A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.

People do drag for reasons ranging from self-expression to mainstream performance. Drag shows frequently include lip-syncing, live singing, and dancing. They typically occur at LGBTQ pride parades, drag pageants, cabarets, carnivals, and nightclubs. Drag queens vary by type, culture, and dedication, from professionals who star in films and spend a lot of their time in their drag personas, to people who do drag only occasionally. In most cases, women who dress as men and entertain by imitating them are called drag kings.

Those who do occasional drag may be from backgrounds other than the LGBT community. There is a long history of folkloric and theatrical crossdressing that involves people of all orientations. Not everyone who does drag at some point in their lives is a drag queen or a drag king.

The term drag may date as far back as the Elizabethan era in England, whereas the first recorded use of drag in this context is from 1870. There are several other possible origins.

Traditionally, drag involves cross-dressing and transforming one's sex through the use of makeup and other costume devices. However, under newer conceptions of drag, conceivably performing an exaggerated and heightened form of one's own gender could be considered a drag performance.

The term female impersonation refers to a type of theatrical performance where a man dresses in women's clothing for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience. The term female impersonator is sometimes used interchangeably with drag queen, although they are not the same. For example, in 1972, Esther Newton described a female impersonator as a "professional drag queen". She considered the term female impersonator to be the one that was (then) widely understood by heterosexual audiences. However, feminist and queer studies scholar Sarah French defined a clear separation between these two terms. She defined drag as an art form associated with queer identity, whereas female impersonation comes from a wide range of gender identity paradigms, including heteronormativity. Additionally, many drag artists view drag as a lived form of self-expression or creativity, and perceive drag as something that is not limited to the stage or to performance. In contrast, female impersonation is specifically limited to performance and may or may not involve an LGBTQI point of view.

Female impersonation can be traced back at least as far as ancient Greece. There was little to no gender equity then, and women held a lower social status. This meant male actors would play female roles during theatrical performances. This tradition continued for centuries but began to be less prevalent as motion pictures became popular. During the era of vaudeville, it was considered immodest for women to appear on stage. Due to that circumstance, some men became famous as "female impersonators", the most notable being Julian Eltinge. At the peak of his career, he was one of the most sought-after and highest-paid actors in the world. Andrew Tribble was another early female impersonator who gained fame on Broadway and in Black Vaudeville.

In the twentieth century, some gender impersonators, both female and male, in the United States became highly successful performing artists in non-LGBTQ nightclubs and theaters. There was a concerted effort by these working female and male impersonators in America to separate the art of gender impersonation from queer identity, with an overt representation of working gender impersonators as heterosexual. Some of the performers were in fact cisgender heterosexual men and women, but others were closeted LGBTQI individuals due to the politics and social environment of the period. It was criminal in many American cities to be homosexual, or for LGBTQI people to congregate, and it was therefore necessary for female and male impersonators to distance themselves from identifying as queer publicly to avoid criminal charges and loss of career. The need to hide and dissociate from queer identity was prevalent among gender impersonators working in non-LGBTQ nightclubs before heteronormative audiences as late as the 1970s.