Among those performing in a drag
fundraiser Saturday on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa was a drag king
performing songs from Adam Lambert and Chris Brown.
Six service members – some gay, some
straight – performed for a capacity crowd at the Rocker NCO Club to
raise funds for the recently formed Okinawa chapter of OutServe-SLDN,
a group which advocates on behalf of the military's LGBT community.
The show is believed to be the first on a military installation to
feature drag queens.
“We didn't think there was much of a
desire for an event like this on the island but it has actually blown
up,” Navy LT. Marissa Greene, co-chapter leader of OutServe
Okinawa, told Stars
and Stripes.
Greene said she hoped to sell about 75
tickets but wound up selling 400.
“We ended up selling 400 tickets in
10 days,” she said.
Manny Nuff, the event's sole drag king,
said she chose to perform songs from Adam Lambert and Chris Brown
because she “wanted some upbeat songs.”
“I just wanted something that I was
going to have fun with. If I wasn't going to be entertained by the
song, then I know nobody else was going to be,” she said. (A video
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