Mayor Dirtwoman

JMG reader Rob hipped me to the Richmond, Virginia mayoral candidacy of Donnie Corker, aka Dirtwoman, a locally-reknowned transvestite who has promised to dress in drag every day if elected.

I’m going to get all the prostitutes off the street,” says Corker, who once made his living alongside them. “I’m going to work with the City Council people. And I’m not going to fight with the School Board.”

Reared in Oregon Hill, Corker literally made his name in politics, becoming legendary for crashing the gates — and getting arrested — at the gubernatorial inauguration of now-Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder. Oh, and there was a little incident where he left that “deposit” in the back seat of a Richmond Police car.

Now a born-again Christian whose voting rights — revoked for a decades-old felony sodomy conviction — were recently restored by Gov. Tim Kaine, Corker says he mostly refrains from his drag queen get-up except to draw crowds to the annual Hamaganza charity benefit in November, where he appears as a not-ready-for-primetime (or Christmas time) Miss Claus.

He says he believes voters will look to the future and not at his past when they cast their votes in November 2008. Indeed, he suggests there’s not a politician in town whose past looks much better than his own — he just lived his life with more style.

Dirtwoman: "Once you get the men out of the closet, there won’t hardly be no men left."

(photo via - Lady Bunny.)