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In drag, the concept of “realness” doesn’t necessarily mean what you might think. For many drag artists, realness isn’t about trying to “pass”—to blend in with the crowd without notice—but rather about standing out and apart. By disrupting and shining a light on our assumptions, drag realness can expose that what is most real is in the in-between, in the blurring itself, in tearing up the playbook of gender. The realness of drag is that it heightens, dramatizes, and deviates in order to reveal—it holds up a mirror to us, showing us the gender baggage we inherit and inviting us to discard our conventions.
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Chris Stedman (IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives)