A Christian university has reportedly been offering a course that requires students to dress up and perform an imitation of women in order to receive an “A.”
Texas Christian University in Fort Worth was revealed to have offered a class called “The Queer Art of Drag” since 2021.
Since news organizations highlighted the class, TCU has apparently removed the course description and syllabus. It still appears in the 2023-2024 undergraduate course catalog but has no accompanying description.
The class is taught by Dr. Nino Testa, a man who does drag under the name Maria Von Clapp.
The university claims, “Drag is an art form with a rich history of challenging dominant norms and systems of oppression; building queer community; and cultivating experiences of queer joy in a hostile world.”
“But drag has also been deployed in service of violent ideologies and can sometimes participate in harmful normative logics,” it qualified. “Critical drag explores drag performance as an outlet for social critique, pedagogy, and queer world making.”
“The Department of Women & Gender Studies, in collaboration with community partners at the Gender Resource Office, The End, Spectrum, Westside Unitarian Church, local drag performers, and LGBTQ organizations in Fort Worth, has produced a series of opportunities to develop campus vocabulary and understand of drag history and practice,” the course description continued.
The syllabus adds, “The gender binary is enforced through compulsory norms, harassment, and violence in service of a white-cis-hetero-patriarchy.”
Describing drag as “theatricalizing gender,” Testa explains, “… we will explore critical histories of the queer art of drag; meet with drag performers and experts; and craft our own drag personas to debut at TCU’s Annual Night of Drag.”
Students will also be given $100 of reimbursement “for supplies related to the production of their drag persona and performance.” The syllabus notes, “This class has been generously funded by an Inclusive Excellence Grant from the Office of Diversity & Inclusion.”
In a handout called “My Drag Worksheet,” students are asked, “What is your drag name? Pronouns?” “Who is your drag persona? What are they all about? What norms, ideas, or beliefs do they challenge or celebrate?” and “What three poses best define your drag persona and why?”
Additionally, “Students attempting to receive an A or A- in the class will participate in a live group number on the night of the Spectrum Drag Show (April 21). The number will be choreographed by our Drag Aunty De’ja DuBois,” the syllabus explains.
The course does acknowledge, “While drag has a rich history of critical engagement, it also has a history of participating in racist, sexist, anti-trans, appropriative, and colonial logics. We will all strive not to replicate these uses of drag in our own performances, and will commit to creating an environment that welcomes critique and critical self-reflection.”
Students attending TCU pay an estimated $72,820 per year between tuition and other costs. For comparison, the average yearly household income in America is only $70,784, per the Census Bureau.
As of Summer 2023, a single credit hour of classes at TCU costs $1,870, meaning that the four hours of credit one would receive for successfully completing the drag course would cost an estimated $7,480.
Before students can enroll in the Queer Art class, they must take “Introduction to Women and Gender Studies,” which will “serve as an interdisciplinary introduction … focusing on major issues and theories, for which gender and sexuality provide the unifying themes.”
Texas Christian University has offered a variety of LGBTQ courses in the past, including classes such as “Queer Theories,” “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Authors and Themes in Literature,” and “Women, Race and Earth: Environmental Justice.”
Female impersonation, commonly called drag, has been criticized for allegedly degrading women.
For instance, the pseudonymous essayist ‘Dr Em,’ argued in The Critic in 2022, “Drag at its core is misogynistic; it is men portraying women as sexually objectified caricatures. Drag performers frequently reduce women to hyper sexualised, big breasted, big haired bimbos.”
“… [T]hese men build their careers off of the tools of female oppression — gender stereotypes and sexual objectification — and re-entrench them in performances where they are portrayed as just a laugh and a lark,” Dr Em claimed.
However, proponents defend drag as a type of art.
Rori Porter, a supporter of drag, has blamed opponents for sexualizing the practice, claiming in a 2022 blog post, “Drag is as varied as any other art form, and the vast majority of it isn’t sexualized — particularly when the target audience isn’t adults. … The drag we share with children is exclusively wholesome.”
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