Conservatives fear what they don’t get in drag
That long-ago King William Parade was filled with memorable moments. My mother was still with us, still able to enjoy Fiesta, still holding a pretty umbrella to shade herself from the sun.
It was an annual trek, and my family crew had scored a great spot along the parade route. Sleepy kids didn’t complain about getting up on a Saturday morning for yet another Fiesta event.
We promised Guenther House cinnamon rolls.
The sainted folk artist Enedina Vasquez was around then, too, as was her husband Arturo. We laughed at one outrageous float after another and the faux beauty queens aboard them.
Women, their pageant days long over, were living their dreams. Other queens were living theirs, too, out loud and proud.
One of my nephews, then about 4, was waving to one of them when he noticed something different about the beauty.
Perhaps it was the chest hair protruding from her satin gown or the armpit hair in full view as she waved to people who were shouting, “Show us your shoes!”
We smiled at one another when my nephew said, “Hey, that’s not a lady,” then turned his attention to another float.
I’d like to think that everyone wasn’t just entertained — the whole point of drag — but kinder the next time they saw or met others expressing themselves authentically without fear of persecution, censorship, or legislation that threatens to restrict them, take their healthcare or their livelihoods.
Tennessee decided to do that, becoming the first state to pass laws restricting drag shows, defining them as “adult cabaret performances” that include “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers … (and) male or female impersonators.”
It’s vague and broad and puts a target on members of the LGBTQ community, a population already vulnerable to hate and hate groups.
The law specifically targets those performances to which children might be exposed by parental choice and by performers who tailor their shows when children are in the audience.
Such situations hardly demand legislation. Bills also have targeted drag “story times” in which drag queens read to children to promote reading.
The bills being considered in states like Oklahoma, Kentucky and Montana share characteristics.
They’re out to shame LGBTQ communities, threaten their sense of safety and infringe on their First Amendment rights to free expression.
The bills reflect an adherence to rigid gender norms not based on the full spectrum of human sexuality. They advance culture wars already dividing the nation.
Most of all, they represent political busy work, the pretense of solving a nonexisting problem while ignoring real ones begging for legislative solutions.
Such legislation purports to protect children from sexualization, pedophilia and other false claims while ignoring a real problem: children at risk of gun violence.
Firearms remain the leading cause of death among children and teens.
The problem is the conservative right doesn’t understand drag, its centuries-long history and that of theater and performance art.
Think Elizabethan England when performers were exclusively male.
Think Milton Berle, Tyler Perry and Rupaul or “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
Think Cornyation, a Fiesta show that raises money for the San Antonio AIDS Foundation; and Gridiron, put on by the San Antonio Society of Professional Journalists, which parodies politics and pop culture and raises money for journalism scholarships.
Here’s the truth about drag shows: They’re a form of entertainment and the work of creative types who love the stage.
Drag shows are playful, fun and vicariously liberating, the very reasons repressed people see them as threatening.
Their defense of such laws is hypocritical, especially for the politician who signed an antidrag bill into law last week. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee had no sooner signed it when a high school yearbook picture of him in drag was posted on social media.
Nothing to see here, the governor said. The photo reflected an innocent theater project and a “lighthearted school tradition.”
But while he expected voters to understand, as they should, Lee also signed another bill banning gender-affirming, life-saving healthcare for transgender youth.
In Texas, Republican state Rep. Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth had his own awkward moment when a video of him surfaced showing him in drag as a teen. It’s equally as harmless.
Yet he’s the guy who authored a bill that would restrict drag shows.
Equality Texas says Schatzline’s bill is only one of almost 100 ANTI-LGBTQ bills filed this session.
And they’re all part of a hateful national movement that represents a real threat.