Last week, a co-worker heard about a drag show going on for people with developmental disabilities. While it may offend some people's sensibilities, I think that it's about time something like this happened. I work for a relatively Christian-based organization and I still have two openly queer clients who happened each be interested in pushing the gender-envelope. One of the clients is male-born and female identified. The other client is just coming out of the closet and is interested more in drag. The first client has some support structures in place but the second client seems to be left out in the world without any guidance so a few co-workers and I have rallied around him. When we found out about this drag show, we called him about it immediately and he was sooooo damn excited!
This event actually came up at a good time for me academically because I've been looking for a point of human development to write about for my theory class. I started off writing about coming out. Then I changed my paper to how the media has impacted LGBTQ youth, specifically in rural areas. However, it all felt a little juvenile to me. This is the first paper for a professor who frankly intimidates me and who I want to impress. After tonight though, I was inspired to write about the lack of sexual development (queer or straight) in people with developmental disabilities.
Even though we're a vocational site, we've held a sex education class before, complete with bananas and condoms which I thankfully did not have to teach. However, it's more common that people with DD are seen as neutered. For a large part of the general population, it's unfathomable to imagine people with DD in a healthy, consensual sexual relationship. Still, at least half of the people I serve have a significant other. While I am not up for teaching sex ed, I do think that it's important that their questions are answered and their identities get to be explored. Completely forgoing sexual education doesn't teach appropriate or inappropriate sexual conduct so the people with DD are left to their own to determine what is and isn't right. This is easy for some and extremely difficult for many others.
Well, that's my soapbox issue. It worked well for my paper hopefully. Anyway, we were on our way to see a client of ours in what would be his 'coming-out' party but we were turned away. They sold out! I was disappointed I couldn't make it in but I have to say that it speaks volumes as to how much this event was needed. I just hope they have another one soon!
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Hi - this is Emi, the producer of the drag show featuring performers with developmental disabilities. So did you make it to the show? If so, what did you think about it? If not--we will have a screening sometime, I think in early March... Let me know if you want to hear about it.
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