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P.S. Burn This Letter Please
P.S. Burn This Letter Please: The fabulous and fraught birth of modern drag, in the queens' own words | Craig Olsen
2 posts | 1 read | 1 to read
With an introduction from RuPaul's Drag Race winner Sasha Velour Their greatest act of resistance was simply existing In 1950s New York, a group of drag pioneers found work in a small number of Lower East Side clubs. They occupied the margins of society, determined to live authentically, despite the attentions of the police. These girls were unstoppable, fearless and fabulous, but their very existence was deemed a criminal threat to society. When a secret cache of their letters was discovered in 2014, these individuals were given a voice for the first time. The letters reveal personal triumphs and tragedies, and a fascinating world that has rarely been documented. Expertly weaving social, political and cultural history, Craig Olsen illuminates the lives and loves of our exceptional LGBTQ+ forebears. P.S. Burn This Letter Please is the ground-breaking result: a deeply moving encounter with a generation of survivors, and a necessary account of how modern drag culture was born.
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Bookwomble
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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 ⬇️

Bookwomble ... experiences of growing up post-Stonewall
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🏳️‍🌈
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Bookwomble
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And now for something completely different... 🏳️‍🌈

A cache of secret letters which were intended to be destroyed, but which, thankfully for posterity, were preserved, casts a light on '50s New York's drag/gay scene, and exposes the hypocrisy of the prevailing conservative, heteronormative society.

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