The old drag queen is dead; long live the new drag queen. As Jason Donovan dons a frock this week in the stage version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, cabarets and clubs across Britain are dispensing with “old school” drag artists in their thick make-up, grandiose wigs and extravagant outfits. They are being replaced by a new generation of sassy and sophisticated young men in make-up who are rejecting the “misogyny” of the grotesque female impersonator.

It is a trend paralleled in the mainstream: Paul O’Grady, who gave life to the caustic Liverpudlian Lily Savage, has doffed his wig; Danny La Rue is long gone, and no one seems to be in the wings to take up their mantle.

And while wearing make-up and women’s clothes has been a springboard for a number of entertainers, they have tended to scale back their cross-dressing once established. Eddie Izzard, well known as a transvestite, now rarely appears publicly in women’s clothes and is increasingly known for his straight acting. Julian Clary, who used to perform as the drag artist Gillian Pie-Face, is these days much more likely to be seen in a sharp men’s suit and tie.

See End of the road for old-school drag queens

The first Gay-Straight Alliance student organization at Yuma High School has been approved by the district in what one of the organizers is calling a landmark occasion.

  Michael Baughman, founder of the Amancio Project, acted as a go-between for the students, the American Civil Liberties Union of Phoenix and Yuma Union High School District administrators. Baughman said he was just a facilitator who found the smart people to get the job done.

  “I specialize in two things: gay rights and rights for the disabled,” Baughman said. “But I put this in their hands. ‘It’s your group. You have to run it your way,’ I told them.”

  Baughman launched the Amancio project in May 2005 to keep alive the investigation and expedite solving the murder of Amancio Corrales. A 23-year-old gay man who worked as a female impersonator under the name Dalila, Corrales was found murdered in the Colorado River earlier that month. See Gay-Straight Alliance OK’d for Yuma High
Yuma Sun, AZ