by Shaun Knittel - SGN Associate Editor

In South Africa, a diverse troupe of drag kings titled Bros B4 Ho's is challenging misogyny, homophobia, and gender norms in their country through their original numbers and renditions of popular songs, while entertaining their community.

According to the Huffington Post, Bros B4 Ho's is the country's first-ever drag-king troupe. In a new documentary of the same name, the members each express how they got started with the troupe and how they embody their masculine personas.

GLAAD points out, 'Frankie H, formerly known as 'Frankie Hard On,' said that doing drag is equivalent to shedding her femininity.'

'Whether they be the little things that I hold on to that are seen as socially acceptable as feminine ... I hold on to them out of fear of being ostracized or chastised when I walk out of the door and I'm in the public,' she says in the film.

The troupe's star, Cory Linguis, was inspired to do drag by a close Transgender friend who couldn't afford to transition.

'I really wanted to know what people in that situation go through,' Linguis says. 'I wanted to be in their shoes, for maybe just a day. To just experience it and to not be the person who judges them, but to be the person that fights with them ... Me being Gay and being judged for how I am, how must they feel if they're not even comfortable in their own body. It must be ten times worse.'

Cole Steele Johnson, who likes to sweet-talk girls, said she enjoys owning the male part of herself. 'It's like an essence of me,' she says. 'Cole is a ladies' man.'

For more information about Bros B4 Ho's, visit the troupe's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/brosb4hosCT. The documentary can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BnWJhUguv24#!

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