Women infiltrate drag queen event (Photo: TBD Staff)

At last night's Dupont High Heel race, I interviewed drag queens for their positions on feminism. (Drag queen feminist theory ranged from "I'm a Barbie. Isn't that enough?" to "I carry power tools and drive a Subaru.")

The race's official position on women, at least, is clear: Yesterday, JR's general manager and event organizer Dave Perruzza told me that women are strongly discouraged from participating in the race. "We don’t want them to," Perruzza said.  “It’s a drag race. It defeats the purpose if women are racing in high heels. That's not fair. . . It's kind of frowned upon. I mean, most people don’t like to see women out there at all."

Despite the concerted frowning, I spotted a handful of women who dared infiltrate the drag queens' ranks last night. An unofficial tally: "Prince Poppycock," an androgynous character played by a woman ("I'm a lady, just so you know," Poppycock disclosed following our interview); three women in leopard-print mini-dresses screaming "Jersey Shore, bitch!" as they power-walked the gauntlet (awkward: a trio of male competitors also donned leopard-print dresses); several female accessories, including a woman in sunglasses escorting a man whose drag persona was a dead-ringer for Bret Michaels; a sprinkling of spouse handlers.