Sophomore explores gender identity through drag show performance

The first time Matt Steriti dressed in drag was as a sophomore in high school, when he went to a Halloween-themed party in a maid’s outfit.

“I just remember a lot of people there who didn’t know me, even people who did know me, thinking I was a girl,” he reminisced. “I loved it because as someone who sometimes questions gender identity and doesn’t follow a very strict line, it’s exciting to be a girl sometimes.”

Steriti, a sophomore musical theater major, performed as Courtney McGuire, who was one of five performers in Pride Union’s 14th annual Totally Fabulous Drag Show on Friday. Despite it being her first time performing in drag, McGuire won the competition.

Although she appeared calm onstage, McGuire said she experienced some anxiety before the show.

“I got really nervous because it’s weird to be working on a project where you’re kind of the producer, director, performer,”  McGuire said.

It took him about two hours to transform from Matt Steriti into his alter ego, Courtney McGuire. Most of that time, he said, was occupied with applying “big and bright” makeup.

Hannah Wagner | Staff Photographer

He said he started by contouring his face, using foundation and highlighter. First, he applied a darker color under his cheekbones and jawbone. Then, he added a lighter color to his forehead and the area above his cheekbones. The whole process helped his face appear more feminine, he said.

“It’s sort of manipulating the way the light hits your face,” he said.

An hour and a half later, McGuire dressed in the various outfits she would reveal one-by-one on stage.

McGuire said one on-stage change didn’t go exactly as planned. Two backup dancers helped her slip into a long red dress while the rest formed a wall in front of them. When the wall was about to break and she hadn’t finished the change, one of her dancers yelled, “Stop,” giving McGuire enough time to complete the transformation.

The crowd didn’t appear to notice the pause, however, as the routine continued seamlessly and concluded to raucous applause from the crowd.

But Steriti said he didn’t care about winning. He just wanted to perform in the drag show.

Steriti grew up in a conservative family and went to a private, all-boys Catholic school with “a bunch of rich, upper-class white boys,” he said, who were very heteronormative.

As a result, Steriti said he didn’t have the chance to explore his identity. His school had a dress code, which he would often “push the boundaries” of, earning him sideways glances and silent judgment.

When his older friends graduated and went off to college, they told Steriti about college drag shows. So when he arrived at Syracuse University, he immediately began researching its show.

As a freshman, Steriti couldn’t participate because of a drama department rule barring freshmen from performing at any show. But once he learned about the show, Steriti said he wanted to be a part of it.

He added that there will always be some judgment.

When Steriti asked friends to help him with his performance, they were eager to participate.

Steriti said the process was very “go-with-the-flow” and the team choreographed and rehearsed the entire routine over the course of only one to two rehearsals.

Once McGuire was selected to move on to the finals, her routine grew from three performers to 11.

Markcus Blair, a second-year transfer musical theater major, said Steriti asked him to come on board for the performance about a week or two before the finals. Even though the group didn’t have much time to rehearse, Blair said Steriti made the entire process “so easy and so fun” for everyone involved.

Claire Sorlie, a sophomore musical theater major, who helped Steriti with the choreography, echoed those sentiments.

“It blows my mind that he feels so comfortable in his own skin,” Sorlie said. “I love the fact that I have Matt in my life.”

Hannah Wagner | Staff Photographer

When he becomes Courtney McGuire, Steriti said he’s able to explore a side of himself — a gender identity — he didn’t realize existed.

“It’s all very strange because at first it was just a character,” he said. “The more I do it, it’s less of a character and more a side of me.”

Milk, the show’s host and a former contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race, said drag is an honest way to express identity.

“Drag to me means freedom to be whoever you want to be, whatever you want to be, to open people’s eyes to art and performance,” she said. “It’s a way to put on a character in order to live out your fantasies or dreams that you might not do when you’re a regular boy or regular girl.”

While Milk said she identifies as two-spirit, Steriti said he’s still struggling with discovering his own gender identity.

But the support Steriti’s received — both from people he knows and people he doesn’t — gives him the confidence to feel less like the outcast he thought he was in high school.

Now that he’s becoming more comfortable with who he is, Steriti said he has begun to see himself as normal.

“I think we grow up in a society where you’re kind of brainwashed into believing that you have to be one way,” he said. “If you’re told you have to be this way, you’re going to think something’s wrong if you’re not.”