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My ethnographic research on high-femme drag as performed by neo-burlesque dancers investigates the ways in which sexuality further complicates the performance of gender. By introducing performances of sexuality into drag, high-femme drag performers actively trouble/disrupt hegemonic constructions of gender, sexuality, anatomy, performance and desire. My ethnographic research contributes to the growing body of literature concerned with the political, socio-cultural challenges posed by drag performance. My findings suggest that high-femme identities may be deployed to critique hegemonic constructions of the body, to openly celebrate sexuality, to sexually empower performers, and to serve as a platform for the discussion of sexual and oppositional cultural politics. Queer high-femme drag identity functions similarly, however also serves to "queer" femininity, foster queer community, politicize femme identity, and replace more "traditional" forms of political activism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary women's roller derby is an amateur, competitive, full-contact team sport played on traditional quad roller skates. Over the course of the last six years, the sport has attracted thousands of women as both participants and fans. Drawing on original empirical research consisting of ethnography, participant observation and in-depth interviewing, I show that roller derby creates performative and discursive opportunities for women to transgress cultural norms regarding the appearance and performance of the female body. Women in roller derby not only challenge gendered norms regarding athleticism, muscularity, attire and appearance, but they also resist dominant cultural expectations regarding body shape and size, reclaim the bruised and broken body as desirable, legitimate, and powerful, and reconceptualize corporeality by adopting narratives of the "robot" and the "cyborg." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]