This chapter analyzes the October 21, 2000 drag king performance by Mildred Gerestant, a.k.a. Dred. Arguing that her act appropriates, embodies, and manipulates certain ideological discourses of desire and identity, the article studies the shape and force of Dred's performative arguments and illuminates how a drag king act can not only tease and titillate the addressed audience (the actual people who watched the show) but also hail the invoked audience (the audience called upon, imagined, or made possible by the performance). Arguing that, as a rhetorical act, Dred's performance offers a purposeful discourse about gender, race, and power, this chapter ultimately explores how a rhetorical analysis of FTM drag elucidates the complex relationship between the rhetor, performance, and audience. More specifically, it shows how a rhetor's performance of non-normative identity and engagement with discourses of desire has the potential to unmask the hegemonic effects of language and power and to unsuture the seemingly natural connections between sex and gender. (C) 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
