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LeopoldBloom · M
My wife feels that drag queens are, in fact, mocking women when they dress up in exaggerated costumes, and I'm sure she's not alone in this. I would say that this is cultural appropriation or the equivalent. I wouldn't say a man dressing as a woman as part of a gender transitioning process is the same thing, however. Drag queens are playing a role while people who are transitioning their gender are only attempting to live as the gender they feel most comfortable with. They're not the same thing and acting as if they are is evidence of ignorance.
Dressing as a Native American or any other historically oppressed minority isn't just cultural appropriation; it's offensive. Dressing as a zombie isn't because zombies don't exist in real life. The "zombi" is a dead person in Haitian voodoo tradition who is controlled by a magician and has no free will of their own; they're similar to the golem in Jewish tradition except golems are formed from clay and were never human. In modern American tradition, hypnosis and Manchurian candidates fulfill the same role.
Dressing as a Native American or any other historically oppressed minority isn't just cultural appropriation; it's offensive. Dressing as a zombie isn't because zombies don't exist in real life. The "zombi" is a dead person in Haitian voodoo tradition who is controlled by a magician and has no free will of their own; they're similar to the golem in Jewish tradition except golems are formed from clay and were never human. In modern American tradition, hypnosis and Manchurian candidates fulfill the same role.