The Kids Aren’t Leaving Club Temptation: A State of the Art and a New Law to Protect Children from Going to a Strip Club
Wendy Williams has owned her bar, Club Temptation, in Cookeville, Tenn., for six years. She often holds space for drag performances. Williams is a drag queen.
The legislation I am carrying will protect children from being exposed to sexy drag shows. It is similar to laws that prohibit children from going to a strip club,” Johnson said.
Williams’ bar doesn’t allow anyone under the age of 18 to get in, so a child would not be able to see any of the shows the establishment puts on. But given the bill’s wording, she is starting to wonder whether her bar will have to be re-categorized as, essentially, a strip club.
While Tennessee continues to work on its own proposal, other states are moving in the same direction. For example, North Dakota recently advanced a bill that would criminalize performing drag in front of minors or in public spaces.
It’s not unusual for shows featuring men dressing as women in exaggerated makeup while singing or entertaining a crowd to have been the target of attacks, though some shows feature bawdier content.
Drag, a mainstay in LGBTQ nightlife, is considered performance art that celebrates gender fluidity, self expression and self acceptance. Performers often impersonate both men and women. It has grown in popularity in recent years as a result of drag brunches and story hours across the country.
“The tide is turning strong”: How far-right drag bans become a slippery slope to the legalization of pedophilia
“These bills threaten businesses, libraries, performers and the people they serve by putting the power to decide what’s appropriate in the hands of politicians,” he said. “To be honest, we expect these to sail through many legislatures.”
“This year, we are seeing the most of anti- trans legislation that we’ve ever seen in a single year,” according to an independent legislative researcher.
Reed said that drag bans, a subset of these kinds of bills, were an answer to drag queen story hours. The events, during which a drag queen reads books to kids, have popped up around the country. They are targets for opponents of the far-right because of their subject of vitriol.
In Cookeville, where Williams is from, a group of far-right protesters have demonstrated in front of drag shows. At a drag brunch in town, protesters held up a flag and yelled from across the street of the event.
He referred to drag shows as a “slippery slope to the legalization of pedophilia” in an interview with NPR.
He, as well as others, noted that under this categorization, Shakespearean productions — for example, As You Like It (which involves a cross-dressing heroine) — could be in violation of the law.
“What they deem appropriate that day is totally up to the discretion of the officials to decide whether this runs afoul of whatever they think is ‘decent,’” Sykes said.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1151731736/at-least-10-state-legislatures-trying-restrict-criminalize-drag-shows
At least-10-state legislatures try to restrict criminalizing drag shows, and the Miss Arkansas, which dropped its national pageant in Little Rock
Beach said the language in his earlier version of the bill was too broad. But he plans to make to changes to the policy, which he believes will make it more palatable for fellow Republicans concerned about impacts on business. Beach said support is high.
bipartisan criticism of the bill’s breadth led to the change of the proposal by Arkansas lawmakers. Those changes effectively gutted the bill of language specifically targeting drag shows, the ACLU of Arkansas said.
A deal to have the Miss Gay America Pageant continue its national event at Little Rock’s Robinson Center fell apart last month, shortly after SB43 dropped. That’s according to Michael Dutzer, the CEO and executive producer of Mad Angel Entertainment, which owns the pageant.
He said that it doesn’t seem possible for the Miss Arkansas to continue in Little Rock because of threats and derogatory statements that have been sent to the organization.
It would be a loss for Arkansas, Dutzer said. The event brought thousands of people who filled local hotels, visited local sites and bought from restaurants. The production spent around $70,000 to put the pageant on.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1151731736/at-least-10-state-legislatures-trying-restrict-criminalize-drag-shows
Running a bar is a joke, but what does it teach us about sexualizing entertainment in Tennessee? A Republican senator rejects hypocrisy over a drag show photo
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. Is running a bar worthwhile after six years? I’m wondering if it would be better if I just put the bar up for sale and do something else. Not because I’m scared, but just cause is it worth the hassle and the headache of dealing with it?,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s worth it to tell you the truth.”
In recent days, Lee has been accused of hypocrisy after an unidentified Reddit user posted a photo from a 1977 high school yearbook, which purports to show the future governor dressed in women’s clothing and a wig alongside female students dressed in men’s suits.
At a news conference on Monday, Lee ignored a question about whether he had once dressed in drag but rejected any comparisons between the purported image and the drag show legislation.
“What a ridiculous, ridiculous question that is, conflating something like that to sexualized entertainment in front of children, which is a very serious subject,” Lee said, according to CNN affiliate WZTV.
The bill protects children from obscene, sexualized entertainment and any attempt to connect that with lighthearted school traditions is dishonest and disrespectful to Tennessee families.
Hours after the Senate passed the measure, Lee gave his signature. In the same sitting, he signed a ban on gender-affirming health care for youth in the state.
Bill Lee said, “You know, that was very lighthearted when I did it.” That is absurd according to Skeleton. Straight men dressed badly in drag, that’s fine. Gay and queer and trans people are not allowed to do it.
Proposed legislation to suppress transgender sexis in the statehouse and its impact on entertainment, festivals, and drag brunches in Nashville
The bill was co-sponsored by Jack Johnson. He says, “We’re protecting kids and families and parents who want to be able to take their kids to public places. We’re not attacking anyone or targeting anyone.”
The ban could also have a chilling effect on Pride festivals. In the summertime, outdoor drag is a big deal. While new laws typically go into effect on July 1, the bill was quietly amended in January to take effect April 1 — ahead of Pride month in June.
A Tennessee Tech student says that drag queens owe a lot to his generation of queer people who are under threat now.
“However, we are concerned that government officials could easily abuse this law to censor people based on their own subjective viewpoints of what they deem appropriate.”
Nashville’s economy will be affected by the ban on drag. Drag brunches in the city’s bars are filled with bachelorette parties, and Music City’s infamous fleet of party vehicles includes a drag queen-specific bus.
This legislative session is the third year in a row that the statehouse has peeled back the rights of transgender Tennesseans. Many trans people are wondering if staying in the state is worth the fight.
There are people who grew up here, and it’s where their roots are. Drag performer Hella Skeleton says it’s brutal to have a choice, you can either stay here or you can leave and go somewhere else. “So, yeah, it’s a really tough choice.”