Texas Christian University is dealing with an outcry over its course on the “art of drag,” an elective that requires college students to create their very own “drag persona” and explores how such performances contribute to “queer world making.”
Students enrolled in “The Queer Art of Drag,” provided by the Department of Women & Gender Studies, should select a reputation and “drag greeting” for his or her “drag persona,” in addition to develop a “lip-sync portfolio” and produce a efficiency video for the TCU Annual Night of Drag.
The course, which additionally delves into the historical past of drag in “challenging dominant norms and systems of oppression,” is taught by Nino Testa, whose drag identify is “Maria von Clapp.”
The remaining four-page paper “on the entire process of developing your drag persona” needs to be written in “the voice of your drag persona.”
“This class has been generously funded by an Inclusive Excellence Grant from the Office of Diversity & Inclusion,” the spring 2023 syllabus mentioned.
TCU has provided the category since a minimum of 2021, in accordance to Texas Scorecard, however the specter of a college affiliated with a Christian denomination selling drag queens drew pushback after Campus Reform drew consideration to the course in a June 15 put up.
“HOT TAKE: Christian schools shouldn’t have classes on drag,” tweeted the conservative Texas Family Project.
“There are students going into debt to attend TCU and take a class that requires them to put on drag shows,” the group mentioned. “Let that sink in.”
Drag queens have turn out to be a cultural flashpoint as males wearing outlandish feminine costumes, as soon as the province of grownup cabaret golf equipment, more and more work together with kids at colleges, libraries and family-friendly venues within the identify of selling inclusion.
The conservative Media Research Center declared that “TCU might as well drop Christian from their name if they are going to be offering ‘Queer Art of Drag’ classes.”
TCU is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a left-tilting mainline denomination that added in 2013 “sexual orientation and gender identity” to its record of affirmed classes with the objective of making “welcoming and affirming congregations,” as per the Human Rights Campaign.
Since then, the church’s membership has plummeted from about 639,500 to 350,000, making it the “fastest declining church” within the mainline Protestant denominations, in accordance to Juicy Ecumenism, a weblog of the Institute on Religion & Democracy.
TCU may as nicely drop Christian from their identify if they’re going to offer “Queer Art of Drag” courses.
https://t.co/dRotsqRRt6
— MRCTV (@mrctv) June 20, 2023
“This type of content is becoming standard fare at formerly/nominally Christian colleges,” tweeted Thomas S. Kidd, professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.
One self-identified TCU alumnus mentioned they might cease donating to the college after studying in regards to the drag class.
“Thus ends my alumni donations to @TCU as of today,” tweeted @sanden. “I won’t support the indoctrination of young adults and children by crossdressers.”
TCU, a non-public analysis college with an enrollment of about 10,500, has not commented publicly on the category.
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