During the 1970s, when transgender women were publishing their personal narratives, cultural anthropologist Esther Newton published her seminal work, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Credited as one of the first interdisciplinary works to focus on queer culture, Mother Camp examines female impersonators in the Midwest by breaking down the many forms of cross-dressing such as those who did so as a living (labor), those who did so strictly for sex, and those who did so for their own fulfillment. Cross-dressing, drag, or female impersonation is a subculture of the gay community. Within this subculture, Newton underscores several themes relating to sexual orientation, gender, and camp. The notion of camp is communicated though gay
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Newton breaks down the distinctions by stating, “[T]he street pattern is a fusion of the ‘street fairy’ life with the profession of female impersonation…Street impersonators are never off stage…[a]ll they have to do…is put on a wig. Their way of life is collective, illegal, and immediate. Its central experiences are confrontation, prostitution, and drug “highs.” …The stage pattern…segregates the stigma from the personal life by limiting it to the stage context as much as possible, the work is viewed as a profession with goals and standards rather than as a job. Stage impersonators are “respectable”…They refer to street performers as “tacky street fairies.” Although there are sharp distinctions between professional and street drag queens, they all have an inimitable relationship to the larger gay community that often represented crucial and conflicting roles, which made gay men nervous. For the covert or closeted gay men, their private sexual deviances became public discourse when they visited gay bars. The performance of drag queens in this flamboyant sexual world made the cherished secrets of covert gay men public knowledge. Newton asserts, “the drag queen symbolizes an open declaration, even celebration, of homosexuality.” Additionally, this open display of sexual deviance of drag queens represented the fears of numerous white, middle-class gay men in that such flaunted deviance would expose their private sexual lifestyles. The gender performance drag queens represented liberation as well as living outside the heteronormative
Newton breaks down the distinctions by stating, “[T]he street pattern is a fusion of the ‘street fairy’ life with the profession of female impersonation…Street impersonators are never off stage…[a]ll they have to do…is put on a wig. Their way of life is collective, illegal, and immediate. Its central experiences are confrontation, prostitution, and drug “highs.” …The stage pattern…segregates the stigma from the personal life by limiting it to the stage context as much as possible, the work is viewed as a profession with goals and standards rather than as a job. Stage impersonators are “respectable”…They refer to street performers as “tacky street fairies.” Although there are sharp distinctions between professional and street drag queens, they all have an inimitable relationship to the larger gay community that often represented crucial and conflicting roles, which made gay men nervous. For the covert or closeted gay men, their private sexual deviances became public discourse when they visited gay bars. The performance of drag queens in this flamboyant sexual world made the cherished secrets of covert gay men public knowledge. Newton asserts, “the drag queen symbolizes an open declaration, even celebration, of homosexuality.” Additionally, this open display of sexual deviance of drag queens represented the fears of numerous white, middle-class gay men in that such flaunted deviance would expose their private sexual lifestyles. The gender performance drag queens represented liberation as well as living outside the heteronormative