When Timothy Shiner, the current director of Student Activities and Leadership Development, became director of Orientation Programs last spring, he initiated a conversation among Orientation staff on whether to change, or even end, Foss Cross: the University’s annual cross-dressing party now known as “Bend it at Beckham.”

“The initial conversation was, ’Is there a way to reframe this event, or do we go with an entirely different theme?’” Shiner said. “I was in charge of orientation for the first time and I had concerns about the event.”

Shiner’s apprehension was that the title “Foss Cross” enforced the notion that gender is a clear-cut binary, and that the event could potentially isolate participants who may not dress typically “male” or “female” in the course of everyday life. Jessica French Smith ’09, an Orientation intern, explained how the event could possibly be alienating.

“If I’m female-identifying, but I never wear a dress, am I supposed to then wear a dress to Foss Cross?” Smith said. “What am I supposed to wear?”

With such concerns in mind, the Orientation staff spent the entire summer figuring out a way to modify the event. Ultimately, they decided to change the event’s name, write a new mission statement, and hire professional drag performers who will enact three separate performances over the course of the three-hour event.

Smith hired the Hartford-based drag artists Ivory (drag king), LL Cool D (drag king) and Marita Bonita (drag queen), who will be dancing, singing and performing hip-hop numbers for 10 minutes out of every hour of the event. The other 50 minutes will be solely dedicated to student dancing.

According to Shiner, the decision to hire drag performers was meant to clarify the educational mission of the event. It is important to note that dressing in drag is often a liberating, as opposed to mocking, statement, he said. Exhibiting these performers, Shiner noted, would illustrate this aspect of drag, distinguishing it from such derogatory performance traditions as blackface.

The new name, “Bend it at Beckham,” is intended to reflect the idea that cross-dressing does not have to be an either/or activity. When Smith was a freshman, she says, her outfit was neither “male” nor “female,” an approach that the Orientation staff hopes freshmen will begin to consider.

“I wore baggy jeans, a pink lace-up corset, and a bowtie,” she recalled.

Late last spring, the transgender e-mailing list, “Endless Acronym,” was set abuzz when Shiner sent an e-mail asking for evaluations of what was then Foss Cross. Responses included critiques and defenses of the event in its previous incarnation, as well as calls for the event’s elimination.

“I know that as a freshman I was appalled and shocked that this event existed, especially when I was the only one of my friends who did not go,” responded Trent Grassian ’09 in a public e-mail. “If people want to gender bend in their presentation and dress they can do so at any party or any day! There is no reason that a party should exist to reinforce gender normativity as the ’norm’ and ’drag’ as something silly to do once a year at a special party. Personally, I would be very happy to see Foss Cross abolished.”

After reviewing the debate, the decision was made to modify, not abolish, Foss Cross, explained Orientation Intern Gwynne Hunter ’10.

“We decided that we weren’t going to cut it out before trying to change it,” Hunter said.

Ultimately, Smith said, the event should be a cultural critique that helps incoming students realize that they are performing every day.

“In performing drag you’re pointing out that gender is a performance—that waking up and putting on mascara, dress and heels is a performance,” Smith said. “Not everyone chooses to perform gender in the way that society tells us.”