11508PETALadyBunny

www.ambiente.us      NOVEMBER |NOVIEMBRE 2008

I Just Want to Be Me
By Lady Bunny

In her new book, One Can Make a Difference,
PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk has compiled
more than 50 thought-provoking essays
written by an intriguing, diverse group of
people—including celebrities such as Moby,
Martina Navratilova, Kevin Bacon, and
Stella McCartney, as well as many “regular”
people you might not have heard of—who
have followed their dreams, started
programs, written books, educated others,
and simply turned what moves them into the
magic and passion in their lives. Their sole
wish is to inspire similar changes in you.

In this excerpt, drag diva Lady Bunny,
founder of the famous Wigstock drag
festival, explains how she has used her
talents and chutzpah to challenge sexual
stereotypes.

Why did I become a drag queen, you ask?
I say, well, honey, I don’t know exactly, but I
was sketching Marlo Thomas’s flip from That
Girl before I was six years old, as well as
demanding dolls from my nervous religious
parents. Years later, they confessed that
they were worried that giving me dolls might
make me gay. I told them, “If I was asking for
them, I was already gay!” I’ve always
identified with feminine things, even before
I wore them myself. As a child, I wore my hair
long and was sometimes confused for a girl.
At ten or eleven, one Halloween I dressed as
“a woman” with my best friend, Paul, as
“my husband.” With each doorway that I                                Lady Bunny for PETA. Photo by Aaron Cobbett
darkened, the fact that I wore a dress, some of mom’s heels and a (totally tragic and frumpy) women’s wig
confirmed many of my neighbors’ suspicions about my budding sexuality. Later, as was the fashion in the
New Wave era, I wore makeup, and the wigs and heels weren’t far behind. Becoming a “gender-dysphoric
freak” struck me as a very natural progression.

Performing came naturally as well. As a little boy, I’d often tie a sheet between trees in our backyard and
invite the neighbors over to watch my plays. I’m sure they were pitiful productions, but it’s telling that, offering
nothing, I was able to round up my sister and other kids in the neighborhood to perform. Since my dad taught
at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, I was sometimes called upon to play the child part in college
productions, too. Were these half-assed reviews the foreshadowing of Wigstock?

In The Winter’s Tale, I played the prince. Wrong gender, but still royalty, honey! In grade school, I was cast in
the school variety show as a snake charmer. If I could have looked into a crystal ball I would have seen that in
the years to come I would “charm” many “snakes” indeed! I convinced my mom that slanted eyeliner, a la
Barbara Eden on I Dream of Jeannie, would “exoticize” my look; together with a turban and harem pants, it
might as well have been drag. I assumed that I’d continue acting, but when college hit and I was cast in the
supremely dull Our Town as baseball player number two, I remember thinking, “I’ve been forced to act
straight throughout high school. I’m ready for some more flamboyant parts—this isn’t ME!” Plus, an actor is a
mere pawn. A drag queen is able to be her own costume designer, choreographer, makeup artist, hairstylist,
scriptwriter, arranger, director, etc. So I have more input and control with what I do, not that I’m an impossible,
controlling monster bitch or anything!

And why is Wigstock so important? Hmm. Well, the only thing worse than sounding pompous is an old
battleaxe like me coyly batting her long, fake lashes in a failed attempt at false modesty, so let me brag a bit
about starting Wigstock! In 1982, I moved to Atlanta to study at Georgia State, but who needs a degree to
become the town drunk! Besides, I found the future superstar drag queen RuPaul and his cast of crazies far
more interesting than the college curriculum of an undecided major. I tagged along on one of Ru’s trips to
perform at NYC’s Pyramid Club and never left, rising from the ranks of go-go dancer to Wigstock organizer. I
organized the very first one—an all-day drag festival of dancing and music and stage acts, including me as
the emcee—in 1985. It was supposed to be a little transvestite festival and about a thousand people showed
up! Everyone wanted to see or be seen or both. We had terrific acts every year, from recording artists like
Deborah Harry, Deee-lite, and Vickie-Sue (“Turn the Beat Around”) Robinson to big name queens like
RuPaul, Lipsynka, and John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig. Wigstock continued to grow and probably reached
its zenith with the 1995 release of the thoughtfully named documentary Wigstock: The Movie.

I am proud of several things. I was single-handedly responsible for the massive East Coast syphilis
outbreak, for example—oh, just kidding—but organizing Wigstock is even more important than that. And it
lasted twenty years, not a bad run for New York City. For a couple of years we had terrible weather—it’s hard
to clap and hold an umbrella at the same time—and we lost money hand over fist. At present we’ve stopped
putting the festival on as an annual event, but who knows what’ll happen in the future. Wigstock transformed
people. It allowed me to bring a lot of zany, bewigged freaks together in the light of day for a very memorable
annual blowout bash—even the somber New York Times wrote that “the karma was dynamite.” And it
allowed me to use my smart-ass humor—with the emphasis on ass, of course.

PETA is offering Ambiente readers a 15 percent discount on all
www.PETACatalog.org orders that include a copy of
One Can Make a Difference (use discount code MD152 when ordering).
For more information about PETA, visit www.PETA.org.

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