{"id":1338,"date":"2025-09-18T19:25:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T23:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2025-09-18T19:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T23:25:24","slug":"theres-a-dress-in-all-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2025\/09\/18\/theres-a-dress-in-all-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s a \u201cDress\u201d in all of us."},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cA Poet\u2019s Boyhood at the Burning Crossroads\u201d, the word \u201cdrag\u201d appears twice. Both in the context of racial violence, the act of holding or pulling someone down. In the poem <\/span>\u201cDrag,\u201d<\/span><\/i> the word \u201cdrag\u201d now has a different meaning. It means to cross-dress. To perform gender. How can a word originally associated with violence and constraint come to represent such liberation and self-expression? It is of great irony that we queer people are so good at turning pain into pageantry. We say queer joy is resistance. We laugh because it\u2019s the only way we can keep going. There\u2019s a dazzling kind of alchemy in that: to take what was meant to erase us and turn it into something radiant. As Jones writes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom here, I see a city that doesn\u2019t know it\u2019s already drowning,\u201d <\/span><\/i>and<\/span> \u201cHow old were you when America taught you that being who you are could get you killed?\u201d <\/span><\/i>The reality that you see, the society that you\u2019re fully aware of the oppression, and it\u2019s you who chooses to put a glamor into it. Make it gorgeous, make it legendary, make it something of your own, and through \u201cthe dress” is one of the many ways Saeed Jones did it. The dress, that performs gender, \u201cthe dress\u201d that acts as a symbol of perceived weakness, and \u201cthe dress\u201d that acts as a means of creating a powerful, new identity. But then, something uncanny happens. The dress becomes animated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe dress begins to move without me.\u201d<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i> \u201cI don\u2019t even know what I am in this dress.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The poem \u201cDrag\u201d doesn\u2019t give us a neat, triumphant arc. Instead, it gives us something more raw and honest: the complicated, often painful, and vulnerable process of transformation. He is caught between empowerment and confusion. Wearing the dress, he feels a kind of becoming, but also estrangement. Is this freedom or another kind of confinement? Is this who I really am, or just who I\u2019m allowed to be?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, within this instability, there is something unstoppable blooming. Little does he know, inside the pupa of a caterpillar, is the most gorgeous butterfly, and inside each of us queer people, often the most unique “dress” of our own that cannot be stopped. As Saeed Jones wrote:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSlow like some-<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

thing that knows it cannot be stopped,(…)\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cA Poet\u2019s Boyhood at the Burning Crossroads\u201d, the word \u201cdrag\u201d appears twice. Both in the context of racial violence, the act of holding or pulling someone down. In the poem \u201cDrag,\u201d the word \u201cdrag\u201d now has a different meaning. It means to cross-dress. To perform gender. How can a word originally associated with violence … Continue reading There’s a \u201cDress\u201d in all of us.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}