IDKE Board Mission/Vision

The IDKE Board was established in 2001 to identify a host city for IDKE 5 (2003). Along with the tasks of soliciting proposals from host cities and choosing the city best suited and prepared to host IDKE, the Board also provides support and guidance to the host city and ensures the mission of IDKE is upheld.

IDKE Co-Founders

The History of the First International Drag King Extravaganza

By Donna Jean Troka, in consultation with Julie Applegate, Sile Singleton and Shani Scott (Written October 2003)

The First International Drag King Extravaganza (IDKE) took place on October 15-17, 1999 in Columbus, Ohio. It was founded by Julie Applegate (Jake), Shani Scott (Maxwell), Sile Singleton (Luster/Lustivious de la Virgion) and Donna Troka (dj love), in conjunction with H.I.S. Kings, Fast Friday Productions, the Kings Court, and many other Columbus community members. It was a first-of-its-kind event in that is was a collaborative, non-competitive gathering of drag kings, their fans, and the people who studied, photographed and filmed them. In October 2003, IDKE 5 realized its true potential as a traveling annual conference with its move to Minneapolis, Minnesota where it was produced and hosted by FTM Productions. IDKE 6 will take place in Chicago, Illinois in October 2004, and will be hosted by The Chicago Kings. Without a doubt, IDKE has grown to be a huge national and international event. Participants come from across the United States, throughout Canada, as well as Australia, Japan and England. Its beginnings though, were much simpler.

The idea for drawing together kings from all over the world started with Julie Applegate reading the dialogue on the queernet dragking listserve. She was following the dialogue for several months in the winter of 1999 and realized there was an expansive drag king community that was growing all the time and that there were many of the same kinds of questions being asked over and over again. The listserv was an incredible source of networking and it occurred to Julie that at that moment (1999) would be a great time to get kings together to network and learn from each other before rivalries developed. Julie talked about it first with Nicole Kramer (Nik) and then went to Sile Singleton, Helen Harris (Billy) and Heidi Madsen (Toe B.) (the owners of Fast Friday Productions) with the idea. They all liked it but wouldn't hear anything further until there was an actual proposal on the table. That's when Julie approached Donna Troka with the idea of bringing people together, and they discussed both the performance and the “academic” side of things. Donna’s interest and ideas were with the conference side of things and Julie’s interests were more production oriented. At Donna’s kitchen table they discussed the details and brainstormed a proposal. Julie was most excited about the possibility of bringing kings from all over to Columbus to celebrate drag king performance. She also suggested the possibility of incorporating Dragdom, an event H.I.S. Kings and Fast Friday Productions has been producing for years. In Columbus, Dragdom was an event that provided space for novice performers to get up on stage and perform any kind of drag they wanted. It also gave more seasoned performers a space to try out new numbers. Dragdom was a less structured space: no real time limit, no restriction on what type of drag could be performed and you could either bring your own music or use the music H.I.S. Kings provided.

As the idea for this event began to grow, Donna saw the opportunity to incorporate academic work on drag, cross dressing and gender performance in general. Both Julie and Donna (as well as many other people involved in H.I.S. Kings and Fast Friday Productions) were graduates of The Ohio State University’s Women’s Studies masters program. They, along with other members of the troupe, had interrogated identity issues in various arenas and Donna saw this as a way to bring traditional academic scholarship on drag in dialogue with the public intellectual work that was taking place on drag king stages across the country (and as we began to soon learn- around the world!) From there Julie and Donna mapped out a weekend conference that would consist of a Dragdom event on Friday night, a traditional academic conference on Saturday day, a Showcase on Saturday night and a brunch on Sunday to end the weekend together and casual.

At the next H.I.S. Kings meeting, they presented the idea to the kings and got a got a resounding “YES” when asked if they would help coordinate. In early 1999, H.I.S. Kings consisted of approximately fifteen drag kings and over the next eight months those fifteen people, and many of their friends and lovers helped bring the First International Drag King Extravaganza (IDKE) to fruition.

Shortly after that first meeting where Julie and Donna presented the idea to the troupe, Shani Scott came on as a third coordinator, bringing her experience in graphic design and advertising with her. She created all logos and promotional material and assisted with the conceptualization of the web design. Later, Sile Singleton came on as the fourth member of the planning team, bringing with her a connection to The Ohio State University as she was the Director of the Office of Gender and Sexuality Student Services. Along with these four coordinators there were at least ten different committees headed up by both troupe and community members. These committees began meeting every other week and realized quickly that weekly (if not more often) meetings were a must. It was from these meetings that the idea of the Science Fair emerged (a name Donna jokingly created, which never got changed). Folks agreed that a space needed to be created for networking and the exchange of ideas. Booths for how to pack, how to put on facial hair and how to start a drag king production company were assigned. As participants began registering, it became clear that this was a space where people could also sell product- whether that was t-shirts, buttons or books.

The announcement for the event went out primarily in three ways. First, the call for papers was distributed through traditional academic list servs. Along with this, announcements for the event were distributed to feminist and/or gay and lesbian bookstores throughout the country. Lastly, an announcement was posted to various list servs that in some way related to drag king culture. As submissions for the academic conference and the showcase came in, it became clear that another space needed to be created. Several submissions to do more theatrical performances that would not fit into the parameters of Dragdom or the Showcase came in. Donna brought these to the group and it was suggested that the brunch would provide a space for such theatrical pieces. Various faculty members in the Women’s Studies Department at Ohio State were quick to point out that the director of the Theater Department at Ohio State, Lesley Ferris, had edited a book on crossing dressing and would be a great person to contextualize some of the performances that had taken place over the weekend1. Donna invited Ferris and she agreed. The framework for the weekend was complete.

By the summer of 1999 most of the details for IDKE were in place. The event would begin on Friday, October 15th, with Dragdom taking place at Woody’s, a bar in the Ohio State University’s student union. The show was emceed by Lustivious de la Virgion and Julie and Homie dee jayed. Security, led by Roc, was tight because Woody’s is traditionally a sports bar, patronized by buckeye fans and fraternity brothers. During the night, Becky Kilzer ran registration and a raffle which raised money for the scholarship fund. The Saturday conference and Science Fair took place in various rooms throughout the student union. Julie, Shani, Sile and Donna gave the opening remarks all exhausted from the night before, but still bubbling with excitement. In the hospitality room Sile and crew set up, you could get free hair gel to make your own “package,” (as per Billy T. Holly’s expert “how to pack” instructions) could get a free bagel, or record a “confessional” (Real World style) on one of several video cameras that were running throughout the day. There were traditional academic panels on drag kings and related topics, a personal experience panel that honored drag king voices and a large discussion on drag kinging and the performance of race. At the Science Fair folks could learn how to walk like a man, have an expert drag king apply some facial hair, or purchase different troupe’s merchandise. As the afternoon drew on, things started to wind down and folks returned to their homes and hotel rooms to prepare for the Showcase.

The Showcase consisted of 25 numbers from 16 states and 2 Canadian provinces. There were leather numbers, boy band numbers, several interpretations of Prince, punk rock, hip hop and maybe even a little country. The event was held at Wall Street in downtown Columbus, where over 600 people were packed in to have an experience of a life time. Lusty from H.I.S. Kings emceed and the night ended with dancing, mingling and certainly a little naughtiness.

The last day of the weekend was centered on the Sunday Brunch which took place at No Attitudes Bar & Grill and started around 11am. While folks ate their breakfasts and drank their juice and coffee, Professor Lesley Ferris talked about the history of cross dressing in the United States and Europe. Following her talk, Danielle McLelland of Columbus, Indiana performed “The Sweetness” and Jay Sennett and Sarah Bay-Cheng of Ypsitlanti, Michigan performed “The Opposite of Everything is True.” These numbers, juxtaposed with Ferris’ talk told a history and present of gender performance, bringing the weekend full circle. As the weekend came to an end it became clear what a powerful and history-making weekend it had been. Not only had friendships and relationships began, a clear drag king network was born and drag king culture was expanded.

1 Ferris, Lesley. Crossing the Stage: Controversies on Cross-Dressing. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Original Mission Statement (October 1999)

1st International Drag King Showcase
October 15-17, 1999
Columbus, Ohio
Presented by Fast Friday Productions

Presented below is a proposal for the First International Drag King Showcase produced by Fast Friday Productions and hosted by the members of H.I.S. Kings. This event is designed to draw together an international collection of persons interested in the many aspects of drag king culture. Such an event will present a unique opportunity to bring together many different types of people interested in performing, watching, photographing, filming, and writing about female to male drag. This event will encompass performances, academic and non-academic workshops, presentations of papers, breakout sessions, and panel discussions. All of which will create a space that fosters dialogue about female to male drag and inspires networking around the subject.

It is proposed that the event take place the third weekend of October 1999. Ideally, events would take place on the campus of Ohio State University, in Summit Station at Wall St. The showcase would be designed to attact a wide array of participants, ranging from established drag king performers, to aspiring kings, to feminist theorists, to transgender activists, to fans of FTM drag, to artists engaged in photographing or filming drag king subjects, to students interested in the study of the drag king culture, etc. Ideally, participants would come from all over the world.

Why this would be good for Fast Friday Productions, Ohio State University, and the community at large:

The popularity of FTM drag is soaring and no one has yet brought all the scattered performers together. Judith Halberstam is the only person we are aware of who has attempted to take a comprehensive look at the FTM drag movement ,and her research is now almost 3 years old. People tend to think that Club Casanova is the be all and end all of FTM drag, we in Columbus know that to be false. This showcase and conference would forever correct that error. If we hope for FTM drag to operate at some sort of cooperative level, that is, being fundamentally different to the caddiness of drag queens, someone needs to bring us all together before rivalries develop. We should be networking, this event would give us that opportunity. Drag king culture in Columbus, Ohio has always been a joint venture between the kings, Fast Friday Productions, our community of fans and supporters, and Ohio State University (even if they weren't always aware that they were supporting us!) This event will take that union a step further

Written by Julia M. Applegate

Proposed to Coordinators of Fast Friday Productions by Donna Troka and Julie Applegate April 1999.

Revised Mission Statement (2001)

From its inception in 1999, IDKE has been dedicated to several goals. First and foremost, IDKE is a drag king event and therefore should center on drag king culture. We believe that intrinsic to this culture is a sense of collaboration rather than competition or hierarchy. If in the future, this event continues to grow and competition is a necessary preliminary step (to keep performance numbers manageable) we are dedicated to “creative competition” which avoids monopolies in regards to regional representation, generational representation, experienced vs. novice king representation. We also strongly discourage repeat performances.

Along with a collaborative environment, we are dedicated to ensuring IDKE is an “accessible” event. Not only must IDKE be physically accessible to participants with disabilities; it should also be regionally accessible to both rural and urban participants, as well as financially accessible (with both hosted housing and scholarships offered).

IDKE must also be a “safe space,” which to us means anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-classist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, as well as anti-ableist. At the same time we believe IDKE should be a space that respects diversity in all its forms while upholding freedom of speech. We understand that participants are coming from very different places with very different levels of awareness and consciousness, and therefore we must all be dedicated to dialogue, recourse, accountability and responsibility. Put more simply, all participants must be held accountable fore what they say or do, while at the same time recognizing they have a duty to respectfully discuss problems or concerns they may have.

Lastly, it is clear that IDKE is an event that celebrates the mutability and performance of gender. And while these aspects of gender can be articulated in many different ways, we encourage all showcase performances to centralized drag king content.