Abstract
Miss Gay Western Cape (MGWC) is a pageant for drag queens and/or female impersonators held annually in Cape Town, South Africa. This chapter represents a rare engagement by a community which is more often the subject of studies. Drag and pageant spaces in South Africa have existed as an enabling platform for freedoms associated with diverse non-normative gender identities and gender expressions—to be explored, appreciated and celebrated. Subjectively, many draw distinctions between the performance of drag and the impersonation of “womanness”, known as the art of female impersonation. Drag depicts an exaggerated, over-the-top performance of hyper-femininity for persons assigned male at birth, and masculinity for persons assigned female at birth. Female impersonation is synonymous with beauty, pageantry and glamour, while the performance of drag is congruent with parody and the more creative and explorative art of lip-sync performance.
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