Allison Wunder

The Mirage and teaching through drag

This year marks the 7th annual Mirage, an event hosted by the University of Iowa that combines drag performances with sex education. One of the original creators of the event, Stephanie Beecher, said “we’re a pretty well-oiled machine now, and I think the Mirage is building a name for itself and becoming a tradition.” The numbers support her claim. The first production of the Mirage attracted 300 students, which grew to 800 in its 5th year, and over 1,400 participants in its 6thyear. Beecher thinks this is partly due to Advantage Iowa and FSL for giving students credit for attending, but believes this major growth is due to outside factors as well, both the political climate of the country and the cultural climate of acceptance among students.

Beecher also credits the growth of Iowa City’s drag community to Studio 13, a local bar that hosts weekly drag queen and drag king performances. “Studio,” as it’s nicknamed, is actually where the story of the Mirage began, during a condom crawl where Beecher and a group of students went to various bars downtown to hand out free condoms. Bringing the crawl to Studio during a drag show led her to ask students if they had ever watched drag before. She was surprised to find that none of them had. 

“Most of them identified as straight and they felt like they were stepping on toes, like they didn’t want to take up space and didn’t feel welcome in that sense.” Beecher said, “And I identify as gay, and I thought we should really be working on building an inclusive community so straight people can come.” 

The Mirage was then born out of a need to promote diversity and inclusion, and combined with the work of the LGBT Resource Center to raise awareness for sexual health and World AIDS Day. Much like its variety of performers, Beecher explained, “It’s an eclectic event, combining drag with a Condom Casino and rapid HIV testing, but it fits the goals of all the organizations that dedicate their time and resources to the event.” Those organizations include Student Health and Wellness, the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership, the Center for Diversity and Enrichment, University of Iowa Student Government, and more.

It’s uncommon to find a show that combines so many different types of performances. Over the years, The Mirage has featured amateur drag performers, professional drag queens and kings, burlesque dancers, and a former Mr. Gay Iowa USofA. To an outsider, the difference between drag queens and kings may seem insignificant, but it’s a dynamic these performers may only come across in the Iowa City area through The Mirage. Beecher explains that even backstage, these cultures remain separated as two distinct groups, with the kings occupying a small, simple dressing room, and the queens in a much larger space with fans and equipment to prepare. These constantly shifting performances of gender sometimes require completely different audiences, and throwing pageant performers and burlesque dancers into that mix only throws off those characters further. It requires a responsibility of the viewers to be open and unbiased, which the UI students appear to take with ease. 

Another large part of The Mirage’s purpose is sexual education, to which students aren’t as receptive of an audience. Heavily intertwined with the entertainment of the event are demonstrations and examples with audience participation led by the hosts to give statistics, explain forms of contraception and describe healthy sexual habits. But from the audience, their words are drowned out by side conversations and anxious comments about when the drag portion of the show will continue. 

Jennifer Haylett, a sociology professor at the university, explains why sex education might not be as effective at the college age. “In the US, sex ed is complicated,” She said, “the requirements vary widely state to state, about whether or not its medically accurate, if it has to follow religious beliefs, whether its mandated by the state or not. People think that sex ed is a regulated thing, where all students are getting the same standard information, but it’s not, and even then, parents can opt-out to have their kids get this information.” Iowa actually does pretty well across the board in these categories, with state mandated education that includes HIV education, is medically accurate, and is age and culturally appropriate and unbiased, but parents can still choose to opt-out. However, the university is home to students from across the country with varying degrees and forms of sex ed. And those are just the broad problems with the sexual education system in the US. When it is given in schools, its usually centered around abstinence-only viewpoints, focusing on the risks and dangers of sex. Comparatively, the Netherlands uses an approach that is sex positive with young students, enforcing mutual respect and open discussion on topics like homosexuality. 

More relevant to The Mirage, is that sex education in the US usually doesn’t even consider information for LGBT+ youth. Haylett agrees that while The Mirage can’t hurt in its delivery of making information “not penalizing, but enjoyable”, she thinks the pressure might be better placed elsewhere to spread information. On the elementary level of education, when kids are more receptive to this information, and benefit more from this knowledge during their development, there are possibilities for change. Haylett sees parents as the biggest obstacle in this battle, saying “this is really a larger cultural struggle over who should teach these things, and while I understand parents that want to control this information, some of those parents that opt-out then don’t have that conversation with their kids, and they end up with no information at all.” 

Haylett sees the solution through two parts—the first being the regulation of sex education to require it in schools and be medically accurate, and the second is to have sex educators working to put content on the internet, where she believes most of teen’s sexual education really comes from. Platforms like YouTube and Netflix are increasingly becoming information hubs to learn through entertainment and others’ experiences, so those people might as well be the experts. “Maybe the solution isn’t in the school context at all,” Haylett said, “and if we lose that fight, which I hope we don’t, I think other avenues could be even more successful. And even then, people couldn’t opt their kids out.” 

While sex education is large part of the Mirage, it’s not the sole purpose. Visibility and inclusion of LGBT+ students on a large scale within the university is vital for a large community of students, and the proof of its success can be seen in the numbers that only grow with every year. Beecher says this crowd has grown so big it even makes the performers jittery, saying “for some of them, this is the biggest group they’ve performed for. There’s this energy and excitement in the air all around, on both sides of the stage”. For Beecher, that’s her favorite part. She’s never actually seen the show, because “the coolest part about the Mirage is watching people watch it and seeing the impact immediately”.