto-heeled footsteps you\u2019re walking in. If you\u2019ve ever shouted, \u201cYass, queen!\u201d at a girlfriend who just attempted a bold red lip\u2026 I wish you wouldn\u2019t, but there it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pride<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So if you\u2019ve picked up the vernacular because it\u2019s fun and sassy or you like Drag Race<\/em>, it\u2019s good to know where it comes from. Otherwise, when we leave out the real birthplace of the language, we erase a big and significant part of Black and Latino queer culture. (Also, yoinking aspects of culture that was created in the first place because the creators were excluded from society\u2019s things and had to create their own thing <\/em>is\u2026, well, busted. (Also-also, as trans rights and safety are under growing and constant threat, if you\u2019re over here yoinking their language but not supporting their rights, you don\u2019t get to do that. Get your shit together.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s something to celebrate all the time, but particularly during Pride Month, since it\u2019s the very definition of Black and Latino queer people living their lives as they are, making their own space, and taking the literal spotlight in a society that still, to this day, largely wants them to be ashamed of it. And to that, I would say, \u201cYass,\u201d but I am not cool enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you\u2019ve ever werked, thrown shade, or served realness, now you know who served it first. Fierce boots the house down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, it\u2019s a dip<\/a>, not a death drop, and it looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n