Drag is a loaded topic, triggering ferocious responses in a wide variety of people. There are men, both gay and straight, who abhor it for its flamboyant display while other seasoned spectators go out and look for drag queens the way others might watch football.In 'Girlfriend' the extraordinary world of drag and gender-bending is explored by former NY Times Magazine style editor, Holly Brubach, who covers the scene in NY, London, Paris, Berlin, Rio, Tokyo and Bangkok. Illustrated with 80 photographs in colour and B/W.

A concise history of the drag tradition—from 13th century to today Men have been dressing as women on stage for hundreds of years, dating back to the thirteenth century when the Church forbade the appearance of female actors but condoned that of men and boys disguised as the opposite sex. Forms of transvestism can be traced back to the dawn of theatre and are found in all corners of the world, notably in China and Japan. In recent years, of course, drag has witnessed a dramatic and widespread revival. Newsday recently observed, People are talking about all those fabulous heterosexual film idols who now can't seem to wait to get tarted up in drag and do their screen bits as fishnet queens. Drawing on a cinematic tradition popularized by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot, Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie) and Robin Williams (Mrs. Doubtfire) have each delighted mainstream audiences with their portrayals of women. Even former drag queens have experience newfound fame; witness the recent popularity of the late Divine, renowned for her oddly compelling appearances in underground John Waters films. Music, too, has been profoundly influenced by drag sensibility, from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Rocky Horror Picture Show to Boy George and RuPaul (the self-proclaimed Supermodel of the World). Tracing drag tradition from the Golden Age of stage transvestism during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I in England to the current quasi-drag inclinations of American grunge bands, Drag is an entertaining overview of this popular and complex medium.

"From Jael's tent peg to Judith's sword, biblical interpreters have long recognized the power of the "lethal women" stories of the Hebrew Bible and related literature. The tales of Jael and Judith, female characters who assassinate enemy commanders, have fascinated artists, writers, and scholars for centuries, no doubt partly because of the gender of the characters doing the killing. Tamber-Rosenau presents the first systematic study, both text-centered and deeply engaged with a variety of queer-theoretical frameworks, of the motif of the woman-turned-warrior in ancient Jewish literature. Through analysis from queer-theoretical perspectives and comparison with Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman literature, Women in Drag shines new light on three strong female characters from the Hebrew Bible and the early days of Jewish literature"--Provided by publisher.

The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators examines the phenomenon of male-to-female gender performance and the people who live it. This provocative collection of original essays explores the possibilities, limitations, ironies, and controversies surrounding men who perform as women to an audience that knows the truth but celebrates the illusion. The book's contributors call on extensive backgrounds in sociology, anthropology, theater, literatureeven military studiesand use a variety of approaches to address common themes and genres of presentation, performance, and style in a wide range of historical settings and cultures.

Playing off "The Wheels on the Bus," this nursery rhyme book from a founder of Drag Queen Story Hour is a fun, freewheeling celebration of being your most fabulous self. The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish encourages readers to boldly be exactly who they are. Written by a founding member of the nationally recognized Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), this playful picture book offers a quirky twist on a classic nursery rhyme by illustrating all of the ways to "work it". The story plays off "The Wheels on the Bus" as it follows a drag queen who performs her routine in front of an awestruck audience. A fun frenzy of fierceness, this book will appeal to readers of all ages.

For two years Ester Newton did field research in the world of drag queens—homosexual men who make a living impersonating women. Newton spent time in the noisy bars, the chaotic dressing rooms, and the cheap apartments and hotels that make up the lives of drag queens, interviewing informants whose trust she had earned and compiling a lively, first-hand ethnographic account of the culture of female impersonators. Mother Camp explores the distinctions that drag queens make among themselves as performers, the various kinds of night clubs and acts they depend on for a living, and the social organization of their work. A major part of the book deals with the symbolic geography of male and female styles, as enacted in the homosexual concept of "drag" (sex role transformation) and "camp," an important humor system cultivated by the drag queens themselves. "Newton's fascinating book shows how study of the extraordinary can brilliantly illuminate the ordinary—that social-sexual division of personality, appearance, and activity we usually take for granted."—Jonathan Katz, author of Gay American History "A trenchant statement of the social force and arbitrary nature of gender roles."—Martin S. Weinberg, Contemporary Sociology

Argues for the political potential of drag and trans performance in Puerto Rico and its diaspora