When students at West Texas A&M decided to put on a drag show — because that’s what everybody seems to be doing these days — President Walter Wendler promptly put a stop to it. And Wendler’s primary reason for doing so is one of the most compelling arguments against the left’s sudden, all-consuming obsession with drag.
The drag show was set for March 31, and proceeds from the performance were going to benefit the Trevor Project, which Wendler describes on his own website as a “nonprofit organization focuses on suicide prevention—a noble cause—in the LGBTQ community. Any person considering self-harm for any reason is tragic.”
Wendler’s blog post, which the New York Post reports also went out to West Texas A&M faculty, staff, and students as an email, cites the Bible, the laws of physics, and the founding fathers in his thoughtful explanation for canceling the drag-show fundraiser.
“Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not,” he wrote. “As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood. Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong.”
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Wendler went on to remind his readers that demeaning women is as wrong as demeaning people based on their race or ethnicity.
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“I registered a similar concern on campus when individuals debased Latinas regarding a quinceañera celebration,” he continued. “Should I let rest misogynistic behavior portraying women as objects? While I am not a woman, my best friend I have been married to for over a half-century is. I am also blessed to have daughters-in-law and granddaughters. Demeaning any demeans all. This is not an intellectual abstraction but a stark reality.”
The administrator continued, declaring that drag performances are “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny, no matter the stated intent,” and comparing them to blackface. He also pointed out that any time “humor becomes harassment, it has gone too far.”
“I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it,” Wendler concludes. “Supporting The Trevor Project is a good idea. My recommendation is to skip the show and send the dough.”
This is the best argument for putting a stop to drag shows imaginable. As a modern society, we wouldn’t put up with caricatures of any race or ethnic group these days, so why isn’t drag thought of as offensive in the same way that harmful ethnic stereotypes are considered racist? Why is the left pushing drag queens so strongly while vehemently opposing blackface and other lowest-common-denominator entertainment aimed at ethnicity?
Anyone who places a premium on valuing and honoring women should see that drag does a disservice to women everywhere. The caricaturing of women that is part and parcel of the artifice of drag objectifies women in a way that the left would never stand for if the right were engaged in it. If the left were remotely as serious about protecting women as it claims to be, more leftists would go after drag as passionately as they promote abortion.
Walter Wendler has done a tremendous service to women everywhere by explaining his objection to a drag performance at the school for which he is responsible. We conservatives should follow in his footsteps and echo the truth that drag culture demeans and dishonors women. God bless Texas, and God bless the president of West Texas A&M University.
