The first active wrestler in a prominent American wrestling promotion to come out as gay was WWE superstar Darren Young, who earned headlines in 2013. WWE’s storylines and promotional texts forgot his essence, even though some fans and peers praised his courage. The vagueness in professional wrestling’s handling of LGBTQ+ individualism was made evident by the incident.
Performance and a spectacle intended to exaggerate identity have been central to wrestling. Characters that are caricatured or hyper-masculinized versions of real-life archetypes are portrayed by wrestlers. LGBTQ+ identities have long been distorted, ridiculed, erased, or stigmatized in such performance spaces.
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler challenges how we think about gender. Butler contends that gender is more like a role we play than something natural or fixed, such as being born a man or a woman and never changing. It is not who we are but what we repeatedly “do,” adhering to social norms that dictate how we should behave, dress, talk, and move.
Drag is one of the examples Butler gives to illustrate the concept. Drag shows show that femininity is a set of choices, a style, and a performance that anyone can wear. Drag queens draw attention to the fact that, whether they are aware of it or not, “everyone” is constantly performing gender when they take the stage. Drag demonstrates that gender is a constructed act in which we all engage daily by amplifying that performance and making it loud, proud, and visible.
Gorgeous George, a wrestler from the 1940s and 1950s who made waves in the ring, is one of the first examples of LGBTQ+ identities portrayed in professional wrestling from the middle of the 20th century. He would strut down the aisle in satin robes, spray perfume in the air, and act in ways that audiences at the time perceived as “effeminate” or “unmanly.” His entire persona was based on exaggerated flamboyance.
The point was precisely that. George used his outrageous, gender-nonconforming style to agitate, irritate, and get people to hiss and boo. George portrayed the villain and the heel, and the audience saw him as “bad,” partly because of his queerness, whether it was genuine or staged.
George was not alone in such an approach, establishing a wrestling cliché that would be used for decades: queerness was viewed as a gimmick, odd, humorous, or even harmful. Queer-coded characters were either villains or comedic relief that made the audience cringe; they were meant to be feared or ridiculed. During that time, wrestling shows provided a platform for queer identities to be viewed as powerful, brave, or genuine; instead, they embraced stereotypes that strengthened society’s distaste for anyone who did not conform to the ideals of traditional masculinity.
Adrian Street, a British wrestler who became well-known in the 1970s and 1980s, challenged the conventions surrounding gender performance in the sport. He made distinguishing between camp and chaos, menace and parody difficult. Street walked into the ring looking like he owned it, and in many respects, he did, thanks to his attire, hairstyle, makeup, and demeanor. He was so unsettling to both his opponents and the audience because of his ambiguous and difficult-to-define character.
He would emasculate his opponents in front of the audience by flirting, taunting, and even kissing them, but he would also swiftly defeat them with skill and strength. Street’s performance was flamboyant and wild but also aggressive and combative.
He was transforming queerness into erratic and dangerous by using his appearance and demeanor as a weapon. Despite all of that pushing of boundaries, Street’s character was never identified as queer, which was a direct challenge to the strict standards of traditional masculinity that demanded toughness to look a certain way. Instead, it capitalized on the stereotype of queerness as exotic, threatening, or odd. It remained, encased in glitz and violence, queerness as performance and threat.
Wrestling turned everything up to eleven in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly during WWE’s notorious Attitude Era. The main factors were shock value, controversy, and stretching the bounds of what could be broadcast on television. Loud entrances, crazy plots, and exaggerated characters were everywhere.
However, despite being in the open, the homoeroticism inherent in the sport was rarely discussed. Rather than recognizing any of that, the industry turned queerness into a joke or a threat and stepped up straight-male bluster, making sure to establish dominance through exaggerated hetero-masculinity.
Dustin Rhodes’ portrayal of the character “Goldust” is among the most iconic examples from that era. In addition to wearing gold bodysuits, applying face paint, purring at his opponents, and engaging in androgynous, flirtatious behavior to play with their heads, Goldust was purposefully bizarre and sexually ambiguous. His job was to agitate, perplex, and unnerve the crowd and everyone in the ring.
In a way that leaned into queerness as a mind game, Goldust capitalized on the conflict between masculinity and queerness. In some respects, it was revolutionary, but it was also enmeshed in the notion that queerness was only acceptable if it could be subdued, ridiculed, or employed to startle the public.
Goldust’s early gimmick summed up wrestling’s awkward, uncomfortable relationship with queerness. He came out in a tight, shimmering bodysuit, his face painted metallic gold, moving with such slow, sensual swagger that it felt out of place in the hyper-macho world of 1990s wrestling. He “weaponized” it and he would sexually taunt his male opponents, brush up against them, blow kisses, and play mind games that left them squirming.
However, it was not received as bold or empowering. It was the height of the AIDS panic and a time when anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment was everywhere. So instead of being read as progressive or provocative, Goldust was treated like a walking punchline, a threat wrapped in glitter and eyeliner.
At first, his character stirred much buzz because it was so weird and unlike anything fans had seen, but once the shock wore off and the joke started to feel stale, the character was watered down. WWE sanitized him, toned down the queerness, and tried to repackage him into something more palatable.
Regarding Butler’s theory, Goldust ends up being what you might call a “failed” drag act, because the performance was not allowed to challenge the system for real, and it was drag as containment. Queerness was only acceptable so long as it was artificial, coded, and confined within the villain role. Once it started to feel too “real” or lasted too “long,” the gimmick had to be defanged.
Openly queer wrestlers have not always been treated well by the wrestling community; in fact, they are frequently punished with silence, erasure, or stalled careers. There were very few real-life examples of wrestlers coming out, aside from characters like Goldust, who was more of a performance than a real-life declaration of queerness.
Chris Kanyon, a gifted WCW wrestler who came out as gay after retiring from the ring, was one such instance. Later, Kanyon charged the wrestling enterprise for its care of him, arguing that it stopped him and marginalized him due to his sexual orientation. He supposed that because he did not match the stereotype of what a “real man” in wrestling should be, he was handed over for options and reported off.
The story of Kanyon is sad. He battled serious mental health problems after coming out and committed suicide in 2010. His story serves as a reminder of how harsh the wrestling community can be toward anyone who deviates from the stereotypically hypermasculine, straight norms.
It also supports Butler’s theory that social forces (what they refer to as “regulatory norms”) police gender and sexuality. The norms in wrestling manifest as heteronormativity and toxic masculinity, which reinforce who gets to be seen, who gets to be successful, and who is marginalized. A whole system told Kanyon he did not belong, and he was fighting against it.
It was significant when Young, a WWE wrestler, came out as gay in 2013, as he was still under contract with the organization. It coincided with the strange transitional period between WWE’s PG Era and the beginning of what fans now call the Reality Era, when the company attempted to be more “modern” and clean up its image. In contrast to Kanyon before him, WWE publicly backed Young: press releases, tweets, and even a few cheers of support from other wrestlers.
Oddly enough, that support did not result in any significant on-screen content. Put, Young’s sexual orientation was not mentioned—no plots, no advertisements, and no feuds influenced by it. The company seemed to want to say, “We are cool with it,” but take no action.
The silence surrounding it raises many questions, but on the surface, that might seem like progress, perhaps it was a sign that being gay no longer had to be a spectacle. Did WWE say, “You are accepted,” or more accurately, “You are accepted as long as you do not make a thing out of it”? In a sense, it seemed that being queer was only acceptable if it remained discreet, courteous, and unnoticeable.
That erasure could still be viewed as performative from a Butler standpoint. The goal is to control queerness without upsetting the status quo. Therefore, it is true that Young was permitted to be a gay man in wrestling, but only under particular conditions that would not cause discomfort to others.
At least on the surface, things have undoubtedly begun to change in the past few years. Compared to earlier times, LGBTQ+ representation in wrestling has significantly improved. Nyla Rose, a trans woman who competes and wins titles in AEW, is one example. Then there is Sonny Kiss, who deviates from the traditional macho template by bringing a bold, unrepentant, gender-nonconforming flair to the ring. They are actual performers who are being highlighted. In an industry that used to view anything that deviated from the hetero norm as either a problem or a joke, that is a huge deal.
WWE has made an effort to catch up. They have started Pride campaigns, shared allyship messages on social media, and even distributed rainbow-colored merchandise featuring the names of famous people. It is progress on paper.
However, many supporters and detractors are sneering at it, referring to it as corporate rainbow-washing. The campaigns’ timing is always incredibly convenient, rarely supported by year-round support or real storyline inclusion. The company does not seem to care as much about promoting queerness as it does about using it as a marketing tactic. Yes, it is representation, but sometimes it is the type that only works well on a poster.
Butler would likely describe the entire situation as a textbook illustration of what they call “recuperative performances.” In essence, they are actions that appear radical or progressive on the surface but are repackaged into the same old system without bringing about any fundamental changes.
Therefore, it may appear that a company like WWE is being inclusive when they put a rainbow on a T-shirt or tweet, “Love is love,” during Pride Month, but in reality, they are using it to manipulate the conversation. Without having to put in the effort to tear down the systems that have kept wrestling so heteronormative for decades, they get to appear woke.
Like, being queer is acceptable as long as you follow the rules. If you identify as gay, transgender, or gender nonconforming, do not make too much of a fuss. Do not tamper with the scripts, which still emphasize hypermasculine energy, traditional gender roles, and tough guys. The system receives a new layer of glitz and shine. Therefore, the fundamental presumptions regarding gender and power in wrestling have not changed much, even though the branding is more flamboyant and the optics have improved. The stage remains the same, even though the performance has changed.
Nonetheless, some artists are pushing the envelope in novel and authentic ways. Consider Effy, an openly gay independent wrestler who has made being queer a central part of his identity. Wearing fishnets, glitter, and an unmistakable camp flair, he struts into the ring. The problem is that it is not meant to be humorous or intended to cause discomfort. Celebrating queerness is central to Effy’s vibe. “This is who I am, and it is fabulous,” he says, capitalizing on the theatricality of wrestling.
In other words, Effy’s performances resemble real drag in the sense that Butler describes it as a political ploy. He is breaking gender stereotypes by performing drag. Effy challenges the notion that gender and sexuality must be contained within tidy, predictable categories by queering the ring. In a completely different way, he demonstrates that wrestling does not have to be sexy, playful, or subversive. He is a living example of how queerness in wrestling does not need to be corporate, coded, or contained. It can be extremely noisy, arrogant, and disruptive.
The rulebook on how gender is “supposed” to appear in wrestling is also being thrown out by trans and nonbinary wrestlers competing on the independent circuits. Consider Edith Surreal, whose presence in the ring questions the notion that wrestlers must either be a “diva” or a “tough guy.” Next is Max the Impaler, whose post-apocalyptic, warlord-like persona completely defies gender norms. They simply own their space and are “there,” demonstrating that gender need not make sense to anyone other than themselves.
What they are doing is precisely in line with that gender, which is something you “do,” something you repeatedly perform, rather than a fixed identity you are born with. They take that performance to the next level, demonstrating to the audience that gender can be anything they want: weird, messy, fierce, soft, monstrous, glamorous, etc. The beauty of it is that their very presence, in all its intensity and ambiguity, turns into a form of resistance. Every time they enter the ring, they are grappling with the idea of the gender binary.
The distinctions between identity and illusion, real and unreal, have long been hazy in professional wrestling. The ring, which once ridiculed or subdued queerness, now flickers with an unfamiliar, unruly something. As LGBTQ+ wrestlers take center stage, their presence completely rewrites the rules rather than challenging them. Perhaps queerness was never out of place in this world of bodies and spectacle, where performance is paramount. It might have been waiting to enter the light in the shadows.
References
- Beekman, S. (2006). Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America. Greenwood Publishing.
- Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
- Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. Routledge.
- Gies, R. (2020). Wrestling’s Queer Revolution: How LGBTQ+ Wrestlers Are Changing the Game. Outsports.
- Jones, S. (2020). Wrestling with Queerness: LGBTQ+ Representations and Wrestling Fandom. Journal of Popular Culture, 53(2), 356–373.
- Kanyon, C., & Tuite, R. (2011). Wrestling reality: The Chris Kanyon Story. ECW Press.
- Shoemaker, D. (2013). The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling. Gotham Books.
- Smith, D. (2016). Effy, the Gay Indie Wrestler Disrupting Wrestling’s Toxic Masculinity. Vice.
- WWE. (2013). WWE Issues Statement on Darren Young Coming Out. WWE.com.
