A State Legislature Against a Measure That Makes Drag Performances Criminally Incriminating: Wendy Williams at Club Temptation in Cookeville
Wendy Williams has owned Club Temptation, in Cookeville, for six years. She regularly holds space for drag performances, including drag brunches and bingo. Williams also has drag shows.
Legislation at the time made it unclear whether the event, which was not officially a drag show but a contest for female beauty queens, would violate law. The event involves singing, dancing and lip-syncing, among other performances. Dutzer said that it was technically against the proposed bill.
A child wouldn’t be able to see any of the shows at Williams’ bar if it were against the law to let a child in. If the bill is passed, her bar may have to be re-categorized as a strip club.
While Tennessee continues to work on its own proposal, other state legislatures across the U.S. are moving along with similar versions. For example, North Dakota advanced a bill that would make drag performing in front of children a criminal offense.
Conservative media and Republican lawmakers have claimed that their opposition to drag shows is about protecting children. They often repeat a homophobic trope that drag queens and the LGBTQ community are “grooming” young children.
Drag is considered a performance art that celebrates gender, self expression and self acceptance. Performers impersonate both men and women. In recent years, it’s grown in mainstream popularity, as drag brunches and story hours have popped up throughout the country.
Indecent exposure to anti-LGBTQ drag shows as 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.”
Last year, 315 anti-LGBTQ bills were filed during state legislative sessions. The Human Rights Campaign says the Republican-led state governments showed strong resistance to some of the restrictions.
Drag bans, a subset of these kinds of bills, are essentially lawmakers’ answer to drag queen story hours, Reed said. Drag queens are reading books to kids around the country. They have become a target for the far-right, with some events becoming targets for opponents.
Williams’ hometown has a group of far-right protesters who demonstrate in front of drag shows. At a drag brunches in town, protesters held up a Nazi flag and yelled from across the street.
In an interview with NPR, he described children witnessing drag shows (which he referred to as “indecent exposure”) as a “slippery slope” to “the eventual legalization of pedophilia.”
He and others pointed out that Shakespearean productions like As You Like It might 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
The Miss Gay America Pageant isn’t going to continue in Little Rock, South Carolina, according to a state Rep. Thomas Beach
The language in the bill was too broad according to South Carolina state Rep. Thomas Beach. 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.
Arkansas lawmakers changed their proposal following bipartisan criticism of the bill’s breadth. The bill of language regarding drag shows was gutted by those changes.
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 even now with threats and derogatory statements sent to the organization it doesn’t seem feasible for the event to continue in Little Rock.
It would be a loss for Arkansas, Dutzer said. Thousands of people visited local hotels, went to local sites and spent money at restaurants during the event. 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
Reply to Lee’s Question about Putting a Bar Up For Sale After Six Years: Implications for a Proper Dressed State Governor
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. Is it worthwhile to keep running a bar after six years? Is it better that 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.
Lee said that conflating something like that to sexual entertainment in front of children is a serious subject.
A spokesperson for Lee further elaborated to the Daily Beast, saying, “The bill specifically protects children from obscene, sexualized entertainment, and any attempt to conflate this serious issue with lighthearted school traditions is dishonest and disrespectful to Tennessee families.”