Presents a vivid ethnography of the Miss'd America pageant and the gay neighbourhood from which it emerged in the early 1990s. The book examines how the pageant strengthened community bonds and activism, as well as how it has changed now that Rupaul's Drag Race has brought many of its practices into the cultural mainstream.
Drag Queens and Beauty Queens compares two events that take place every year in Atlantic City: the Miss America pageant and the Miss’d America drag pageant. Examining how femininity is performed at each, it also describes Miss’d America’s ongoing importance to the local gay community from the AIDS crisis to the Rupaul’s Drag Race era.
