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Drag Queens

Date: Jun 19 2006

Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Drag queens are male performers who dress as women. They are often very flamboyant and are an icon of gay culture. You can find them at gay pride events around the world – men prancing around on stage dressed as Cher or Diana Ross or Tina Turner.

This past Saturday in Portland was Gay Pride, an event for gay men and women to celebrate their homosexuality and promote better relationships between heterosexual and homosexual people. Among the crowds of shirtless men and women were the lovely drag queens in their sequin dresses.

Listen to Kevin and Dave talk about drag queens.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Kevin

Emily

Kevin: So, it was gay pride this past weekend. A lot of drag queens out and about, I noticed.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, I did, I noticed that as well. Did you, ah, do anything fun and festive?

Kevin: Yeah, I did. Actually, I went, on Saturday night there’s a big, like, gay pride warehouse party that I went to, which was really fun. And then went to, of course, the Pride Parade on Sunday, and then the Waterfront Festival, so it was good. I enjoyed it. Did you?

Emily: Yeah, um, I also ventured down to the festival and it was um, really, really exciting, lots of action going on and, um, a lot of interesting things to look at. It was very cool, very cool.

Kevin: The people watching is great, and I think the drag queens are particularly fun.

Emily: Yes, absolutely, I agree. Did you get to see any of the drag queen beauty contests?

Kevin: Um, I did. Um, Well, there was one. My favorite drag queen in Portland is Darcell, who’s seventy, I think seventy eight now, and…

Emily: Okay, yeah, yeah. I think I remember reading about him, her.

Kevin: Yeah, and, um, yeah, she’s been, she’s been performing, I think, for like forty five years, like, performs in high schools and all over the city and all over the state. And actually does a lot of fundraising, you know, for different advocacy groups. And does a lot of cool stuff.

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Discussion

Drag queens are performers who usually lip-sync popular songs by Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Cher and the Village People. One of the most famous drag queens is RuPaul, a performer who introduced mainstream society to transvestites.

RuPaul, whose birth name is RuPaul Charles, has done a lot of work to support homosexuals and gender-confused people. She is a headliner at many gay pride events, and has released a number of best-selling albums. Her latest album, ReWorked, was released last week.

Comments

ganda13

Philippines

drag queens are amzing,,they are so great…so if you are a drag queen, or have relatives or friends who are drag queen be pround,,not all people can do what you can, not all people can do what ther can! go gogo drag queens….