Wendy Williams’ drag bar is not a strip club but a pro-child: a response to the attack on state Sen. Jack Johnson
Wendy Williams has owned Club Temptation in Cookeville for the past six years. She holds the space for drag performances every now and then. Williams is a drag queen.
The legislation introduced so far is intended to accomplish this in many ways. Many would limit where drag shows can be held, recategorize them as akin to strip shows and ban the use of state funds (including those given to a nonprofit) to go toward them.
Williams’ bar doesn’t allow entry to minors, so a child wouldn’t be able to see any of the shows her establishment puts on anyway, she said. 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.
Tennessee Republican state Sen. Jack Johnson, who sponsored the legislation, previously told CNN that his legislation “is not anti-drag. It is pro-child.”
The shows, in which men in exaggerated makeup dress as women for a crowd, have occasionally been the target of attacks, and are one of the reasons why the bills under consideration add to the problem.
Drag is considered performance art that celebrates gender, self expression, and self acceptance. Performers impersonate both women and men. In recent years, it’s grown in mainstream popularity, as drag brunches and story hours have popped up throughout the country.
At least 10 states are trying to restrict criminalizing drag shows, and is that’s what they can do to stop pedophilia, as You Like It
“These bills threaten businesses, libraries, performers and people they serve by giving politicians the power to make decisions in their own way,” he said. We expect these to travel through a lot of legislatures.
“This year, we are seeing far more pieces of anti-trans gender legislation that have never been seen before,” Reed said.
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 in various locations around the country. Some events have become targets for opponents while others have become a subject of hatred for the far-right.
In Cookeville, where Williams is from, a group of far-right protesters have demonstrated in front of drag shows. Recently, this happened at an 18-and-up drag brunch in town, where protestors held up a Nazi flag and yelled from across the street of the event.
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.”
The categorization could mean that Shakespearean productions, for example, As You Like It, 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-Legislations-Trying-Restrict Criminalize Drag Shows: South Carolina Rep. Thomas Beach and the Miss Gay America Pageant
South Carolina state Rep. Thomas Beach told NPR that the language in his earlier version of his state’s bill was admittedly too broad. He believes that he can make the policy more acceptable to other Republicans who are 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’s language targeting drag shows was gutted by those changes.
The Miss Gay America Pageant was due to continue at the Robinson Center, but a deal was broken after the passing of Senate Bill 43. Michael Dutzer is the CEO and executive producer of Mad Angel Entertainment.
Even now, he said, with some threats and derogatory statements sent to the organization, as well as lingering uncertainty about the current state of SB43, it doesn’t seem possible for the pageant to continue in Little Rock.
It would be a loss for Arkansas, according to Dutzer. The event brought people to local hotels, where they stayed and bought things 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
Is Bill Lee a Joke? An Analysis of the 1977 Drag Show Message from the State Senate and a Motion to End Sexual Gender-Aware Health Care
You do not know what’s going to happen. Is it worth continuing running a bar after six years? Is it better that I just put the bar up for sale and do something else? She said that it’s not because she is scared, but that she wants to know if it is worth the hassle and headaches. I don’t know if it is worth it to tell you the truth.
Lee has been accused of hypocrisy after a user posted a photo from his high school days in 1977 which they claim shows the future governor dressed as a woman and wearing a wig.
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 the question was ridiculous, and that it was a serious subject, WZTV reported.
A statement made by a representative of Lee said that the bill only protects children from obscene, sexualized entertainment, and that any attempt to link the issue with lighthearted school traditions is dishonest.
Lee gave his signature hours after the Senate passed the measure. In the same sitting, he signed a ban on gender-affirming health care for youth in the state.
It is absurd that a person like Bill Lee would say that it was just a joke when he did it. Straight men can dress up badly, that’s fine. But when gay and queer and trans people do it, that’s not OK.”
In Defense of the Tennessee Drag Law: A Case Study with Transgender Tennessean and Nashville Tech Student Canceling LGBTQ-Inspired Students
Republican State Rep. Jack Johnson co-sponsored the bill. 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.”
It could have a chilling effect on Pride festivals. The Tennessee summer heat is renowned for it’s outdoor drag. New laws can be changed in January, but the bill won’t take effect until April 1, ahead of Pride month in June.
Tennessee Tech student Cadence Miller says his generation of queer people owe a lot to drag queens, and that it’s no accident they’re under threat now.
We are concerned that the law could easily be abused to punish people based on their own subjective viewpoints of what is appropriate.
Taylor says the ban on drag will negatively impact Nashville’s economy. 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.
For the third season in a row, the statehouse stripped back the rights of transexual Tennesseans. It has many trans people and families of trans kids wondering whether staying in the state is worth the fight.
There are a lot of people who grew up in this area. drag performer Hella Skeleton says it is brutal to be faced with the choice of either staying here or going somewhere else. “So, yeah, it’s a really tough choice.”
Trans-rights minor-care anti-lgbtq-laws: The story of a transgender man’s life
Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University, studies transgender history and the history of sexuality. She spoke with NPR’s Ari Shapiro to highlight the history behind these types of laws.
They were used to intimidate and harass many decades ago but also to silence the LGBT community. The way these laws were written, your name could be published if you were arrested, which made it easy to have a criminal record. It could really ruin your employment chances and out you to everyone.
In 1863, San Francisco was actually the very first place to enact a ban, what it called a cross-dressing or masquerade ordinance, which prohibited someone from being out in public if they were wearing clothing that was different from their sort of legal sex or assigned sex. The late 19th century was when these kinds of laws took off.
Under the law, the question was never really decided. The question with these types of status offenses, or laws that target how people appear, is that they are so vaguely worded, that it comes down to how they’re implemented. The letter of the law is only half of the equation.
What is going to be the new danger for people at a popular family event like Pride? I think that just goes to show how far the reach and the scope of some of these laws really can be that they’re reaching into, and allowing the government to exercise a really powerful degree of authority in determining what you’re allowed to wear, where you’re allowed to be in public, and frankly, how you’re allowed to exist when you’re walking down the street.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161452175/anti-drag-show-bill-tennessee-trans-rights-minor-care-anti-lgbtq-laws
What are the laws of the state and how do they determine the fate of the actions of the cops in a particular state? “I’m sorry, I can’t do that”
I think it’s the sort of uncertainty that comes from how the laws are written. I’m not totally sure Tennessee’s law would necessarily allow the police to take that action, but certainly some of the other laws being considered in other states definitely would.