Sissy That Walk: The Sissy’s Progress

Abstract

The present chapter spans the past and the future in a queer sort of way. ‘Queerness’, writes José Esteban Muñoz, ‘exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future’ (2009: 1). When positioning myself in the present, I speak as a queer subject and as a sissy. ‘Sissy’ is a term that lies at the heart of my research and practice; an identity marker I have harnessed in the spirit of reverse discourse. It appears in the title of a series of performances I have conceived, among them Sissy! (2008) and The Sissy’s Progress (2014). ‘Sissy’ also appears in the title of this chapter, this time as a verb, and in reference to RuPaul’s dance track, Sissy that Walk (2014). RuPaul, perhaps the improbable guest at the round table, contributes to my argument the connection between drag and walking.