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It’s been 10 minutes since class was supposed to start and the teacher still hasn’t arrived. Just as students begin to wonder whether it’s been canceled, in walks a newcomer. Up in pumps with a flowing kaftan, bejeweled eye makeup and glitzed-out accessories, Professor Khubchandani is almost unrecognizable.

 

“Hello class,” the substitute says as she writes out her name with a flourish on the chalkboard. “LaWhore Vagistan will be filling in for Kareem today.”

 

For Kareem Khubchandani, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, performing in drag is both a hobby and an academic pursuit. As a performer and scholar, Khubchandani’s interests in LGBT life, drag performance and South Asian subcultures converge in spaces as disparate as the classroom and the nightclub.

 

Khubchandani became interested in drag when he started going out to clubs in college.

 

“Seeing it [drag] in the nightclub really blew my mind,” he said. “It really made me feel something different than just like going out and dancing, but having this opportunity to see something that changed the shape of the night.”

 

What began as a part-time diversion eventually became a full-time academic concentration. His doctoral dissertation, “Ishtyle: Queer Nightlife Performance in India and the South Asian Diaspora,” was inspired by performances he saw as a graduate student in Chicago.

 

“It was actually the motivation behind my project,” Khubchandani said. “How brilliant they [drag queens] were at taking something so gender conformist and breaking it apart into something much more pleasurable for a queer audience.”

 

In his dissertation, Khubchandani explores the significance of gay nightclubs as spaces where drag performance allows South Asian gay men to “temporarily deviate from the constant expectations of respectability.”

 

After completing his PhD in performance studies at Northwestern University, Khubchandani moved to Austin for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Women and Gender Studies at UT. Though he rarely performed in drag before coming to Texas, Khubchandani now spends much of his time outside of academia cultivating the larger than life persona of LaWhore.

 

To help show him the ropes of the Austin drag scene, Khubchandani turned to the mentorship of respected drag queen Rhonda Jewels. Originally from Virginia, 23-year-old Jewels came to Austin with limited performing experience. Despite being largely self-taught, Jewels’s natural talent soon earned her a place among Austin’s most creative queens.

 

Within a year she was mentoring drag beginners like Khubchandani.

 

According to Jewels, the stakes are high for aspiring drag performers in Austin where weirder is usually better.

 

“You have so many people who are so, so creative and they can come up with these insanely original shows, ideas, and personas," Jewels said. "If that’s the route you want to go you have to have a very original idea.”


With Rhonda’s help and creative inspiration, LaWhore developed her unique brand of Bollywood glam. Eventually, she was winning local drag contests on a nearly weekly basis.

But Khubchandani’s initiation into drag wasn’t as flawless as LaWhore often appeared. What she made seem so effortless was always the product of much trial and error.

 

“It’s not just men putting on makeup,” Khubchandani said. “It’s about creating a specific kind of illusion with your face and with color and lines. These things are not intuitive and I think that’s something that was a real challenge for me.”

 

In addition, Khubchandani learned first-hand the extreme time commitment queens put into creating their looks. It is not unusual for a performer to spend three to four hours putting on makeup, getting dressed and getting to the venue.

 

In a UT seminar course called “queer nightlife,” Khubchandani said he likes to emphasize to students that “leisure, entertainment, beauty and fabulousness” are often products of intense work.

 

“As an academic, I’m really invested in people understanding that labor goes into producing these experiences that seem really effortless,” Khubchandani said. “That rehearsal, the transfer of knowledge about how to do makeup and all of these things don’t just happen spontaneously.”

I think drag is really about performing gender in the diversity of ways it can be presented

Khubchandani said he also wants to dispel stereotypes about what counts as drag. While most people associate drag with men - typically gay - performing as women, the hobby can take many forms amongst many different types of people regardless of gender or sexuality.

 

“We see in this gender diversity there are women performing as men, trans women performing as trans women by offering their singing and dancing talents, [etc.] It really raises a question of what drag is and I think drag is really about performing gender in the diversity of ways it can be presented.”

Austin’s drag diversity is on display almost every night of the week with downtown’s gay bars serving as the hub. Bars and nightclubs like Rain, Highland, and Oilcan Harry’s draw queens from all over the state and country who come to perform among the best of the best.

 

Currently, the drag community is gearing up for the Austin International Drag Fest where hundreds of queens will take Austin’s nightlife by storm. Held from April 28 through May 1, the festival is a celebration of the art of drag and the people who are passionate about it.

 

According to Khubchandani, events like these provide great opportunities to see that drag is more than a superficial act.

 

“Everybody has a little bit of creativity that goes beyond just impersonation and I think that’s really amazing.”

 

While Khubchandani’s academic career path will soon lead him out of Texas, he said he is grateful for the time he’s spent learning from Austin’s drag community, not only as researcher, but as a participant.

 

Until then, LaWhore can be found downtown rocking a big wig and her signature glitzy gown - a ferocious and vivacious queen who has definitely made her mark on the Austin drag scene.

 

QUEENS OF THE NIGHT 

A Brief History of Drag 

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