What Are Drag Queen Chasers?

"It’s a conundrum familiar to every drag queen, even if she doesn’t talk about it publicly: How should one feel about Chasers, the men who aggressively pursue drag performers? To be clear, I’m not talking about so-called “tranny chasers,” the admirers who harass transgender people, described in a recent Outward article by Christin Scarlett Milloy. I’m talking about the men who will do whatever it takes to get lucky with queens like me—despite the fact that we queens are no more than grease-paint illusions.

Chasers can be found wherever drag queens gather. In my experience, there’s at least one at every show. They stand along the walls of clubs, or post up at bars, watching and waiting to introduce themselves. Ask any queen, and she’ll tell you that Chasers are handsy headaches who turn our work life into a tiring game of cat and mouse. But not every queen will admit the other side of the story, which is that some of us depend on them.

A few weeks ago, I had an encounter that perfectly illustrates the uneasy symbiosis between queens and Chasers. I was on the subway to my Friday gig, dressed in a skimpy gold lame cocktail dress, when a stranger approached to say “Hey, I’m straight but I really admire you for just being yourself.” I knew this guy’s game right away, but he had a Firefighter Calendar torso, and having a body guard while traveling in drag is never a bad idea, so I decided to play along. I took “Mikey” to my show, where he swept me off my feet (literally) for photo ops, stripped butt naked for applause, and fetched my Red Bulls. “I’m doing good for a straight guy in a gay bar, huh?” he grinned. He certainly was. And in exchange, I let him grab my padded rump, smell my hair, and even bite my ear too-too hard. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve always had a secret thing for, you know, girls like you,” Mikey said. “I’ve just never tried it.” Mikey loved my attention, the audience loved him, and beneath my mild irritation at his groping, I was queasily pleased by his worship. So it was a shame when he pitched a screaming fit after I declined to go home with him. His temper brought an end to our odd give-and-take."

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Ana Kasparian () host of The Young Turks, with Ben Mankiewicz () discuss.

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