IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD
“[OUR] IDENTITY DOESN’T GET PASSED DOWN… YOU’RE BORN, AND YOU HAVE TO FIND EACH OTHER.”
CCORDING TO MARTI GOULD CUMMINGS, Kent County, Maryland, was once a place where stepping outside prescribed notions of being a man could be embarrassing for one’s family. So when the drag performer was preparing to go back to their hometown from New York in 2017 to put on the first iteration of their show , they planned on doing so without all of the hair and makeup most audiences knew them for. To wit, the local story announcing the performance ran alongside a photo supplied by Cummings, of themself not in drag. Tess Hogan, then theatre manager of the Garfield Center for the Arts which hosted the event, called the performer, confused, as
