Panti Bliss still can’t get hitched: Meditations on performativity, drag, and gay marriage

Abstract

This article uses the activism of drag queen Panti Bliss during Ireland’s marriage equality campaign to revisit two of the foundational debates of performativity theory: namely, the contentious political and ontological status of drag and the function of the exemplary performative “I do.” It attempts to answer Judith Butler’s provocative question: “what happens to the performative when its purpose is precisely to undo the presumptive force of the heterosexual ceremonial” (1993a: 16). Taking account of concerns about LGBTQ assimilation, it argues that the gay “I do” creates new categories of inclusion and abjection, and, ultimately, new categories of the queer. It suggests, further, that the ontological slippage inherent to drag – often more than “just” performance, yet not quite constitutive of a performative identity – can help to maintain and reignite the political power of the queer in the face of hegemonic co-option.