Homecoming will look a little different on Friday at Burlington High School. Instead of a marching band performance or a cheer routine, the annual homecoming football game will feature a drag show for halftime entertainment.
The school, which partners with South Burlington and Winooski high schools to field the Seawolves football team, also is working with South Burlington High to put on the drag show.
“High-contact sports can sometimes have this warrior ethos to them, so I think it’s wonderful to have the juxtaposition of having another perspective of what’s traditionally been effeminate,” said Andrew LeValley, an English teacher at Burlington High and the adviser for the school’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance.
The idea was inspired by “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a popular TV show in which drag queens compete for the title of America’s next drag superstar through a series of challenges. LeValley was talking about the show with a friend when she mentioned the idea of a drag show at Burlington High.
“I said, ‘That’s brilliant,’ and then it just snowballed from there,” said LeValley, who brought up the idea with Principal Lauren McBride and Athletic Director Quaron Pinckney, who were enthusiastic about it.
The event will feature Burlington and South Burlington students from the Gender-Sexuality Alliance, student-athletes, allies, faculty and staff.
The event will function similarly to a fashion show, where participants show off their outfits on the field. At the end of the event, the Gender-Sexuality Alliance has planned a lip-syncing performance, a tradition in drag culture. Participants will be going all out, “putting together an outfit, putting on makeup, vogueing along the way and working the crowd,” LeValley said. People in the bleachers have been encouraged to wear face paint, dress in rainbow colors and don wigs in support of the show.
All participants have volunteered to walk in the show and Burlington’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance is working with those who signed up to help them build their drag character.
LeValley said he explained to each participant that “this is a chance to pick a part of yourself that you love and personify that part of yourself.” Once participants identified a character, they worked on picking outfits, face paint, makeup and wigs.
The role of drag in the LGBTQ+ community has evolved significantly over the last few decades, LeValley said. While 20 or 30 years ago, the practice was more binary — in that people who identified as men would dress up as women, and people who identified as women would dress up as men — now the practice is more fluid, thanks to the efforts of the transgender community.
“This has to be all in-inclusive,” LeValley said. “The trans community has shown all of us — including those in the LGBTQ community — that gender is fluid and maybe you don’t identify as one binary or the other. … We need that person at the drag ball, too.”
Drag is not just about dressing in clothes that oppose someone’s gender identity; it’s about creating a safe space for a personal identity that might not be celebrated in other spaces. LeValley said this core tenet of drag culture has driven the production of the upcoming show.
“We really tried to stay true to the authenticity of what drag is, which is loving yourself in a world where you can’t always love that part of yourself,” LeValley said.
The event comes on the heels of hateful verbal attacks at nearby high school athletic events, including reports of racist and transphobic slurs at a girls volleyball game between Burlington and South Burlington. While that has sparked some concern about similar incidents at the show, LeValley said it makes the event more necessary than ever.
“We’re doing this so that we can crack open spaces for the LGBTQ community. … It’s becoming even more powerful because of what’s happening both nationally and on the local level,” said LeValley, noting the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders recently resigned after facing backlash for misogynistic and homophobic remarks.
“The ultimate goal here is that this is a show supporting our LGBTQ community and that it looks fabulous and glamorous and empathic — like our community has come together to show love,” LeValley said.