Doll Invasion’s auction with Queer|Art, running parallel to the weekend’s festivities, featured contributions including Chappell Roan’s Gov Ball bandanna, the makau from Sasha Colby’s entrance look on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Cole Escola’s wig from last year’s Tonys, photographs by Ryan McGinley, and even a book from Angela Davis. (Angela freaking Davis!)
As designer Willie Norris mounted a full Doll Shop on the harbor, a montage of Fire Island’s history rushed through my head—from the 1800s, when Oscar Wilde came here to write; to the 1950s, when Truman Capote holed up at the Carrington House to finish Breakfast at Tiffany’s; to a few decades ago, when Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar were snapping photos of their friends on the boardwalk and slowly dying. I could feel our sissy ancestors smiling down on our entries into the Fire Island canon: reusable “DOLL JUICE” cups, dance towels that say “ALL DOLLS GO TO HEAVEN,” and tank tops with the words: “FUN NEVER DIES.”
These were memories in a lineage that wouldn’t be lost to time. Justin Vivian Bond came to watch our opening ceremony on the same square footage where Teri was turned away at the door for being a cross-dresser. Adam Lambert mogged someone at High Tea and Chelsea Manning stood at Doll Check-in on Sunday, where we gave out little maps that said “WELCOME TO TRANSGENDER ISLAND” to 1,200 people. Jynx 007 twerked on the DJ booth podium while Amarji King tore it up. Dylan Mulvaney wandered around wearing one of our fundraising prizes, a red sash with the glittering letters “CIS EXCELLENCE.”
Julie J, the sitting First Lady of Brooklyn Drag, whipped a wet wig around her head to Kelis’s “Acapella” shortly after Cherry Jaymes conjured the very spirit of Deborah Cox, and all before Mthr Trsa lip-synced Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” for the finale group number, lit once again by handheld spotlights. Colette March cooed to screaming fans with practiced pop-star flair and a mug by celebrity makeup artist Laurel Charleston, who did makeup for our performers while fashion illustrator Richard Haines drew live portraits.
Geena Rocero, who’d spent the week cooking for our team with an enclave of Filipinxs, was roaming the boardwalk, smoking cigarettes in a Playboy bandeau and cracking jokes with Charlene Incarnate and Tyler Ashley. Jasmine Infiniti reported that she would come back and play again. We were finally here, sun-kissed, escaping the world, and archiving the “T” into over a century of “LGB” history on the island—even if some of us were up late last night in a hot tub with Kim Petras.
