GenderF**k celebrates diverse drag peformances

Singer Jessie J’s “Do it Like a Dude” played from speakers in a Ballantine Hall classroom Thursday night as freshman Ash Kulak rehearsed an act for GenderF**k IU 2012.

The mash-up of performances, which is organized by Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equality, is a gender-inclusive drag show that premiered on the Bloomington campus in spring 2011.

“We didn’t want it to just have drag queens or drag kings,” senior Vice President of SAGE Miranda Ettinger said, adding the organization wanted to include a variety of expressions of gender and feature a diverse group of performers.

Kulak, outreach coordinator for SAGE, said GenderF**k serves a similar purpose as the Miss Gay IU pageant, which is typically an annual event but did not happen this year.

This year’s GenderF**k will include lip-sync and dance performances to songs that address issues of gender, such as “Do it Like a Dude” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Also on the program are songs that speak to originality, such as Cascada’s “Original Me.”

GenderF**k also coincides with the 2012 Day of Silence organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, although no group on campus is officially participating. Kulak said GenderF**k isn’t directly affiliated with the Day of Silence but added that the event serves a similar function if people want to recognize it as such.

“A lot of people have Day of Silence ‘break the silence’ parties, and because GenderF**k is so late in the day, it could serve as a ‘breaking the silence party’ because really, that’s what we’re doing,” Kulak said. “We’re revolting against the majority in the show and against the government that tells us, ‘This is how you have to be, and this is what you have to do.’”

SAGE President Ashley Carroll, a senior, said GenderF**k is a celebration. She said the Day of Silence, which had been observed on campus in previous years, is no longer as necessary as it used to be.

“Each year, there’s less and less need for it,” she said. “We’re here, and we’re talking.”
Ettinger said GenderF**k serves to show gender is something that people can identify with and express in different ways, both in everyday life and performance settings.

“This is sort of our fun event to show that gender is just the playground,” she said.
“Gender doesn’t have to be strict rules, and it doesn’t have to be binary. I want people to realize we don’t have to take gender so seriously.”

IU Student Association is co-sponsoring the event. GenderF**k begins at 8 p.m. Friday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, and admission
is free.