It felt great to perform on stage for people that you don't know, and for them to like
what you did. It makes you feel good inside. I just love the people and love that they came.
Fix me a drink.
Today, you can turn on the TV and watch hours of drag performances, but it was not too long ago
that a drag performer named Sir Lady Java had to fight the law just so she could perform as
her true self. Sir Lady Java is a black woman. She was a comedian, a dancer, a performer.
I was a dancer, and I loved dancing. They could see it in my face, and I wore a little bitty skinny
scanty bikini. It was so little, and for those days, that was the littlest bikinis they'd
ever seen. Throughout the 60s, Sir Lady Java rose to prominence in the L.A. nightlife scene,
and as a result began to be tracked by the Los Angeles Police Department
for violating rule number nine which prohibited nightlife venues from employing performers
who performed as the opposite gender to the one that they were assigned at birth. Not only was it
discriminatory on its face, but it was also applied in a discriminatory manner because there were a
number of bars that featured white entertainers and catered to a mostly white or mixed audience
that were allowed to perform but in black owned clubs catering to mostly black audiences
with black performers, it's like that's where the enforcement of rule nine seems to have taken place,
and so in October 1967, this surveillance of her reaches a fever pitch
when she's playing a series of shows at the Redd Foxx, a black owned bar on the west side. Despite
applying for a permit to be able to employ Java, that permit was denied and so the Redd Foxx
receives an injunction for continuing to employ Java, and so he didn't renew her contract,
and she was saying like why? Like this is just straight up employment discrimination. It's
like this is just who I am. It's just like I'm an entertainer who happens to be trans. I'm not doing
anything on stage that I'm not doing off stage, and that became the basis of their very successful
protest. Java responded by working with the ACLU to try to overturn rule number nine. The
California State Supreme Court ultimately decided that the entertainer did not have standing to sue,
that it was the club owner who had standing to sue. While the court won't hear the lawsuit because the
ACLU could not find a bar owner who wanted to be the named plaintiff, Java continues to fight
against and flout rule number nine by testing the threshold of properly gendered attire. At the time,
in order to be considered properly attired in the eyes of the police, you had to be wearing at least
three articles of clothing of the gender you were assigned at birth. Can you imagine coming out in a
sequined gown with a bikini underneath wearing a men's wristwatch, a men's bow tie, and socks?
I just see this as the example of like black queer and trans like ingenuity and resilience.
I think the significance of Lady Java's court case, even though it in and of itself
wasn't successfu,l it laid the groundwork for successful challenges of employment discrimination.
And I think this is really important for today because I think of you know this
was an unprecedented year for the passage of bills and laws that target transgender people.
A record number of bills to limit transgender rights. Transgender athlete bans introduced in 31
states. Arkansas passing a bill blocking gender affirming care for trans youth. I think it's
interesting especially the laws that are trying to limit health care do exactly the same thing. They
target trans people, but they aren't the subject of the law. Right? The law is for the doctor. The
physician is prohibited from, the parents will be held responsible if, and I feel like this
is another way that like Java's story and the unfinishedness of it has a lot to do with what
we're facing today in terms of like the unfinished work around trans people's right to live, to exist.
I think it's really ironic that drag and cross-dressing and gender expression was
policed, literally policed by the police as heavily as it was back in the day because
these days, we see that drag as an expression, as a means of performance, even for some
as an identity is celebrated and that's really because mainstream cisgender heterosexual white
culture has figured out how to sell it and make money off of it. Historically though one important
piece that's often missed is that drag for some beyond being a career or beyond being sort of
an artistic expression can be the only way that they can access the gender expression that they
desperately need. I know that that's what it was for me. In a time when I wasn't going to be
celebrated for being trans, where I wasn't going to be celebrated for sort of quote living my truth,
I knew that I could at least get some applause and maybe even some money.
Just putting on a wig and strutting my stuff the way that I wanted to.
It relieves something that used to be binding you down. It relieves that tension. You can be you, and
being you is the most important thing that we have. If you can't be yourself, who can you be?