NEIL KENDALL
“How many other queens have died for their look?”
There are many drag icons lost to herstory, and one queen who isn’t aff orded the credit she deserves is Elizabeth I. Celebrated as an inspiration for drag (Quentin Crisp and RuPaul have riff ed off her androgyny), The Liz is rarely acknowledged as doing drag herself. Hang on, she was an actual queen and an actual woman, and men did it first, right? Being one of the most powerful women in history doesn’t have to preclude her from being a pioneer of the art of drag. Maybe even the first drag superstar. Good queen Bess took OTT to an extreme.