Most people think modern drag started with the 1980s ballroom scene… but they’re wrong. Its queer Black roots go back to the 1880s. Yes, I said EIGHTEEN eighties. Watching a season of Drag Race, where the “oldest” contestant is 33, it’s easy to lose sight of the deep history behind it all. But the roots of today’s queer culture stretch far beyond the modern competition stage. Yes, voguing—and most of the dance styles you see in queer media—comes directly from the Black and Latine ballroom scene, which flourished in the mid-to-late 20th century. But even the very term drag queen is squarely rooted in Black history. The first person known to self-identify as a drag queen was William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black activist. In 1880s Washington, D.C., Swann hosted some of the first documented Black queer balls, where individuals assigned male at birth dressed in silk gowns and performed dances like the cakewalk as queens. And where did Swann get the idea to use “queen”? From ...