That time I took a newborn to drag queen bingo and she ended up part of the show

I could write this week about how upset I am at the Tennessee anti-drag law, but instead, I’ll write about how I took a newborn to a drag show and she ended up being part of the show. It’s a fun family story.

A week after I gave birth to my youngest in a coverted warehouse loft off Dekalb Avenue near Little Five Points, her godparents asked the husband and I out to the monthly drag queen bingo game that supports PALS Atlanta. It was 2008, and these drag bingo benefits for charity were already a long time fixture in town. PALS Atlanta was started in part by a guy who used to work reception at Inman Animal Hospital, where my cats have been treated since I moved back to the south in 2002. PALS started as a charity specifically to take care of pets of those suffering from the first pandemic of my lifetime, HIV/AIDS, but later PALS moved on to take care of lots of animals for those who were ill.

A week after giving birth, I was desperate to get out of the house. I also looked like total shit, but I didn’t care. My sisters were both still in town, and willing to stay home with the toddler, so I put on the maternity pants that wouldn’t fall off, a nursing top, and a button up shirt, and pulled my hair back into a ponytail. The husband and I met The Godparents at the venue, which was set up like any big old bingo hall. Long communal tables allowed me to discretely deposit the newborn baby girl in a sling across my chest, where she happily curled against me unless one friend of The Godparents or another wanted to show her off. It was a perfect first outing – I could sit and play bingo, enjoy the show put on by expert Atlanta drag queens, and the baby equipment – carrier seat, diaper bag, etc. – were easily hidden under the table. The large bingo hall set-up meant that lots of people were always getting up and moving around, so trips to the bathroom were no big deal. The combo of nursing top, wrap, and button up shirt meant that I could feed the baby discretely whenever she wanted.

Discretely, that is, unless you saw me from a very specific vantage point.

A feature of Drag Queen bingo, wherever it might be held, is crowd work. The MC’s walk around the large room looking for opportunities for comedy, or just to get the crowd’s attention. About midway through the night, as I was getting close to bingo and thus intent on both my card and nursing the baby, I failed to notice the host walking up behind me – until I heard a SCREAM.

The host, Ms. Bubba D. Licious, had noticed the weird sling I was wearing and had walked up behind me and looked down. It bears mentioning here that breastfeeding in public had only been legal in Georgia for a few years at this point and was uncommon unless you were in an area with a lot of progressive moms. So what the hosting queen observed, when she looked down at me from over my shoulder, looked to her like I had THREE BOOBS, AND ONE OF THEM WAS MOVING.

To give her credit, after the initial scream, she recovered quickly. Of course, my face was bright red – this night of all nights I really did not want everyone looking at me. Still, the situation had to be explained on mic, as everyone had heard the sudden shriek.

We all laughed it off the best we could, there were a few jokes, the MC returned to the stage, and the game continued, but it was clear the queen had lost the crowd. When the next break happened, women kept coming over to me to tell me they supported public breastfeeding. Which was nice, but I really didn’t want to be noticed, it as just that I had accidentally caused Something Political to happen at a drag show. Did I mention breastfeeding in public had only been legal in Georgia for a couple of years at that point? The idea of feeding your newborn outside the house was still gaining acceptance, and I had just brought the debate into Drag Queen Bingo accidentally.

Bubba D. Licious realized she had lost the audience and came over to me during the break and apologized for screaming. I wasn’t put out. Then she asked if she could hold the baby for the next bit.

By happy accident, I had actually brought the perfect blanket for the occasion: a furry Winnie-the-Pooh job with a wide yellow satin border. I set the host up with the blanket so that Bubba's dress wouldn’t be hurt by the baby and the baby wouldn’t be hurt by the beaded and sequined fashion. As the lights went back to normal show levels for the next round of bingo, my youngest made her local theater debut in the arms of one of Atlanta’s best improv drag queens.

There are fewer greater introductions to Georgia society than being held in the arms of a local legend and being proclaimed one of the most beautiful and best-behaved babies in Atlanta. It’s a memory I really treasure, and a story The Godparents have told endlessly. Of course, one of them is always sure to mention that the real reason they wanted us at bingo that week was because he showed up at the venue the previous week unknowingly still with placenta on his shirt from helping deliver her. Not everybody believed it was placenta, so he had to show up next week with the mother and baby.

Drag has been part of my children’s lives from the start. I really can’t imagine Atlanta without drag. That Nashville, where I saw my first proper drag show in the Spring of 1995, now considers drag some sort of corrupting experience is bizarre. The south has always had some of the best drag in the nation. I tried to watch a show in Boston in 2001 – it was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. I heard the shows got better up there in the last decade. Boston drag certainly couldn’t get any worse than what I saw.

The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil wrote a story about Nashville once called “High Heel Neil”, one of the first works he published after his book on Savannah. The title refers to Neil Cargile, a wealthy and respected Nashvillian, who once had to make an emergency landing on I-24 when I was in high school. Neil did so while wearing a dress, as was his habit – he wasn’t really a drag queen, the author explained, but a cross dresser. Still, I find it hard to believe that current governor of Nashville wouldn’t have at some point in the late 80’s or early 90’s, been at the same fancy restaurant or society event where Neil Cargile was present in less than masculine clothing. He was around, and he was part of upper class Nashville for a very long time. As was drag- that same era I was in High School was the Cowboys La Cage era of downtown, where a really excellent Reba impersonator was very popular.

Alas, Cowboys La Cage folded before I was eighteen, and I was never bold enough to sneak in. Until I reached the age where we could legally get into a bar, my boyfriend and I entertained ourselves instead by sneaking onto elevators in the L&C tower to jump up and down as they descended to induce brief moments of weightlessness, to see how many seconds we could make ourselves airborn. Without bingo or storytime or other public drag performances, we resulted to the petty teen crimes of trespassing and misuse of private property. This is what locking drag away from minors gets you – kids seeking their own dumb thrills and then growing up into the kind of moms who will bring their infants to drag shows to breastfeed in public after home births. I know that’s not the kind of future conservatives want for their children, so I suggest they unlock drag for minors and public appearances to prevent such shenanigans.