This was both wonderful and sad to read: the first because it celebrates the lives and struggles of the pre-Stonewall generation of drag queens; the latter because of the inevitable history of prejudice, oppression and trauma.
Olsen intersperses the letters written by a group of found-sisters to each other in the '50s with modern testimony from those he was able to find and interview, and with examples of similarities and differences of his own ⬇️
Olsen's finding of Daphne, now an elderly man who had left his drag identity behind, and his opening up to a listener who was eager to hear the stories of his youth and the found family who mutually supported each other, was really moving. 5🏳️🌈 13mo