I only wish this video was in high-def!! Two young, drunken, seemingly homophobic men in England recently physically attacked a pair of passing male pedestrians, who were dressed in drag. While this is reportedly not the first fight these guys started on the night in question, the fact that their ultimate court confessions referenced the use of “abusive words” in addition to physical violence leads one to believe that the attack on the two fellows in dresses was motivated by sexuality- or gender-related prejudices and assumptions. That’s why the (true) punch line is so hilarious, exciting, and poetic. The two transvestites turned out to be a pair of cage fighters decked out for a night on the town in drag. Upon being assaulted, these trained pugilists pummeled their (attempted) assailants to the ground before regaining their composure, picking up their purses, straightening their dresses and proceeding down the avenue. Furthermore, as if the physical beating wasn’t punishment enough, the two instigators were also handed hefty judicial penalties as well.
While I surely cannot know the actual motivations of these two inebriated blokes or even the intentions/lifestyles/sexualities of the two cross-dressing fighters, I love how even the vague and sometimes contradictory accounts I could find online achieve the interruption of numerous possible assumptive connections: perhaps between cross-dressing and homosexuality, homosexuality and weakness, or femininity and frailty (among so many others). I imagine the biker bars of Gayle Rubin’s ethnography on gay leathermen in San Francisco and the unfortunate fate of any homophobic guy who assumes all gay men effeminate and swishy. I recall the transformations in feminism that supported Judith Halberstam’s research on queer subcultures and claimed the commensurability of femininity and strength (physical, mental, political, social, or otherwise).
I also think about Samuel Delany’s brief article “Alphabet Soup in Provincetown” and consider what specific contribution could be brought to the table by an ultra-specialized “Q” group of macho het men who enjoy drag or gay men who enjoy “masculine” lifestyles but “feminine” dress. Regardless of the intentions of these fighters when putting on their dresses, wigs, and heels, this story effectively disrupts a number of homophobic or anti-queer assumptions and tactics in a uniquely “real life” kind of way. I always get excited when GESS class discussions lead to examples, plans, ways, and effects of strategically queering heteronormative spaces and situations, but how exciting it is when they queer themselves!! And with such publicity!! (One blog from the link below speaks of the potential of the blood stain on the pavement to become a tourist attraction.) This is a story that should get around!
Check out one article and video (with great blogs below it) here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218651/Thugs-attack-men-dresses–turn-cage-fighters.html
A) Great story! All hail the queens!
B) It does seem like transsexuals seem to evoke the most violence (at least male to female – (Schilt and Westbrook 2009). Perhaps this is because they seem to be most dangerous to this heteronormative world of ours. Just as Butler (1993) says that drag “is a site of certain ambivalence…which reflects the more general situation of being implicated in the regimes of power by which one is constituted” (125). It definitely seems more complicated than an appropriation of another gender, but more of a concealment of one’s “cultural genitalia” that seems to evoke a certain patriotism of the heterosexual’s normative state (Kessler and McKenna 1978).
Hmm I find your comment very interesting although I’m a little hesitant to completely agree that transsexuals evoke the most violence (just because that’s a pretty broad statement). It reminds me of Alexander’s article when (s)he talks about the tendency for dominant systems of heterosexuality to lash out violently to perceived attacks– as when the decreased popularity of middle class, heteronormative marriage leads to public efforts to decisively prevent homosexual marriage in legal and cultural spheres (an accepted, mainstream form of discrimination that could spawn others by private actors, such as hate crimes) and encourage marriage among those heterosexual couples who have rejected that form– by tying in pro-marriage initiatives with welfare benefits, etc. Perhaps transsexuals represent an especially vehement form of threat because of their decreased visibility (through passing, for example) or purposeful flaunting of accepted gender roles and thus engender greater overt acts of rage?
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I find this blog and video interesting especially because it is funny. But, then I began to think about the reason that it was funny. Like Halloween costumes and heterosexual men wearing “drag” but in a way that does not conform entirely to the feminine role, this video although the fighter’s sexualities and identities are not known I believe are performing the same hetero-acceptable means of drag so that the video CAN be funny to A LOT of people. Although in dresses they are muscular men and actual fighters asserting and protecting their identities of masculinity by force. What do you think the response would be if the men who beat down the hecklers where transsexual or trans gendered drag queens embodying that of the feminine yet still physically overpowering the men?
http://wdprescott.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/not-sure-what-to-say-as-im-completely-dumbfound/
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