Comfort House & Drag Queens
Fundraiser
I just found out last week that the place where my mom died in 1995, The Comfort House, a longtime McAllen facility that offers hospice care, courtesy of donations, public and private, is hosting a fundraiser June 4, with the catchy name: “Drag Me To Brunch.”
The name is a play on words since the entertainment for the event, which kicks off at 11 a.m., centers on at least four drag queens.
To get more information and/or buy tickets, the Comfort House director, David Perez, may be contacted by calling 956-687-7367. General admission costs $50, and reserved seating for 10 costs $800.
Question is, will the theme of the fundraiser — Drag Queens — cost Comfort House any would-be donations, considering that the theme is a sticking point in state politics these days?
For example, last month, the Texas Senate Republican majority voted to defund libraries where drag queens read to kids, as it tried to limit the performances kids can attend. (Source: TexasTribune.org.)
One of the senate bills, 1601, would defund public libraries where drag queens are allowed to read to children. The other senate bill, 12, bars kids from drag shows if the performances are overly lewd and lascivious.
This used to be the purview of parents, but now apparently rests in the hands of politicians.
According to the Tex Trib story, some Democrats, drag performers and businesses catering to LGBTQ Texans have fiercely pushed back against the implication that all drag performers are inherently sexual.
Not sure where the two senate bills rest now, but at least they made some news this legislative session.
The problem seems to be that in divided America – pro-gay agenda, anti-gay agenda -- drag queens have become part of the discussion, which is often heated.
My first exposure to drag queens, by the way, was shortly after I hit pubescence in a Chicago Suburb. My parents had gone out for the evening with some friends and had come home with this classy looking four-page pamphlet full of good-looking women dressed up in skimpy outfits.
Call it a feast to the eyes of a young boy, I learned later that the place was famous for its drag-queen performances. Trying to reconcile fact with fiction, pointing to the photos, I can still remember asking my mom, the RN, “You mean these women are really men?”
Wow. They looked so real. Call it an awakening. Who could have known that men dressed up in drag could look better than a lot of my teachers?
Question is, and I have a call in to the Comfort House director to get his thoughts, will its newest fundraiser event set for June – Drag Me To Brunch – prove a boon or a bust? Will it draw more people than not, or will it turn off some conservatives who would normally have donated to the nonprofit if not for the “Drag Queen” motif even if their legs are shaved?
Not sure. In a way, the Comfort House has almost come full circle. The nun who ran the place for many years, Sister Marian Strohymeyer, was a saint of sorts. When I walked into the hospice in February of ’95, breaking down as I walked through the front door, having already heard that my mom had just passed away, still relatively young at 64 if having not fallen victim to ALS, it was the good sister who took me in her arms to offer me comfort and solace as I tried to stifle my sobs.
From what I remember, the good sister had started the place to care for AIDS patients, which was a sad reality in the 1980s. For more than 10 years, the Comfort House purposefully didn’t have a sign outside its facade on Dallas Avenue, afraid that some people would take exception to a hospice caring for AIDS patients near the middle of downtown McAllen.
No damage was ever done to the building even after a sign finally went up out front, “The Comfort House,” but the care provided to so many suffering people by the sister and those who helped her care for the dying can never be overstated, which was why it was so sad to see the Comfort House make the news in a negative light when one of its former administrators was arrested and charged with capital murder in 2015 and theft of the nonprofit, before being convicted in 2017. After that, the see-nothing board, which included a state appellate judge, underwent a change and more competent people were brought in to oversee its operations.
Former McAllen City Commissioner Veronica Vela Whitacre stepped in for a while and helped the Comfort House once again regain its footing, and since then, the hospice-care facility has provided a place for those who have limited time left to live (six months or less).
Why the Comfort House is using a political hot potato of sorts, drag queens, to publicize its June fundraiser, who knows. Nevertheless, I wish it well.