Out in the spotlight

LGBT community members take on drag personas

By Ian Johnson (Last updated: 11/12/09 12:54am)

It was Tyler Cooper’s last chance at happiness. When he was 19 years old, Cooper’s aunt bought him a ticket, helped him pack his bags and sent him on a weeklong vacation to Florida. He had dedicated his entire life to being on stage, and after a serious knee injury put his future in jeopardy, Cooper thought everything he had worked for was gone. Years of dancing instructors telling him that he wasn’t good enough made him self-conscious about his body, his personality and his sexuality.

That’s when Cooper attempted to take his own life.

Immediately afterward, he was on his way to Florida to find peace of mind.

“It was my last-ditch effort to try and save myself,” he said.

What he found was a collection of performers who were not all that different from himself. Cooper, who now goes by the stage name Sabin, found new life as a drag performer.

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I’ve never done a drug in my life,” he said. “Performing is my passion — performing is my drug. When I walk on stage, it’s my high.”

Cooper, who works at Spiral Video Dance Bar, 1247 Center St., in Lansing, is one of many Lansing-area entertainers who have found careers performing in drag shows.

Behind the hours of makeup and wardrobe preparation are the people who dedicate endless hours to entertaining while dressed as the opposite sex.

The transformation

Drag performers have been victims of discrimination for as long as the style has existed, said Brent Bilodeau, the director of MSU’s Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Resource Center.

“GLBT people are often targeted with harassment due to perceptions that they fail to meet society’s expectations for what men and women should be,” Bilodeau said. “Drag symbolizes a fierce liberation from gender stereotypes and roles.”

Although drag has a history of persecution, Bilodeau said he’s seen the performances become more popular at MSU.

MSU hosts several drag shows during the school year, and People Respecting the Individuality of Students at MSU, or PRISM, hosted its annual drag show “So You Think You Can Drag?” Tuesday night at Wonders Hall. PRISM president and psychology senior Mandy Klein said the event has grown from about 75 attendants to about 200 in only three years.

“It’s the whole concept of gender-bending that drag provides,” Klein said. “It’s the curiosity that draws people.”

Student affairs administration graduate student Charlie Runyan was the only student performing alongside the professionals Tuesday night. Runyan, whose stage name is Athena Ferosh, donned a wig, makeup, a dress and stuffed his bra with socks for his first-ever performance.

“It’s an art form,” he said after the show. “It’s really like theater. You’re putting on a different face — you’re playing a different persona.”

But the lives of professional performers extend beyond their three-minute sets Tuesday night. Many work day jobs, some struggle to pay the bills and often their larger-than-life personas don’t emerge offstage.

Family matters

Lindsey Bradley’s family didn’t take the news that she is a lesbian well. Bradley grew up in Jackson, Mich., and as soon as she graduated from high school in June 2008, her parents kicked her out of the house.

She bounced around to several cities in Michigan trying to find a steady job and a place to live. After six months on her own, Bradley met a drag king in a Grand Rapids bar. The king, which is a woman performing as a man, convinced her to try drag.

Once she did, Bradley said she knew she discovered something great.

“The first time I ever performed was when I got it,” she said.

“As soon as I did my first song, it felt like I was doing it my whole life.”

Bradley, or Kamin Cider, said she lacked the refinement to make decent money performing — until she met Delicious.

Delicious, or Montrell Jackson, has been a Lansing drag queen for 12 years and adopted Bradley as one of his own. Jackson became Bradley’s drag mother and showed Bradley how to dance more like a man, choose wardrobe, book shows and create her own beard using hair from her head.

Bradley even said it’s common for drag parents to pass on stage surnames to their kids.

Supporting Bradley and going to her shows is just part of the culture, Jackson said.

“I’m there to give them courage or whatever they need,” he said.

“They need to talk about something, I’m there.”

The second life

The life of a drag artist is two different lives, Cooper said.

Before he created Sabin, Cooper said he was so timid, his friends thought he was a mute. Being able to become another person helped Cooper get in touch with his own life, he said.

“Without Sabin, I wouldn’t have become the person I am today — the person that is confident in who I am as a person,” he said. “I’m not the prettiest, I’m not the richest, I don’t drive the best car, I don’t have the have the nicest clothes — but what I have is mine.”

Cooper now is the stage director for Spiral Video and Dance Bar’s weekly Sunday night drag show “Drag Queens Gone Wild.” Cooper emcees, coordinates performers, handles music and choreographs special events for many Lansing drag performers, such as Bradley.

After about a year of being on stage, Bradley said she wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world.

“It feels really good to be able to go some place and be your first time there and make sure that people are going to remember you,” she said.

Although Cooper said Sabin has caused many problems in his personal life, he wouldn’t want to do anything else.

“(Sabin) has cost me so much, but at the same time, he has given me my life,” he said. “And I love my life.”

Originally Published: 11/11/09 11:28pm