Going out is always an arduous and time-consuming an endeavour. You must invest so much time and energy before you even step through the front doors of the club. As a drag queen, you must vest that much more energy in creating the illusion. This past Saturday, my friend Sabrina was having a birthday celebration at Edge Nightclubinside the Peppermill. In terms of high-end dance clubs in Reno it is probably the best. I could have gone out as a guy, but it is just so much more to go out as a girl. As Ginger, I bypass the line into Edge, get drinks bought for me all night, and attract the attention of more than one gentlemen caller throughout the night.

So there we were living it up on the dance floor when this guy sauntered up our circle of dancing ladies and began to dance with me. All of a sudden, he begins to get all up in my business and rubbing his hands all over my curvy and vivacious body. This is all fine and dandy until he starts fondeling my better half - the half that makes me a drag queen and not a for real real woman. Now I when I am doing a show, I make certain that my package is not going to pop out during a performance and my shit is stuffed, tucked, strapped, and tied down. However, a night out at Edge didn't seem to warrant such excessive precautions and therefore - for a lack of a better term - kind of let it hang semi-loose. So I am not quite sure what this guy thought when he started rubbing my junk - I have never felt up a vagina before but I am pretty sure they do not protrude from a women's body and get hard. However, he didn't seem to mind or pull away so I sort of rolled with it. Eventually, I left the dance floor and my first gentlemen caller, in order to get myself another drink - he was cute but his hair was a solid mass of gel and gave me bruises just touching it.

I had barely stepped back onto the dance floor when gentlemen caller # 2 entered, who was taller, cuter, and bald (I have a thing for bald guys). Everything was going great and then it happened. You hear stories from your girlfriends or witness such travesties yourself but you never think it is going to happen to you. I fell on the dance floor. Not a slip or a stumble but a straight up land on my ass and back kind of fall. The guy started laughing at me and I knew at the moment that I was drunken falling girl. The only problem was that I wasn't drunk, just wearing the worst possible boots to dance in and the dance floor had mixers, water, alcohol, and ice everywhere and was extremely slippery. When I recovered from my devastating fall, we continued to dance, and once again gentleman caller # 2 decided to get frisky with me and got introduced to my other half. Once again no real reaction thus begging the question; did these guys know that I was a man who transformed himself into a devastatingly beautiful woman?

I'm sorry, I know I look amazing - you wouldn't believe that power inherent in fake eyelashes and corsets - but is it really that hard to tell the difference between what is fake and what is reality. Furthermore, what does it say when all it takes is a wig, some eyelashes, and a little bit of makeup to create the illusion?

I must ask myself the question of "do they know?" every time I go out into public as Ginger. Do they know that I am a drag queen? Do they know what a drag queen is? Do they like big old queens? Unfortunately, some of these questions can have potentially terrible and unsafe answers. Transphobia and homophobia are still very much realities that we must face. Throw in alcohol, drugs, and flashing lights who knows how someone might respond when they realize that they have just been making out with a guy for the past hour. However, I am not giving these men enough credit? In a world of diversifying sexual interests and tastes, these men could have very well figured out my secret identity and not cared. At the end of the day though, my mama didn't raise no fool, and therefore and not going to willfully put myself in an unsafe situation.

At the end of the night my feet were numb, my organs had re-shifted from being in a corset for too long, and one of my fake eyelashes was holding for dear life - only held there with a little bit of glue and some hope. In other words I was a hot mess. All in a day's work as a drag queen ;) Until the next outing.  

It's a rather odd statement to make – let alone out it out there publicly – but truer words were never spoken. I was going through old facebook photos and reminiscing and there were two photos that I came across that just made me burst into laughter.

The first was this photo taken with my girl Veronica while we were at West Second Street. I got dressed up and competed in a Halloween Pin Up Girl Contest at Tree House and I totally took home first place. Veronica, her friend BP, and I decided to go out and grab at drink and their favorite bar. Scared shitless, would perhaps be a bit of an understatement, of how I was feeling at the time. I do not frequent heterosexual establishments all that often – I usually incur the wrath of jealous straight girls hating on me because their boyfriend just eye fucked me from across the room … oh and because I'm a ginger … the firecrotch is very mysterious and exotic to people. Oh there is also that whole drag queen thing – now I was born in Texas and raised in Detroit, so I can fuck some people's shit up, but its not usually how I like to end the night. I tend to only go out to gay clubs dressed up as Ginger but I thought, why not, we're in Reno – how out of the ordinary could it be for an overly done women in a tight corset and nothing else to walk into a club?

V, BP, and I went to go sit down in a booth and I kid you not within a period of an hour, seven guys had come up to me and offered to show me “the time of my life”. Granted the majority of them were drunk, but seriously …. seriously … seriously!!!! I am sitting at a table with two actual women who are really hot and you bypass them for the drag queen …. damn I'm good. At some point in the night we got up and headed to the dance floor where I was quite the popular figure. Then in a matter of minutes things changed quite rapidly. This girl came up to me and started dancing with me and then she grabbed my less-than-real hair and once she felt the artificial fibers of the wig she ran off to go tell everyone and their mother in the club. All of sudden, like a game of dominoes, I saw people and bouncers whispering things in each others' ears and pointing in my general direction. I grabbed BP & V and said we had to leave now. Mama didn't raise no foul and I am not going out like that – so I grabbed them and we hauled ass.

The other picture that I came across was one of us from EDGE nightclub after the premiere of A'DOLLed Fantasy. We decided to go out as a company and celebrate after the show. I was looking slamming that night; I was still glowing from a great show and the great last minute impulse buy of my sparkly corset. Similar to my experience at EDGE, I found that I didn't need to do really anything and guys were coming up to me wanting to dance, wanting to buy me drinks, and being generally freaky. This was made even more hilarious by the fact that I didn't have a purse so my cell phone was stuffed into one of my boobs and my Mens American Eagle wallet was stuffed into the other – apparently this did not confuse, shock, or any way disorientate my gentlemen callers. Within 20 minutes of being there I had a guy getting freaky with me on the dance floor and more followed him throughout the night. I even got more attention than some of the girls in the burlesque company once again forcing me to take a moment and go “really …. seriously …. seriously!!!!”.

It is an odd and generally inconvenient curse. I do believe that there is a higher power in this universe and that higher power must have a sense of humor. As a guy, I am cute, nice, and intelligent but it is sometimes hard to grab a hold of the attention of gay men who are often off-put by my drag queen lifestyle and a flamming persona that burns brighter than most. However as Ginger I am a smoking hot temptress that ensnares straight men in my web of mysterious drag queenary. They think to themselves that it is possible that I could be a man, but then they are so entranced by my fake eyelashes and all the shiny stuff I'm wearing that they kind of forget it. However, at some point I have to step away and cannot let things progress too far. There are times that I will be dancing and my wallet will be popping out of my corset, or I realize that my arms are a little hairy, or they will caress my hair and I always wonder if they can feel the wig or the large amounts of real hair contained underneath it. Panic and paranoia takes over, and never knowing quite sure how they are going to react, I often play it safe and pull away before the reality of my true identity is revealed. Who knows how the men would actually take it, but I understand that I am in a straight club on a Saturday night, it's 1:30am and people are drunk around me, and I am a drag queen. Things could happen and things do happen – transphobia and gender violence still occurs every single day and I do not want to put myself into an unsafe situation where something could go wrong.

So it's pretty devastating that my drag queen gets more booty than I do but is never really able to follow through on it, on account of the whole lack of vajajay thing. But I am sure that there is a guy out there who is straight but gay enough to fool around with a drag queen or vice versa. Now all I have to do is find him ;)