“Strangest and gaudiest of all Harlem spectacles in the ’20s, and still the strangest and gaudiest, is the annual Hamilton Club Lodge Ball at Rockland Palace Casino. I once attended as a guest of A’Lelia Walker. It is the ball where men dress as women and women dress as men… it was fashionable for the intelligentsia and social leaders of both Harlem and the downtown area to occupy boxes at this ball and look down from above at the queerly assorted throng on the dancing floor, males in flowing gowns and feathered headdresses and females in tuxedoes and box-back suits.”[1] Renowned Black poet Langston Hughes wrote the words we just quoted in his first auto-biography The Big Sea. He was referring to the ballroom scene during the Harlem Renaissance, which was a wave of expansion around Black culture during the 1920s and into the 30’s. The era would spark many changes in theater and the arts, but it also birthed Ballroom performance which would later split into the Modern Drag Scene and the Underground Ball Culture. Like everything else America touches, racism played the strongest component in this divide. The concept of drag has been around for centuries though it has played out in various ways across many cultures. The Greeks often had men play female parts as did the Japanese. During the Elizabethean era in London, it was actually illegal for a woman to act on a stage professionally until the 1660s. Which meant all female roles went to teenage boys. However, these performances were quite serious and built on the misogynistic idea that it would be unseemly for a woman to perform in public. A different form of misogyny would arrive with the advent of vaudeville in the 1800’s.  Defined as “a farce with music”, the art originated in France as a comedic variety show but America took the entertainment to another level. For the most part the shows were a mix of amazing talents, such as acrobats and opera singers, combined with virulently racist, homophobic, and sexist performances. It was through vaudeville that minstrel shows were created. These featured white people in black face mocking and degrading black people. It is why black face is such a disgusting and racist act, even if a person thinks they’re paying tribute to an individual. But in addition to the racism, one of the core elements of vaudeville was to openly mock women and any effeminate characteristics – used as a double form of oppression for Black women and even Black men. Part of this was America’s own response to the English Dandy who was seen as weak compared to the American Cowboy. Nationalism was alive and well in America even with the Civil War still fresh in everyone’s memory. The country was continuing to battle Mexico and Native tribes as more land was stolen, more people were slaughtered, and colonialism from coast to coast was established. And in this defiance to much of the world’s outrage and criticism, a hyper sense of masculinity was adopted. While the circumstances and methods were not ideal, the queer community was finding a way to use the storm to their advantage. In 1904 a new star hit the Broadway scene when 23 year old Julian Eltinge was given a role in Mr. Wix of Wickam. Like many vaudeville performers of the era, Eltinge did do female impersonations. However, unlike the others, he portrayed actual feminine qualities that created an illusion rather than a caricature of a woman. Within two years he was so popular he was performing before the King of England and by 1920 Eltinge was one of the wealthiest stars in the country. He lived in a beautiful mansion in California and earned $3,500 a week which translates to $59,000 today. He published a magazine titled Magazine and Beauty Hints and even posed for cosmetic companies. Of course there were many rumors that Eltinge was gay and some have also suspected he may have been transgender or non-binary.