Won’t somebody please think of the drag queens?

If you’re looking for round-the-clock coverage of what crossdressing men might be getting up to, then BBC News is apparently the place to go. On spiked, we have already noted the BBC website’s prolific output of puff pieces about drag queens. Last week, it published not one but two feature articles about how men who dress as women are coping with the cost-of-living crisis.

In one article – ‘Drag queens feel the pinch of rising costs’ – the BBC asks us to spare a thought for all those queens struggling with the cost of ‘replicating fierce fashion moments’.

‘Tia Kofi’ (real name Lawrence Bolton) tells the BBC how shows like Ru Paul’s Drag Race are ‘pushing up costs for queens’. Similarly, ‘Raiine’, another drag queen quoted in the article, says that spending thousands on wigs, makeup and outfits ‘put me in financial ruin’.

The piece ends with Tia imparting some financial advice for aspiring drag artists: ‘If you’re performing for several many huns at a brunch, it probably shouldn’t be in an outfit that cost you over £1,000 when you’re about to do a jump-split to “Mamma Mia”.’

Of course, anyone with an ounce of common sense probably knows that if you’re struggling financially, then perhaps it’s time to cut back on your elaborate costume and makeup budget. Yet the BBC seems to think playing dress-up is some kind of essential expense, akin to putting food on the table for one’s kids, or paying the electricity bill.

Another article, headlined with the quote ‘I earn £50,000 and can’t afford to buy a house’, sounds like a bog-standard news article about how high housing costs and stagnating wages are affecting even the middle classes. That is until you realise that the only member of the public it profiles is a transgender activist. Emma Harris, a software engineer by trade, spends much of his time railing against the child safeguarding measures proposed by the Cass Review, raising money for Stonewall and criticising the UK’s allegedly ‘hostile environment’ towards trans people. Perhaps it will come as news to BBC journalists, but you don’t have to be a man who dresses as a woman to be affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

Will the BBC ever get over this bizarre fixation on crossdressing men?

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.