I’m a drag queen in Tennessee. The state’s anti-drag law is silly, nasty and wrong
Iam the show director at Atomic Rose, a nightclub in Memphis, Tennessee. I first discovered drag through Shakespeare. I’m a founding member of Tennessee Shakespeare Company, and I got to play some drag roles there. Growing up in the conservative south, I had learned to suppress anything considered feminine as a safety mechanism. Drag was the first time I was able to put the feminine parts of me forefront, as a source of pride and strength rather than shame or weakness. I fell in love with the art, and I’ve been doing it now for over a decade.
On 2 March, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law two bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community. The first, SB1, outlaws all gender-affirming healthcare for minors. SB3, the “antidrag bill,” redefines drag performers as adult cabaret artists and classifies drag as a prurient art form. “Prurient” is a legal term referring to a shameful or morbid interest in sex.
If SB3 is enforced in the way its backers would like, it would prohibit any public drag displays – meaning no Pride events, no Drag Queen Story Hours, no drag performances in any place that might be seen by a minor. This would shut down all-ages drag brunches and other family-friendly functions. It would even raise questions about venues like mine that have large windows and lots of passersby. Would that qualify as viewable by a child? The law’s language is vague and incredibly broad.
SB3 was supposed to take effect on 1 April but a local drag theatre troupe I used to work with, Friends of George’s, filed a suit against it. “The law prohibits a drag performer wearing a crop top and mini skirt from dancing where minors might see it,” their complaint notes, “but does not prohibit a Tennessee Titans cheerleader wearing an identical outfit from performing the exact same dance in front of children.”
A federal judge temporarily blocked the law through 26 May while it is adjudicated. We are confident it will be overturned as a blatantly unconstitutional infringement on free speech. Even the judge – a Trump appointee – has effectively said as much, which is telling. Multiple district attorneys, including Memphis’s Steve Mulroy, have also called the law unnecessary and unfair.
As for SB1, the US Department of Justice recently filed suit against Tennessee to prevent the bill from going into effect on 1 July as originally scheduled. We hope to see it swiftly overturned as well.
Although neither of these laws currently has legal standing, they have absolutely had a chilling effect on freedom of expression and the queer community. Organizers in Knoxville said they may have to cancel their annual Pride parade if SB3 goes through. I also know some local non-queer venues that have shut down their shows out of fear or uncertainty. Theatre, ballet, and opera companies are asking lawyers, “Can we still produce Peter Pan with a female Pan? Can we do Mrs Doubtfire? Is it okay for us to put on Shakespeare the way it was traditionally performed?”
Transgender and gender-nonconforming people are worried about just being in public. The rightwing pundit Michael Knowles recently called for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated from public life entirely”; I think people with that worldview, who view trans folks as embodiments of an ideology rather than actual human beings, could see a trans woman in public and say, “That’s a man impersonating a woman.” SB3’s language never uses the word “drag”; it only refers to “male and female impersonators.” My fear is that the language is intentionally and maliciously vague.
These attacks on the queer community are part of a broader political impulse. SB1 and SB3 are just two items on what we call Tennessee’s “Slate of Hate.” I get the sense that many of our elected officials are not as politically experienced, savvy or well-versed in law or public policy as they present. Children and families in Tennessee face very real issues, but our state’s legislative session was obsessively focused on trans kids, pronouns, drag queens, and the like – all in the guise of “protecting children.”
Tennesseans overwhelmingly support stronger gun control, particularly after the Covenant shooting – one of many horrific mass shootings in Tennessee in recent years. Yet the legislative session ended having done nothing to address these concerns. This comes as little surprise: our governor recently signed into law a widely-opposed permitless carry bill – at a gunmaker’s factory. How is this protecting children?
Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention released a list of over 700 of their ministers accused of sexual abuse, with many of the ministers in Tennessee. And that’s just one denomination. There is no record, not a single documented instance, of a child ever being harmed or abused at a drag show. Statistically speaking, children are far safer at a Drag Queen Story Hour than at church. Yet we aren’t attempting to legislate whether parents can take children to church. How is this protecting children?
Tennessee is dead last in the nation in the stability of our foster care system – failing the nearly 9,000 children under the state’s care. This information was released by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth after multiple failed attempts to dissolve the commission by state senator Jack Johnson – who incidentally also introduced both SB1 and SB3. How is this protecting children?
We have real and difficult issues in Tennessee that require real and difficult solutions. Rather than confront the problems constituents are begging them to address, rightwing lawmakers are concocting solutions to imaginary issues. And it’s not just here in Tennessee; conservative legislatures across the US have realized there is an easy political power grab to be had by vilifying a minority group. Over 650 antiLGBTQ bills have been introduced in 46 states since the beginning of the year. This is beyond alarming.
I am reminded of a not-too-distant past when the Nazi government painted queerness as inherently evil, a danger to families, children and culture. It resulted in pink triangles, camps, executions, the burning of books and the destruction of the Hirschfeld Institute. The othering and dehumanization of a minority group is always the first step toward their eradication.
In the last election cycle, about 10% of queer Tennesseans voted. In that same cycle, nearly 60% of our elected representatives ran unopposed. It is well past time we elect officials focused on solving the myriad problems facing their constituents rather than those championing a far-right Christian nationalist agenda.
Bella DuBalle is a drag artist in Tennessee