Sophia Carrero burst out among the tables of genteel patrons at Perry’s Sunday brunch like she had strutted into the wrong scene of a movie.

But Perry’s Sushi Bistro in Adams Morgan hosts a weekly drag brunch, and this was, in fact, Sophia’s scene.

Sizzling
The bartender pumped up the background music and Sophia pranced among the diners in a red fringe bustier with a curly blonde Shakira wig, mouthing the words to “Hips Don’t Lie.” The audience seemed to enjoy it in a guarded way, not wanting to be seen giving in completely to the seduction of a female impersonator.

Still, there’s no doubt they were there for the show (why else would you pay $30 for a brunch buffet?)

Thirty-something women giggled and posed for photos with her. One couple kept tipping her by putting a one-dollar bill on top of the woman’s head. Older men chuckled self-consciously when she flirted with them. She sat on women’s laps and affixed their hands to her silicone breasts. She licked her fingers and ran them down her body, as if she were sizzling.
To be clear, she was, indeed, sizzling.

The audience applauded wildly and she sashayed back to her dressing room (a tiny landing on the stairway to the basement, with a mirror with her name painted on in lipstick.)

Jessica Spaulding Devereaux got loud cheers (and $46 in tips) for her playful romp in a painted-on Jessica Rabbit dress with an up-to-there slit and the occasional split or high kick that belied her years of training in dance and choreography.

The only performer of the morning who lives as a man outside of her performances, Jessica includes chest and hip padding in her costumes. The pads can slide around during an exuberant dance number. At the end of one song, she comically adjusted her “breasts” in front of the crowd, repeating the mantra “lift and separate.”

The performers said that Perry’s drag brunch was the best gig in the city, and not just because it’s one of the best-paying. Though I had assumed that they would prefer to perform to a gay crowd, they like that the brunch draws a diverse audience of ordinary people who work regular jobs and don’t necessarily want to stay out late to see the nightclub shows. Jessica saw it as an educational opportunity too, showing people a side of drag that “isn’t what they see on Jerry Springer.”

I got a bit of an education too. Hanging out with them as they changed between numbers in their basement dressing room, I saw a camaraderie I hadn’t expected among drag queens. I guess I’d believed the catty diva persona they sometimes put on. But in fact, they were lending each other accessories, zipping each other’s dresses and covering for each other when one wasn’t ready for her next number. They told me that drag performers are each others’ biggest fans.

I also got to learn some of their techniques: nail glue to hold enormous clip-on earrings in place, and aerosol oil sheen on the legs, for example.

DC’s Own Mardi Gras
Although Washington isn’t known for its drag culture, it does embrace a diverse drag community and a host of drag events.

The gay community is still in mourning for the popular Ziegfeld’s Cabaret, a gay club and drag venue that closed in the spring of 2006, along with several other gay clubs, to make room for the new baseball stadium. The Navy Yard was “the relegated area for the fag,” as one drag queen told me, “where there was nothing and no one else.” Now, drag is centered in one of the hippest parts of the city: 17th Street in Dupont Circle.

The High Heel Drag Race is by far the best-attended drag event, drawing tens of thousands of onlookers and hundreds of participants every year on the Tuesday before Halloween. This year brought Disney princesses, Marilyn Monroe with John and Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Condoleezza Rice, “Missed” America contestants, Cleopatra with Marc Anthony, and a series of board game costumes fit for Mardi Gras.

For the last 22 years, DC has been home to this unique, carnival-like event. It’s such a local institution that now City Council members come to “celebrate diversity.” Even the mayor came, with an assistant repeatedly announcing his arrival on a bullhorn.

The High Heel Race is not strictly a gay event, and almost none of the participants in the Race dress in drag the rest of the year. It's Halloween, after all, and most of the racers are simply in costume and are not necessarily expressing an alternative gender identity. (When asked why she didn’t race, a professional drag queen said she would never ruin a good set of heels by running a race in them.)

Drag bingo has been a mainstay at Club Chaos for years, with drag queens serving as bingo callers (“What’s our favorite number, darlings?” is answered enthusiastically by the crowd, “O…69!”). Chaos also hosts two drag shows each weekend, as well as a monthly Drag Kings event, showcasing performances by women dressed as men. (For a complete listing of drag events in DC, see the sidebar.)

In addition to performing in bars and clubs, drag queens are hired for private parties and weddings, almost always for straight audiences. They do countless charity events and fundraisers, and the drag pageant circuit is a significant way that drag queens get to know each other and increase their own profile. They travel to other cities and other countries, constantly performing for new audiences and sharing techniques.

Most drag queens have “drag mothers” who mentored them, and in DC, the undisputed queen of the queens is Xavier Onassis Bloomingdale. Xavier hosts the drag shows at Chaos, is a regular “cast member” at Perry’s brunch, and has been the “go-to” person on the DC drag scene for years. “You go to her for your stamp of approval,” Jessica told me.

Transformation
In general, a drag queen will have one of three talents: she will sing, lip-sync, or do comedy. But there are a variety of ways to dress in drag. Here are just a few:

1. Impersonation. Some drag queens imitate, most famously, Liza Minelli, Bette Davis, Tina Turner, and other famous women (usually singers).
2. Club Drag. These queens aren’t trying to look like women so much as they’re trying to look outrageous in kooky costumes. They are hired to simply walk through clubs and get noticed.
3. Booger Drag. This is when your brother puts on your dress and high heels and lipstick, but doesn’t necessarily bother to shave his mustache.
4. Traditional Drag. This catch-all category includes everyone else who don wigs and pounds of heavy makeup as “female illusionists.”

Lena Lett, a drag queen who studied to be a priest before deciding that he couldn’t in good faith take the final vows, considers drag a form of ministry. In the early days of AIDS, he says, “when we were going to seven to 10 funerals a week,” the community came together as a “strong and cohesive family,” and their meeting place was the gay clubs. Drag queens who were entertaining people traumatized by AIDS were, according to Lett, ministering to them. He says, “There’s no difference between visiting people in a hospital or a prison or a club.”

Everyone who dresses in drag has a different way of interpreting his or her own gender identity. While some consider their drag persona to be nothing more than a character they put on for entertainment purposes, for others it is an alter ego without whom they would not be complete. Others live full-time as a gender they were not born into.

Drag requires transformations of the body. Some people take hormones or undergo surgery, transforming themselves more completely into a member of the opposite sex. Others don’t even shave their legs. Lena Lett puts on eight pairs of stockings in order to cover his leg hair, but does covet the clear skin of drag queens who take hormone shots, saying that the layers and layers of makeup needed to “first cover up the boy and then put on the girl” are hard on the complexion.

However, Lena describes himself as “all boy.” Though he goes by the name Lena in regular life (“not even my mother calls me David!”), he uses the male pronoun and says he never wanted to be a girl. For him, drag is an art form.

Other drag performers have transformed more completely into women. They take hormones, have surgically implanted breasts, and some even get the expensive “bottom surgery” for female genitalia. Many transgendered people consider their transformation complete without getting bottom surgery, and continue to live with both male and female parts.

The hormone replacement therapy causes liver damage, so they can’t stay on them all the time. One visiting performer from Baton Rouge told me that she’s on them for six months and off for six months. During the off times, menopausal symptoms appear, like hot flashes, mood swings, and hair growth.

Even those who have transformed physically and live their lives as women consider themselves “female impersonators” when they do drag shows. It is an exaggerated form of womanhood that they put on, an illusion. “I don’t normally wear this much makeup,” said Sophia, echoing the words of many others.

According to a crossdresser who identifies as “the Hippie Cheerleader,” it is easier for mainstream society to accept the complete transformation from one sex to another than the constant traversing of gender lines. “’Transgender’ means you aren’t one or the other,” he says. “People would rather that you pick one category.”

The Hippie Cheerleader doesn’t perform in clubs, but, he says, “every time I leave my apartment dressed like this, it’s a performance.” Whether drag is an art, a ministry, or a form of self-expression, DC drag performances will continue to delight, shock, and titillate audiences.

DC Drag Events
Drag Bingo:
Club Chaos, 1603 17th Street NW, Tuesdays at 9:30 PM, hosted by Xavier Onassis Bloomingdale, Shiqueeta Lee, and Gigi Paris Couture

Drag Shows:

• Club Chaos, 1603 17th Street NW, Fridays at 12:00 mdnight, hosted by Gigi Paris Couture, and Saturdays at 11:30, hosted by Xavier Onassis Bloomingdale
• Club Fuego at Aqua Nightclub, 1818 New York Ave. NE, Fridays at 10:30 PM
• Omega DC, 2122 P ST. NW, Thursdays at 11:00 PM
• Apex Nightclub, 1415 22nd Street NW, Saturday nights at 11:00 PM
• Drag Kings: Club Chaos, 1603 17th Street NW, first Wednesday of the month at 10:30 PM; Phase One
• Family Feud: Cobalt Nightclub, 1639 R Street NW, Sundays at 9:00 PM, hosted by Lena Lett
• Best Package Contest: Cobalt Nightclub, 1639 R Street NW, Thursdays at 12:00 midnight, hosted by Lena Lett
• Drag Brunch: Perry’s Restaurant, 1811 Columbia Road NW, Sundays at 10:30 AM, starring Sophia Carrero, Xavier Onassis Bloomingdale, and Ginger Lee
• High Heel Drag Race: 17th Street between P and R Streets NW, Tuesday before Halloween
• Miss Adams Morgan Pageant: varying date in October, varying locations