On 2 March, we launched Biodiversities of Gender, a new project at the lab (read more here) with our first workshop: Multispecies Drag!
The aim of this gathering was to experiment with how drag can help us think about and practice gender abundance in ways that may extend beyond our typical understandings of human gender. About ten of us (students, faculty and community members) gathered at the Lab for the afternoon and were guided through a presentation and practical workshop by Dr. Laura McLauchlan.
We learned (more) about the history, purpose and potential of masc drag and got a demo on how to apply masculinizing drag make-up. Laura then invited us to consider animal, plant, elemental or other non-human multibeing personas, as a way of seeing what other gender expressions or understandings might emerge.
Afterwards, I asked Laura about her experience leading this workshop:
First: What is multispecies drag?
LM: Multispecies drag kind of took me by surprise… and I think there would be many approaches to it. Personally, it’s still drag first, which, for me, starts with gender exploration. I suspect drag is probably always multispecies really (in that just as being human is a multispecies state, so is gender shaped by multispecies relations). But in multispecies drag I am being explicit about that: how do the possibilities of masculinity expand for me if I think with peacocks? What happens to my idea of gender when I am in the woods of Kelowna? I also try to remember that multispecies doesn’t need to be fixed to just plants and animals… I can also attend to other forces/beings/entities that I “become-with”… therefore, what about banker genders? Genders under particularly rabid modes of capitalism? So I guess, most broadly, it’s drag where I am really attentive to the relationships that form/support/shift gender.
How might it help us think about or experiment with ‘gender abundance’?
LM: For me, it’s both the idea that there are already multiple (abundant!) gender possibilities in me from relationships past, and that I can use various portals (say make up, posture, clothing etc) to access them. And it’s also the idea that, in exploring new relationships (say with different kinds of beings, different climates, different worlds), that different genders might (and I suspect almost certainly will!) emerge.
Did you learn anything / have any new insights from leading this workshop?
LM: Yes! Personally, I really started to see the place-based aspects of gender – the woods around the FEELed Lab got me thinking/feeling in some kind of bear-ish way and getting curious about what both femme and masc drag might look like for me. I didn’t explore it, but it has made me really interested in the idea of gender in landscape and soaking in a new landscape and seeing what emerges.
It also really confirmed for me my hunch that there is real value in drag for its own sake and not necessarily for performance (or at least not performance right away). It was SUCH a privilege and wonder to see the emergence of a differently-gendered aspect of people when make up or an outfit allowed it to emerge. So I guess a moment of realising there is something exciting and tender here that I want to keep learning to hold and make space for.
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Thank you Laura! Stay tuned for more info on the second Biodiversities of Gender workshop which will be hosted in collaboration with the Inspired Word Cafe, in May!
The FEELed lab 