Alex Iantaffi: Hello and welcome to another episode of Gender Stories.
Alex Iantaffi: As always, I am delighted and excited and thrilled really because Eun Bee Yes is not only the founder, show producer and director of um Transcendence Cabaret, which I will tell you all about it in a moment, but he's also wonderful colleague and friend.
Alex Iantaffi: And so I feel so privileged to get to talk to him today.
Alex Iantaffi: First of all, let me tell you about Transcendence Cabaret.
Alex Iantaffi: Transcendence Cabaret is an amazing troupe with some of the best well-known and up-and-coming artists in the Twin Cities.
Alex Iantaffi: They are transgender, genderqueer, gendernonconforming, Two-Spirit, and they're really all along the spectrum of gender and sexuality.
Alex Iantaffi: The artists from Transgender Cabaret are primarily Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and they're one of a handful of transgender troupes on Turtle Island, aka the so-called United States.
Alex Iantaffi: who centers artists of color.
Alex Iantaffi: Transcendence Cabaret offers an up-and-close personal experience and a spotlight on often overlooked talent within the unique drag music and art communities.
Alex Iantaffi: Their aim is not only to entertain their audiences, but to push themselves as artists in a rare opportunity to challenge the perceptions of their communities and to make art from the heart and soul.
Alex Iantaffi: And I can assure you, having seen some of their shows that you truly haven't seen anything yet until you spent an evening with Transcendence Cabaret.
Alex Iantaffi: And they invite you to join them each month in a constantly evolving show.
Alex Iantaffi: And if you don't live in the Twin Cities, don't worry, because I believe that their shows are also still being live streamed.
Alex Iantaffi: And so you can join from really anywhere as long as you can be up at that time.
Alex Iantaffi: So anywhere on the globe.
Alex Iantaffi: So if you're ready to go.
Alex Iantaffi: Above and Beyond the Binary, I really encourage you to watch one of their shows and let Transcendence Cabret be your guide.
Alex Iantaffi: So welcome, Eun Bee Yes You are the founder, show director, producer for Transcendence Cabaret, and I'm so, grateful that I got to talk with you today.
Alex Iantaffi: Welcome.
Eun Bee Yes: Oh, thank you, Alex.
Eun Bee Yes: It's so good to see you.
Eun Bee Yes: Oh my gosh.
Eun Bee Yes: Colleague and friend and chosen family and all that.
Eun Bee Yes: And yeah, when you when I got the invite, I was like, oh, no way, because your Gender Stories are amazing.
Eun Bee Yes: And I know a lot of people love it is like it really is an honor and a distinction to be included in this season's stories.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, know you'll probably have a whole lineup of fantastic.
Eun Bee Yes: ah interviewees, so for us to be part of the season's stories really means a lot on a personal professional level.
Eun Bee Yes: So yeah, thank you.
Alex Iantaffi: Thank you so much.
Alex Iantaffi: I feel much the same about you making time for this.
Alex Iantaffi: I know you're like really busy, you know, not just with Transcendence Cabaret, but with your, you know, your day job, your community organizing.
Alex Iantaffi: And I feel like my invite was much overdue.
Alex Iantaffi: And so I'm excited to talk to you about your troupe And so my first question is really like what moved you to like create Transcendence Cabaret, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Like there are many, many different troupes out there that do drag and the Twin Cities as if Fair number, I would say, of the houses and like a large drag community.
Alex Iantaffi: So why Transcendence Cabaret?
Alex Iantaffi: What kind of inspired you to create your troupes?
Eun Bee Yes: Right, well, back in 2016, 2017, I did a fundraiser.
Eun Bee Yes: So I, at the time, am now part of the Imperial Court of Minnesota, which is a nonprofit organization, part of the Imperial Court system, an international system nonprofit.
Eun Bee Yes: And we do fundraising for the community and for nonprofits in the community.
Eun Bee Yes: And prior to that, there really hadn't been a two things.
Eun Bee Yes: One, uh show for specifically trans, non-binary, Two-Spirit organizations, nonprofit organizations to raise money for them through the Imperial Court, at least in Minnesota.
Eun Bee Yes: And two, that featured all trans artists.
Eun Bee Yes: And that's the key, right?
Eun Bee Yes: So we had this fundraiser, first of its kind really, in the Imperial Court here in Minnesota.
Eun Bee Yes: raised a lot of money, and it was all trans artists, not one cisgender, drag, or burlesque artist.
Eun Bee Yes: And one of the things that we often say, and this is of course I think as it should be a holdover from, let's see.
Eun Bee Yes: civil uprisings and community activism work.
Eun Bee Yes: And from the 80s and the 90s, the days of the AIDS crisis when it's, give us our bread and roses now.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, that's an old, old quote.
Eun Bee Yes: But give us now, don't wait till we're dead and say, accolades, you know, we don't, that's not helpful.
Eun Bee Yes: And I got to thinking about all of that.
Eun Bee Yes: And as always, you you stand on the shoulders of the giants before you.
Eun Bee Yes: So I stand on the shoulders of my trancestors, as we coined that, right?
Eun Bee Yes: um Marsha P.
Eun Bee Yes: Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, the people who in Stonewall and Compton cafeteria, know, the uprisings then of our trans brothers and sisters and siblings and primarily People of Color, especially Black and brown, who led the whole, you know, um fight against homophobia, transphobia, and all of that, and brought about pride.
Eun Bee Yes: So to stand on those shoulders is humbling, and to carry on that work is important.
Eun Bee Yes: So after that fundraiser, I was like, oh my God, this is amazing, we should have more of this.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm like, well, why don't we have more of this?
Eun Bee Yes: So in 2017, I approached the then managers of Lush and said, hey, Would you be interested in us having a monthly show featuring all trans artists and primarily Black Indigenous People of Color artists, primarily, and then of course some white artists as well, but all trans.
Eun Bee Yes: It's an all trans period.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm not interested in centering cisgender at all because dominant society always centers cisgender and Here in Minneapolis, St.
Eun Bee Yes: Paul and the surrounding communities, we still have, it's mostly cisgender, troupes, drag shows and whatnot, burlesque shows.
Eun Bee Yes: It's gotten better, to be fair, since then, you know, it's gotten a lot more eclectic and a lot more better.
Eun Bee Yes: And so 2018, we had our very first show there at Lush.
Eun Bee Yes: And this is like our eighth year, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Eight consecutive year and 2020, epidemic, that epidemic, COVID epidemic, I should say, started and everything shut down.
Eun Bee Yes: And you you mentioned the hybrid.
Eun Bee Yes: are now the only monthly show that has a option.
Eun Bee Yes: We are at the Phoenix Theater and we moved from Lush to the Phoenix.
Eun Bee Yes: And well, first we moved to online only that first you saw that that March show was interesting on zoom because we didn't know what we're doing and things about and then we got lots better.
Eun Bee Yes: And then we moved to Phoenix eventually.
Eun Bee Yes: We were at this small, very intimate little place called the Midnight Theater, which is really amazing.
Eun Bee Yes: And my friend ran that and then they could no longer be there.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like now what?
Eun Bee Yes: And I chose Phoenix because it had built in streaming capabilities.
Eun Bee Yes: So now among these shows that Phoenix are streaming and it's still mandatory masking.
Eun Bee Yes: So in-person mandatory masking, no exceptions.
Eun Bee Yes: And then we have the streaming on our YouTube channel where like you said, anywhere in the world, people can just subscribe.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, they get a ticket, they get an automatic link and they can come in person.
Eun Bee Yes: with a masc or they can go online and it can stream.
Eun Bee Yes: to answer, go back to your original question as we started, because representation is important, because BIPOC representation is important.
Eun Bee Yes: When you have the intersectionality of BIPOC, trans, non-binary, and especially Two-Spirit, a representation within the artistic community back in 2017, 2018.
Eun Bee Yes: that was scarce on the ground.
Eun Bee Yes: And so I really wanted to center our communities that way and start a troupe that was really um revolutionary in the cities at that time.
Eun Bee Yes: And now it might be like, this is old hat.
Eun Bee Yes: And again, people standing in our show to say, know, transcendentists, they will then we also, and it's like, absolutely.
Eun Bee Yes: Let's expand beyond.
Eun Bee Yes: So it's more common, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Now it seems more common.
Eun Bee Yes: you know, we have troupes, people who are within the trans community.
Eun Bee Yes: No one blinks an eye.
Eun Bee Yes: And I'd like to hope that when we started in 2018, our, my goal was to make that less of a singular thing and more of a common occurrence.
Eun Bee Yes: And if it's more common occurrence now, then we did our job.
Eun Bee Yes: Absolutely.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, when you were saying like, it is more common now.
Eun Bee Yes: And I was like, and you were part of that change.
Eun Bee Yes: Like you, I really believe that at least in the Twin Cities, Transcendence was very much part of that change of that shift towards, you know, giving opportunities as well, because it's not just about the representation, it's also the opportunities for growth, right?
Eun Bee Yes: I love what it says in the bio for Transcendence Cabaret, that it's also about pushing kind of artistic expression, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And I...
Eun Bee Yes: I would assume that for a lot of Black, Indigenous, know, Folks of Color who wanted to enter the drag scene, and then on top of that trans, you know, the Two-Spirit, gender, expansive, non-binary, there would have been multiple barriers to access traditional drag scene.
Eun Bee Yes: And so I'm also curious about, you know, having a space like Transcendence is also a place for mentorship and like an entry point for artists, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Or at least I'm assuming so.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah, because I had original troupe and then as people would be guest artists on our shows, I like to think I have an eye for it, of really great talent, and I'd ask them to join, especially BIPOC.
Eun Bee Yes: And then after a while, these people would catch the eye of other show directors and other house leaders, parents, and join houses and then...
Eun Bee Yes: They'd be like, you know, I love my time with Transcendence and I'm not too time to move on.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like, you know, yeah.
Eun Bee Yes: I mean, I'm sad to see them go because it's bad.
Eun Bee Yes: But, you know, as parents and you and I also parents, I think one of the big goals we want is our kids to go beyond us.
Eun Bee Yes: So even though this wasn't like a house traditional, but maybe it kind of is right.
Eun Bee Yes: Because when you think of like the ballroom scene.
Eun Bee Yes: and the houses and the competitions.
Eun Bee Yes: was people bound together by chosen family and talent and their houses and competing.
Eun Bee Yes: And though we don't compete per se, it is, I tried to do two things.
Eun Bee Yes: One, the mentorship and the safety to do your art.
Eun Bee Yes: So our shows are not necessarily mainstream drag and there's nothing wrong with mainstream drag.
Eun Bee Yes: if you go back, like you mentioned the history of drag, drag was subversive.
Eun Bee Yes: You weren't supposed to do drag you know?
Eun Bee Yes: And I think also, I also understand flip side, where some trans people, especially trans women, be like, well, drag is mocking us as women.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like, my God, wasn't supposed to be like that at all.
Eun Bee Yes: And for those drag artists to do that, you need to correct yourself because drag really was, how dare you tell me that I can't get into fem, fem.
Eun Bee Yes: or female or femme presenting and do art.
Eun Bee Yes: Or later on, oh masc masc presenting and do art.
Eun Bee Yes: And that's still an issue, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Because drag King's masculine-centered art has seen us less than, which absolutely burns my biscuits, as our grandmas used to say, because you don't gatekeep.
Eun Bee Yes: Gatekeeping does not belong in a community.
Eun Bee Yes: So to go back to the origins of drag, it's a...
Eun Bee Yes: you get to interpret drag how you want to interpret drag.
Eun Bee Yes: And if you want to do mainstream pop stuff by all means, but for elevated, however you want to elevate that.
Eun Bee Yes: But I encourage the subversiveness.
Eun Bee Yes: Like if you want to do that cool, weird, funky art, if you want to do, I call it activist drag.
Eun Bee Yes: And maybe I coined that where you like take an issue and you do a number around it and you just expand that whether it's around.
Eun Bee Yes: you know, AIDS, HIV, whether it's around safe sex, whether it's around consent, whether it's around kink, polyamory, whether it's around Gothic stuff, know, alternative drag and all this is like big now.
Eun Bee Yes: But again, that stayed in the shadows for so long because that wasn't drag.
Eun Bee Yes: And I'm going to say, no, that's not, that's not true.
Eun Bee Yes: There's, drag is so big.
Eun Bee Yes: There's so many things that can do with, with drag that There should not be any gatekeeping.
Eun Bee Yes: What I want is good.
Eun Bee Yes: I want you to do the best.
Eun Bee Yes: I don't want you to come and just like sleepwalk.
Eun Bee Yes: Then this true person for you and our shows aren't for you.
Eun Bee Yes: You're not going to see that in our shows.
Eun Bee Yes: Those aren't the artists I want in my troupe.
Eun Bee Yes: I want people who want to perform and have this voice and heart and spirit.
Eun Bee Yes: that says when I'm on stage, I'm doing this thing.
Eun Bee Yes: And when I'm doing this thing, it's because I had an idea or I had my muse or whatever.
Eun Bee Yes: And I just crafted everything from the ground, from the ground up.
Eun Bee Yes: And so that's the mentorship that I wanna bring.
Eun Bee Yes: I wanna bring that safe space.
Eun Bee Yes: And then beyond that, I want people to go above and beyond and go out.
Eun Bee Yes: And maybe they're no longer with us, but then I see them.
Eun Bee Yes: getting bookings and doing other shows and being in their houses and just doing amazing things in the drag community.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think that's amazing.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like, wow, aren't we lucky?
Eun Bee Yes: So about a year so ago, one of my artists, Moe Russell, Honor Yes.
Eun Bee Yes: You you gotta remember all the names here.
Eun Bee Yes: Approached me and said, I got an idea.
Eun Bee Yes: And I said, okay.
Eun Bee Yes: And what their idea was was to create an open stage show.
Eun Bee Yes: And there's a lot of them, but here's the thing.
Eun Bee Yes: It's not a judged show.
Eun Bee Yes: It's not honest reaction.
Eun Bee Yes: You win.
Eun Bee Yes: We don't have prizes.
Eun Bee Yes: It's first come, first serve, first five.
Eun Bee Yes: We had to tweak it now to five.
Eun Bee Yes: We've had six or seven.
Eun Bee Yes: That was just, that was a lot.
Eun Bee Yes: So now we've got it honed down to five artists, open stage, two numbers, know, two sets, split tickets, split tips.
Eun Bee Yes: You get to do whatever you want.
Eun Bee Yes: And this is open stage where you don't have to be trans.
Eun Bee Yes: We really are.
Eun Bee Yes: This is open to everyone because again, drag and this is everything.
Eun Bee Yes: drag, burlesque, spoken word, comedy.
Eun Bee Yes: um Amazing.
Eun Bee Yes: whatever your muse wants you to do, you do it.
Eun Bee Yes: So I said, yeah, let's do it.
Eun Bee Yes: And so that's called Spotlight, Late Night Spotlight, because that's always, it's too late for a lot of people, but it's a 10.30 PM show.
Eun Bee Yes: I know, I'm so sorry.
Eun Bee Yes: It's at 10.30 at night at the Phoenix, but it's live streamed.
Eun Bee Yes: It's streamed against the hybrid shows so people can watch from wherever.
Eun Bee Yes: And we open it up to everyone, whether you're a veteran and You know, how we pitch it is, if you're a veteran, you've got a new act that you want to just see how this feels on stage.
Eun Bee Yes: See how it feels to as you move, as you do your first choreography on stage for the first time, as you do your makeup or your outfits a certain way.
Eun Bee Yes: How does that look?
Eun Bee Yes: How does that feel?
Eun Bee Yes: Okay, try it out.
Eun Bee Yes: And of course, the newbies, the new people.
Eun Bee Yes: Never stepped on stage.
Eun Bee Yes: I've always dreamed of being on stage.
Eun Bee Yes: I've always wanted to try.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like this is your open opportunity to try it, to network.
Eun Bee Yes: And, you know, we have show producers watching, we have other artists watching going, hey, you know what?
Eun Bee Yes: We've got a show.
Eun Bee Yes: Why don't you, I'm going to like pitch you.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm going to like tell my director, this artist was amazing.
Eun Bee Yes: I think we should have them as guest artists.
Eun Bee Yes: So again, it's all about creating that space.
Eun Bee Yes: where you can not only do that art, but you have opportunities, you have networking, you get to see what it's like, you've got a broad audience, I get a safe environment, you cheer, there isn't, you don't have to worry about being judged.
Eun Bee Yes: Although this year we had three opportunities of mentorship, not judging, mentors, where we'd have four mentors from the community who I chose.
Eun Bee Yes: who I thought were kind and caring and compassionate, who would truly give feedback that would elevate these artists.
Eun Bee Yes: And our total spotlight is, the theme is called Gentleman's Choice.
Eun Bee Yes: And it's, I got four gentlemen mentors and this is centered about masc-centered art.
Eun Bee Yes: So like I said, drag kings are often looked down on, are often marginalized.
Eun Bee Yes: And I said not.
Eun Bee Yes: not at this specific show.
Eun Bee Yes: Not only is it all masc-centered art, we're bringing in four gentlemen um to be mentors to say, this is great.
Eun Bee Yes: Here's how to elevate the look or the number or how you do the choreography so that they can tweak that number and really refine it and really maybe make it, you know, their showstopper number or the number that they're known by or number that they might use.
Eun Bee Yes: you very much.
Eun Bee Yes: to enter a competition or something, that's what the mentor shows up for.
Eun Bee Yes: And spotlight overall is that mentoring opportunity that we want to give open stage, no judging, no competition, just that opportunity.
Eun Bee Yes: So like you said, Alex, that mentoring is important, that nurturing is important.
Eun Bee Yes: And so Transcendence overall, um That's what we do is we encourage the art and the mentoring and the safety and the supports that people can really create art that speaks to them.
Eun Bee Yes: And that the audience could go, I have never seen that.
Eun Bee Yes: We hear that.
Eun Bee Yes: I have never seen that at a show before.
Eun Bee Yes: um And then we're going, great, come back, come back, bring friends, come back, you know, cause it really makes our artists happy to see.
Eun Bee Yes: people and the audience just absolutely thrilled and, you know, just have that wonder and that joy to share that art with.
Eun Bee Yes: Absolutely.
Eun Bee Yes: And that's what I love about Transcendence.
Eun Bee Yes: It's so innovative, it's so fun.
Eun Bee Yes: It's also just beautifully produced, of course.
Eun Bee Yes: But it really feels so consistent with me, with the true spirit of drag, as somebody who's been out as queer for, I don't know, over a quarter of a century.
Eun Bee Yes: Now, let's really seeing kind of, I think that when I first came out, Drag was really interesting because I felt there was a real contrast between the way that cisgender gay men, to be honest, did drag, especially white cisgender gay men, because I think there's an issue, there's a difference, right?
Eun Bee Yes: There's an influence of white supremacy even on the drag scene in some ways, right?
Eun Bee Yes: It's like if I think the way that white cis gay men were doing drag in the 90s is very different than what we're talking about.
Eun Bee Yes: oh I feel like the way Transcendence does drag, really there feels like there is that connection to ballroom culture, to the house culture, to like, and that was really like, Folks of Color where it was very different, you know, in my understanding and having been, having had the privilege and the gift to go to some kind of ballroom events is such a different event than like cis white gay man doing drag, to be honest.
Eun Bee Yes: And so You know, that's what I love about Transcendence that it's drag is not just about uh playing with gender, but it's truly about inviting people to question the norms, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Even of gender question the boundaries of artistic expression, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And really question all those like binaries that we might tend to fall back on in dominant culture and think.
Eun Bee Yes: bigger, larger, brighter, more creatively, right?
Eun Bee Yes: I just love the expansiveness of the shows, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And to me that expansiveness is how I've experienced ballroom culture as an outsider.
Eun Bee Yes: It's the expansiveness of how I think about what drag can bring to the world.
Eun Bee Yes: And it does make me wonder if that is why there's been such a backlash.
Eun Bee Yes: on the drag scene in the past few years, because as the scene has really honored this tradition of ballroom, uh brought us this amazing expansive artist and more artists of color, more Indigenous artists, more trans artists, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Even in mainstream drag, if I think about, I think about drag race as a little more mainstream, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And even seeing the shift that there's been in shows like Drag Race, right?
Eun Bee Yes: if that starts to be a threat to a system or a dominant culture that wants more constriction and more rigidity and more binaries, whereas like drag really brings creativity and possibility and expansion for art.
Eun Bee Yes: I don't know if that makes sense or if you resonate with any of that.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah, yeah, because you know, I mean, obviously, we've had this whole thing about drag story time, which really is sad.
Eun Bee Yes: Because I've been I've had the privilege of doing drag story time.
Eun Bee Yes: And when I'm looking at an audience of little children in their eyes are big and white.
Eun Bee Yes: And I'm reading to them a story about, you know, feeling like a crayon.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, there's that one book about You know, where you have a red crayon or a green crayon on the outside and a red crayon on the inside, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And then you finally take off the wrapper and you're the red crayon and you're accepted.
Eun Bee Yes: Finally, for who you are, obviously allegory, trans allegory.
Eun Bee Yes: But when you read this to children who are three, four, five, six, seven years old, we're not talking about mix of cisgender, it may be queer, trans children.
Eun Bee Yes: sure you see the rainbow pins and the trans pins sometimes with them but all I see are children who are like going this is a cool story and can I touch your dress?
Eun Bee Yes: Can I you know can I can I look at your you can touch your dress can I look at your makeup and the hair can I have a photo and and it's not pushing an agenda right the only agenda pushing is first of all reading literacy and knowledge and being together as a community.
Eun Bee Yes: And when I see all these children, regardless of race, regardless of gender, whatever, enjoying a story, that's all I'm doing is I'm sharing a story and then we get photos and I'm chatting to them and they're asking me the best questions like, your makeup is so sparkly.
Eun Bee Yes: Yes, how do you make your makeup so sparkly, right?
Eun Bee Yes: you do that?
Eun Bee Yes: And then they want to look at my nails.
Eun Bee Yes: So they want to try my rings.
Eun Bee Yes: And I'm like, well, you know, I don't understand that hate.
Eun Bee Yes: Because I don't think any of these people have actually attended a drag story time, honestly.
Eun Bee Yes: They'd be saying, you're telling a story.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm like, yeah.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah, and just looking fabulous while you do it.
Eun Bee Yes: And that's the thing.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah.
Eun Bee Yes: And that's why I think drag is such a beautiful celebration of imagination and possibility and what happens when we're not limited by constriction, right?
Eun Bee Yes: If I think even, you know, my daughter, who you know, like...
Eun Bee Yes: has been exposed in air quotes to drag since she was little.
Eun Bee Yes: I think she probably saw her first drag show when she was like five or six, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And she's in her twenties now and I'm pretty sure she would be fine with me saying this, but I'll check in with her.
Eun Bee Yes: worry.
Eun Bee Yes: Before I release this episode.
Eun Bee Yes: And if you hear this Gender Stories, listeners or watchers, if you're watching on YouTube, please rest assured that this story is going to be shared with her consent.
Eun Bee Yes: I will make sure I get her consent.
Eun Bee Yes: but she's one of the most cisgender girls I've ever met.
Eun Bee Yes: know what I mean?
Eun Bee Yes: Like even my friends would tease me when they came to our house and be like, it looks like a pink dragon is puked all over this room.
Eun Bee Yes: This is your child, you know, from this very queer household, you know?
Eun Bee Yes: And she's always loved femininity.
Eun Bee Yes: And for her drag was just this like beautiful, expansive celebration of femininity, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And I remember after she saw her first all ages, of course, family-friendly drag shows, because sometimes people don't understand that there are kind of adults-only drag shows, but there are also all-ages family-friendly drag shows, and so this would have been all-ages family-friendly drag shows, that what she was excited about was the imagination aspect, the dressing up, the performing.
Eun Bee Yes: I remember, you know, practicing like lip syncing.
Eun Bee Yes: and doing choreography.
Eun Bee Yes: And a lot of that came from drag and seeing just how wonderful it is to just be yourself.
Eun Bee Yes: And that message, I think, is so powerful, no matter what the identities of the kids involved in Drag Story Hour.
Eun Bee Yes: Because this was before Drag Story Hour was the thing.
Eun Bee Yes: It would have been 18 or so years ago.
Eun Bee Yes: But even just like the celebration of imagination, creativity, glitter, glamour, show...
Eun Bee Yes: person-ship, I don't know what to say, showmanship, show person-ship, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And the centering of femininity, you know, which is traditional in drag, even though we have so many wonderful drag kings too, was what was really powerful.
Eun Bee Yes: for her, especially because there were so many masc people in her life.
Eun Bee Yes: She was surrounded by so many trans masc people and queer men.
Eun Bee Yes: so drag was like, yes, all the girliness and the femininity and the beauty and the makeup and the nails and the dress and the music.
Eun Bee Yes: It's fabulous.
Eun Bee Yes: It's just fabulous, if nothing else.
Eun Bee Yes: And why do we want to take that away from anybody, especially children?
Eun Bee Yes: who love imagination.
Eun Bee Yes: don't know if that makes sense, but.
Eun Bee Yes: Oh yeah, well I think it makes a good point because all ages drag shows versus adult shows.
Eun Bee Yes: When we get an invite and we've been lucky to be at Pride like I think for the last three years now, I know I do the artist chat and I make it very clear, no more, no PG-13 perhaps, but nothing strong with the music, no F words, none.
Eun Bee Yes: Maybe a damn, maybe a hell, maybe a shit.
Eun Bee Yes: but we are performing in front of a mixed audience with very small children, like three, four years on up.
Eun Bee Yes: And I always tell them, we have our venues where we perform, it's adults only.
Eun Bee Yes: We can get raunchy.
Eun Bee Yes: We can do our show, our rated, X rated songs.
Eun Bee Yes: We can do the adult gestures and whatnot.
Eun Bee Yes: But when we're doing an all ages show, let's tap into...
Eun Bee Yes: Let this be creative, you know?
Eun Bee Yes: Like I remember one artist said, I don't know how to do that because I've never done it.
Eun Bee Yes: I said, well, now there's a great opportunity for you to expand that part of your art.
Eun Bee Yes: If this is what you like to do.
Eun Bee Yes: And they did great.
Eun Bee Yes: They're like, oh my God, I'm a little intimidated.
Eun Bee Yes: I said, just listen to a bunch of songs, you know?
Eun Bee Yes: And they found something and they said, oh my God, I've got the, and the kids loved them.
Eun Bee Yes: they just afterwards they're like, that was so much fun.
Eun Bee Yes: And they couldn't wait to do the next.
Eun Bee Yes: all ages show, which is the point, you know.
Eun Bee Yes: But it is about fun, and it is about imagination, and it is about...
Eun Bee Yes: I think as adults, we are told that we need to be adults and that we are not to be frivolous.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think what an All Ages drag show allows everyone to do.
Eun Bee Yes: You you can have the excuse, maybe excuse of, I'm bringing my kids or my nieces, nephews, nieblets to a drag show or my friends' kids to an All Ages drag show.
Eun Bee Yes: But I wonder.
Eun Bee Yes: As some of these adults, isn't that a grand excuse to be like, I get to also, you know, have that childlike glee and wonder and just let it go, let it go.
Eun Bee Yes: Just enjoy and get caught up in the art and the imagination and the creativity and the music, you know, and hand, you know, tipping and it's so fun to tip, you know, because we just love.
Eun Bee Yes: We love it when it's at all ages because the little ones come up with their dollar bills and we all melt.
Eun Bee Yes: You can just see us just physically turn into piles of ghoul on the stage with these children.
Eun Bee Yes: And it's just, it's just love.
Eun Bee Yes: It's love from us to them.
Eun Bee Yes: And one of the things I always say, you know, at Pride is you are our best hope.
Eun Bee Yes: You are the next generations.
Eun Bee Yes: You are hope and you are what we pour everything into because you'll be better than us and hopefully have more opportunities than we did and bust down more doors than we did.
Eun Bee Yes: And again, just to build on the shoulders that you're standing upon, I want these kids who watch us now to be like, I watched drag and I understood that I could do whatever I wanted to do creatively.
Eun Bee Yes: I didn't have to ask for permission.
Eun Bee Yes: didn't matter that I was Black or Brown or Indigenous.
Eun Bee Yes: I could be up on that stage.
Eun Bee Yes: It didn't matter if I wanted to do, you know, feminine drag, masc drag, androgynous, gender fluid drag.
Eun Bee Yes: That was okay.
Eun Bee Yes: What mattered was I could do art that spoke to people.
Eun Bee Yes: I could do art that made people think.
Eun Bee Yes: I could do art that made my heart sing regardless.
Eun Bee Yes: That's what this is all about is connecting with people and saying, was the show?
Eun Bee Yes: And they said, I loved it because I could, this number or that number, or when your artists did this and they go, I got tears in my eyes or I felt such joy.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like, then we did our job.
Eun Bee Yes: Then that to us is a successful show is when we have people go, we come back because we feel this joy and we feel, we just feel and I think we are told so much, in this regime that we're in now, we're supposed to conform and not question and numb ourselves.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think really that's what they're afraid of, you know, is because when you do art and when you tap into art or when you see art and you feel art and art is telling you Don't conform, don't give up, resist, don't give in.
Eun Bee Yes: Support is community, support as all of us standing together.
Eun Bee Yes: No regime wants to hear that.
Eun Bee Yes: No fascist regime, no authoritarian regime wants to hear fight back and it doesn't have to be violence.
Eun Bee Yes: It can be many different ways of fighting.
Eun Bee Yes: back and if that's the nourishment that we're giving people, you're right.
Eun Bee Yes: We are dangerous.
Eun Bee Yes: We should be stopped because we're giving a message that they don't want given out to everyone, to the public, to nourish, to guide, maybe to spark.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think that's to go back to what we first started about, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Which is what is so dangerous about drag so dangerous about even Transcendence cabaret.
Eun Bee Yes: It's because we are trying to provide different blueprints of joy and creativity and resistance.
Eun Bee Yes: And I hate saying strength because you know got to be strong.
Eun Bee Yes: That's really hot but strength and uh networking and connection and to provide all those different important parts.
Eun Bee Yes: um to people who might have lost hope or are losing hope and provide hope.
Eun Bee Yes: Rebellions are built on hope.
Eun Bee Yes: There's my geek part coming out, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And that's true.
Eun Bee Yes: I remember Andor Season 2, oh my gosh, what a brilliant season.
Eun Bee Yes: Like they said, they did this three years before.
Eun Bee Yes: They storyboarded this three years before.
Eun Bee Yes: This wasn't a three years now, we know what this is gonna be like.
Eun Bee Yes: God, why would we want that three years from now?
Eun Bee Yes: But here we are.
Eun Bee Yes: And Andor gave that whole epic storyline about what does the empire do?
Eun Bee Yes: What does a fascist regime do?
Eun Bee Yes: What stories does it tell?
Eun Bee Yes: Who does it make, right?
Eun Bee Yes: The victims.
Eun Bee Yes: Exactly.
Eun Bee Yes: And then what does the resistance do to resist that?
Eun Bee Yes: It's not always the big grand gestures.
Eun Bee Yes: It's sometimes the small trickle, that steady stream.
Eun Bee Yes: And if we are part of that steady stream in small ways, or we're seen as a big resistor in big ways, which puts a target on our backs.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm aware of that.
Eun Bee Yes: well.
Eun Bee Yes: Absolutely, I love that that's where the conversation is going because in a way drag is resistance.
Eun Bee Yes: Drag is resistance to, you know, um the normativity of like, is resistance to cis-gender or mononormativity is resistance to rigid gender norms.
Eun Bee Yes: And in that way, it's also resistance to colonialism is resistance to white supremacy is resistance to fascism.
Eun Bee Yes: And I don't think it's an accident that kind of oppressive regimes like the current fascist regime kind of targets intellectuals, artists, trans people, know, drag artists.
Eun Bee Yes: You're right.
Eun Bee Yes: We're dangerous because we invite people to keep dreaming, to keep dreaming into possibility, to ask questions.
Eun Bee Yes: And I always say to people, let's just think about who benefits when you stop asking questions.
Eun Bee Yes: Like who really benefits when we stop asking questions, when we stop dreaming, when we stop playing, because that's the other thing, right?
Eun Bee Yes: You were saying like, as adults, we're told that some things are frivolous, right?
Eun Bee Yes: Like play.
Eun Bee Yes: And yet we need play.
Eun Bee Yes: So drag is also form of play and joy and just celebration and community.
Eun Bee Yes: and in that becomes a threat when we want people to just focus on.
Eun Bee Yes: producing and upholding a system that only certain people benefit from, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And so in that way, a dumping, it's an accident that Drag Story Hour, for example, has been so targeted because it does invite children to like dream into the fact that play doesn't have to end uh when you become an adult.
Eun Bee Yes: Play might change, but we can still play dress up.
Eun Bee Yes: we can still play make believe, we can still test artistic boundaries, and we can still honor each other's creativity.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think drag is such a beautiful celebration of that.
Eun Bee Yes: It's, you know, I tear up at drag shows and then I feel a little embarrassed because, you know, it's fun, it's a drag show, but it's the emotions move.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, and I'm so excited.
Eun Bee Yes: I had so many thoughts when you were talking.
Eun Bee Yes: The other thing that I love, it's also that drag shows are interactive.
Eun Bee Yes: You were talking about kids coming up with their little $1 bills, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And in a way, that's also teaching children the mutuality of art, right?
Eun Bee Yes: The artist is giving you a show and you're showing them appreciation, but like.
Eun Bee Yes: clapping and making noises and participating and giving money if you can, right?
Eun Bee Yes: To say thank you.
Eun Bee Yes: it's like, there is a, it's not a transactional relationship.
Eun Bee Yes: It's a, there's a mutuality for me to good drag shows, if that makes sense.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah, it sure does.
Eun Bee Yes: mean, the money, I mean, we're not gonna, like Dolly said, it takes a lot of money to make me look this cheap, right?
Eun Bee Yes: And it takes a lot of money to make a drag artist look as wonderful as they look.
Eun Bee Yes: don't, I'm not, I'm never gonna like get back all the money I've put into my outfits and the makeup and whatnot.
Eun Bee Yes: But that's not the point.
Eun Bee Yes: Yes.
Eun Bee Yes: Yeah.
Eun Bee Yes: I think there's just so many misunderstandings.
Eun Bee Yes: So I'm glad we're talking about all of this.
Eun Bee Yes: I feel like this is a conversation that could have for a long time, but do want to be respectful of your time.
Eun Bee Yes: And you did mention safety.
Eun Bee Yes: And so I do want to take a moment to think about, especially a troupe like Transcendence, right, with the centering of, you know, Black, Indigenous, Folks of Color and trans artists.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, I'm assuming there might be some feelings of unease or concerns maybe around safety, not only physical safety, but also emotional and psychological safety because of the onslaught of like transphobic messages and racist messages and ableist, you know, messages that we keep hearing every day.
Eun Bee Yes: So How are you and your troupe and also your house?
Eun Bee Yes: Cause you also have the house of yes.
Eun Bee Yes: I believe you're the Zaddy house dad of the house of yes.
Eun Bee Yes: How are folks in your circle doing in terms of all of those safety concerns at the moment?
Eun Bee Yes: thank you for that.
Eun Bee Yes: uh I guess we're doing.
Eun Bee Yes: uh I've reached out to my artists.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm going to be writing something on Instagram the next day or so, a statement from us, adjusting the ramped up transphobic, the targeting against trans people and the transphobic, really hateful messaging that is coming out and also kind of like the urging of violence.
Eun Bee Yes: Mm-hmm.
Eun Bee Yes: And first of we're not going anywhere.
Eun Bee Yes: Our art's here to stay.
Eun Bee Yes: So there's that.
Eun Bee Yes: And to balance that as always, there's a safety of my artists.
Eun Bee Yes: So I've told my people, you get to decide if you need to step back from, I mean, that literal and the figurative spotlight.
Eun Bee Yes: You get to decide if this is too much for you emotionally to handle because it's emotionally, it's a lot.
Eun Bee Yes: for our communities right now, for day-to-day stuff, not to mention, we are specifically going on a stage to specifically celebrate trans art.
Eun Bee Yes: this might not go wrong at all, and I'm nothing ever happens.
Eun Bee Yes: um But my main concern is the safety and emotional and mental well-being of my artists and my artists in my house of yes to make sure, hey.
Eun Bee Yes: and I do those check-ins, are you okay?
Eun Bee Yes: Do you need anything?
Eun Bee Yes: What can I do to support you as your show director and producer?
Eun Bee Yes: And I think one of the pleas I'll make to our general audience are twofold.
Eun Bee Yes: One is of course to speak up and defend.
Eun Bee Yes: And the other is to just come to our shows because resistance means you're telling us we shouldn't support.
Eun Bee Yes: trans people, while we're going to double down and say, no, you know, we're going to go to the shows with trans artists.
Eun Bee Yes: We're going to like buy tickets and tip money and sponsor shows or be, uh as I like to say, the patron of the arts, you know, we're going to, we're going to do that because that, that's really, that's really important.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, it's not transactional.
Eun Bee Yes: like that.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, we don't do it like that.
Eun Bee Yes: We're always grateful and humbled when we get that support.
Eun Bee Yes: But safety is important.
Eun Bee Yes: I worry before each show.
Eun Bee Yes: Now, I worry about our safety.
Eun Bee Yes: When we perform at, the Black Heart, they have security ah in other places.
Eun Bee Yes: ah We don't necessarily have something set in place at our monthly shows.
Eun Bee Yes: and I've had discussions with Phoenix Theater.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think...
Eun Bee Yes: if, and I don't want to say when, but if violent acts occur and take up here in the Twin Cities targeted acts against my trans non-binary Two-Spirit communities, we might have to take a second look and go, what is the safest thing for us as artists and for our audience too?
Eun Bee Yes: You know, it's not just us who might be targeted and harmed.
Eun Bee Yes: It could be anyone, you know, coming to enjoy our art.
Eun Bee Yes: And that would just, that would devastate me.
Eun Bee Yes: Everything, all this is devastating to think about.
Eun Bee Yes: So that's very much on my mind is to continue to do the art.
Eun Bee Yes: But if this encouragement of violence towards our marginalized trans communities, especially Black and Brown people, especially them, especially our Two-Spirit siblings um are encouraged and supposed to level up, so to speak.
Eun Bee Yes: I worry a lot.
Eun Bee Yes: I worry about this.
Eun Bee Yes: mean, and I don't want to like grab worried.
Eun Bee Yes: I don't want to spread anxiety because that's awful either to live in fear because that's what they want, right?
Eun Bee Yes: They want us to hop around.
Eun Bee Yes: yeah.
Eun Bee Yes: So Alex, it's really multifaceted.
Eun Bee Yes: It's not only we should have to, but we also need to be mindful of.
Eun Bee Yes: We should be able to be artists and we also get to take good care of ourselves.
Eun Bee Yes: We also want to have a great audience and we want to be careful for their safety.
Eun Bee Yes: So it's all these multifaceted moving, small moving parts that make up this big picture that I that I think about before our shows and I keep an eye on what is going on in the greater community in Minneapolis.
Eun Bee Yes: What acts of violence have been perpetrated?
Eun Bee Yes: What is the pulse?
Eun Bee Yes: Are we still safe?
Eun Bee Yes: And then, you know, I don't want to say we'd stop.
Eun Bee Yes: Would we move to hybrid only, an online platform?
Eun Bee Yes: We might.
Eun Bee Yes: We might have to do that, but I don't think we want to stop doing the art.
Eun Bee Yes: I think if we stop doing the art, um they win.
Eun Bee Yes: And I'm not ever going to let a fascist regime win.
Eun Bee Yes: And I agree.
Eun Bee Yes: know, as somebody is like, like, I mean, we're same generation, but like I remember there have been times when we've had to be more underground.
Eun Bee Yes: Like there'd be, you know, even as brought up in Italy, I remember going to my first queer places in Italy.
Eun Bee Yes: They were much more underground.
Eun Bee Yes: was like no signage outside.
Eun Bee Yes: You know, there'd be like this garage door would open up at like 10 o'clock at night and the club is in there.
Eun Bee Yes: And they checked like who you are.
Eun Bee Yes: and your name and they have a record because that's how we keep ourselves safe too sometimes.
Eun Bee Yes: And so I know we will not stop.
Eun Bee Yes: We will find ways to keep coming together as a community, you know, and I love that you and I have, of course, it's, I'm zero surprised that you prioritize and center the safety of the community because that's what drag also is, is community, is family, is belonging.
Eun Bee Yes: And it's safety within community, safety in numbers.
Eun Bee Yes: We come together, we know we're not alone, even when the regime would rather have us isolated.
Eun Bee Yes: oh Well, we're coming towards the end of our time together, but one of the questions I've been asking all my interviewees at the moment is like, yes, the world is bleak and somehow we resist, we find ways to like nourish ourselves.
Eun Bee Yes: give ourselves some like nourishment, pleasure, joy, comfort.
Eun Bee Yes: What's nourishing you, giving you pleasure and comfort nowadays, even no matter how small it is.
Eun Bee Yes: uh good, what's nourishing?
Eun Bee Yes: um Spending time with my sons is always nourishing.
Eun Bee Yes: In fact, my oldest and I just went and saw Demon Slayer, Infinity Castle last night in the movie theater that was grand.
Eun Bee Yes: That was really cool.
Eun Bee Yes: That made me very happy.
Eun Bee Yes: um I think it goes back to community though.
Eun Bee Yes: I love getting together with my house of yes, we do that.
Eun Bee Yes: I love seeing my troupe.
Eun Bee Yes: We've got three shows upcoming here in October.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm so excited.
Eun Bee Yes: got, yep, October 3rd, good Lord, it's the end of September.
Eun Bee Yes: Oy vey, So October, I'm very excited to see everybody.
Eun Bee Yes: just, one of my troupe members just got married.
Eun Bee Yes: That was a big celebration.
Eun Bee Yes: She got married and I officiated the wedding and I remember asking her kind of jokingly at the beginning, am I to you?
Eun Bee Yes: And she just looked at me and she said, you know, you're a producer, you're my family, you're the patriarch.
Eun Bee Yes: And it's like, I can't, don't know if I can continue fishing at this wedding.
Eun Bee Yes: I'm gonna start balling, you know?
Eun Bee Yes: It was so much joy.
Eun Bee Yes: It's so much happiness.
Eun Bee Yes: And as we're doing that and as we're celebrating, again, that's resistance.
Eun Bee Yes: And I think it's those things that nurture me that make me happy, that give me self-care is, I mean, honestly, just the fact that I'm breathing and doing my thing, I know really makes people mad.
Eun Bee Yes: It's like too bad.
Eun Bee Yes: If we do it out of spite, sometimes spite is more than enough.
Eun Bee Yes: absolutely.
Eun Bee Yes: I have a little powered by spite sticker.
Eun Bee Yes: So like my family knows, I'm very powered by spite personally.
Eun Bee Yes: So I so relate to what you just said.
Eun Bee Yes: And then the last thing I always ask everybody on Gender Stories is, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you are hoping to talk about or anything that you would like to leave the Gender Stories listeners or watchers, if you're watching this on YouTube, with at the end of the episode.
Eun Bee Yes: That's a good one.
Eun Bee Yes: um You know, I think I just want to reiterate that um it's a hard time living in.
Eun Bee Yes: It is a fascist government.
Eun Bee Yes: know people might disagree, but from what I'm seeing and what they're doing, if it's not fascist, it's fascist light, that's for sure.
Eun Bee Yes: It's the run up to it real fast.
Eun Bee Yes: And I want people to remember they're not alone.
Eun Bee Yes: They want us to divide, conquerors what they want, and they want us to despair.
Eun Bee Yes: and the darkest days of the AIDS crisis in the nineties, when I was losing my friends, my chosen family, when I was going to funerals, when I was seeing the government again turn its back on us, we took care of each other.
Eun Bee Yes: Our community took care of each other.
Eun Bee Yes: That's where my drag started in 1990, 91, 92 is to do drag.
Eun Bee Yes: for fundraisers for our nonprofits who took care of our HIV and AIDS community, people who had HIV and AIDS in the community because no one else would.
Eun Bee Yes: So that's why anything I have to say is don't lose hope.
Eun Bee Yes: Falter, but don't Get back up.
Eun Bee Yes: Don't despair.
Eun Bee Yes: We are here.
Eun Bee Yes: We're connected.
Eun Bee Yes: They can't take away our joy.
Eun Bee Yes: They can't take away our presence.
Eun Bee Yes: They can't take away who we are.
Eun Bee Yes: As we've said, trans people have always been here.
Eun Bee Yes: We've been here from age millennium.
Eun Bee Yes: We will always be here now and in the future.
Eun Bee Yes: BIPOC trans, know, everybody, our Two-Spirit people have always been here, regardless of colonization and genocide.
Eun Bee Yes: Maybe we should take a page from our Indigenous um compatriots and siblings and friends and.
Eun Bee Yes: caretakers across the globe, resist, always resist.
Eun Bee Yes: And if things get hard, it's okay to be afraid and it's okay to be sad.
Eun Bee Yes: It's okay to have all those feelings.
Eun Bee Yes: But every one of those governments have fallen, Alex.
Eun Bee Yes: Everyone, look at the history, they've risen, they've fallen, and we've always been here to take care of each other, to pick up those pieces, and build something better.
Eun Bee Yes: What a beautiful message.
Eun Bee Yes: Thank you, Eun Bee Yes.
Eun Bee Yes: What a beautiful message to leave the Gender Stories listeners and watchers with and dear Gender Stories listeners, if you're excited about watching a show of Transcendence Cabaret, don't worry because all of the links, of course, are going to be in the episode description.
Eun Bee Yes: And so you can join those shows from anywhere and you can tip the performers through the uh gifts of electronic, you know, webs, so don't worry, like get those tickets, watch the show is wonderful, and maybe that's one of the ways that you get to practice cultivating hope.
Eun Bee Yes: And so I hope you find ways to connect with playfulness, with joy, with creativity, with expansiveness, so that you can keep resisting, and until next time.