system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I believe that drag performers are participating in the equivalent of blackface/minstrel shows for transgender individuals. CMV.

A few years ago I went to a drag show at a local gay bar, and an MtF friend of mine got in a huff about it.  She explained that, due to the exaggeration of masculinity/femininity that the shows portray, as well as lampooning the idea of cross-dressing/gender bending, it was damaging and offensive to trans individuals.  She drew the comparison to blackface and how parallel exaggerations were used to demean people of African heritage at the turn of the 19th century. I countered with the notion that (predominantly) gay male performers were marginalized as well, to which she pointed out that a non-white person in blackface would be equally offensive.  I also tried to use the argument that they were also part of the transgender spectrum, and she pointed out that a lot, if not most of the performers were not experiencing any sort of gender dysphoria, but were merely doing it for the "fun".  I went to the show that night anyway and saw a drag performer doing a caricature of a geisha girl as well as others also exploiting cultural stereotypes.  It was then that I fully understood my friend's point.  I've been opposed to the shows ever since.  No one I know, including the performers themselves have ever been able to give me a good reason why the shows aren't offensive and why a progressive LGBT community wouldn't oppose their existence.  I think Reddit can.  CMV.
gpt
The two things are not at all comparable.

The blackface shows were done by whites (who were, of course, the main agents of discrimination).  The content was extremely demeaning to blacks, with stereotypically stupid and subservient characters.  The purpose was to *pretend to be black*.

Drag shows are very different.  The performers are gay, and the shows started when anti-gay discrimination was far more severe than it is today.  There was a subversiveness to the shows- gay men who were being harassed for being effeminate instead embracing it, with a "you want effeminate?  I'll show you effeminate!" attitude.

The underlying idea behind the shows isn't one of derision, but of lampooning the idea of gender, that we need to be one thing or the other, that it's "dirty" to step outside your "official" gender role, something that is positive to the transgender community.

TL;DR:
In one case, you have people pretending to be black to mock them.  In the other, actors screw around with gender roles, because we should relax about them.