The Real Reveal with Brandon Eiseman aka Deja Brooks

You can't talk about gender and the queer community without talking about drag. In fact, if you don't know this, the queer movement was started at a bar in New York City called Stonewall. Stonewall was a riot that happened when the police had continually broken and busted into this bar and arrested people over and over and over again. These people were being brutalized back then; you couldn't even wear a piece of clothing that was the opposite gender without possibly getting arrested for that and so finally these people decided that they had had enough and they fought back. We honor our trans women, drag queens, and butches every year when we celebrate Pride, when we celebrate the beginning of this movement but all the time drag is something that's important to this community and has a rich, rich history.

When I first moved back to Lawrence, Kansas I started hearing about this human and this drag queen by the name of Deja Brooks. I soon found out that Deja Brooks aka Brandon Eiseman has become a community fixture. She's a leader in our community, people look to her, and invite her places to help them promote things. It's pretty cool that this young human has turned drag into something that our community loves, that our community appreciates and now that our community has had exposure to in a powerful way. Anytime that I witness him performing and the way that our town responds to him, it blows my mind because I know that what that means is that it makes space for those younger people. So I honor him and I honor his work and once again, I thank him and all my friends for coming and sharing their stories.