The war on drag queens continues apace. Last Saturday, members of the all-male neo-fascist gang Proud Boys tried to shut down a drag event at a DC area venue, physically attacking counterprotesters and leaving at least one bloodied, according to reports. Last year, there were 120 such protests of drag events in the US. The Proud Boys have been known to show up armed with handguns and assault rifles.
Meanwhile, state legislatures in red states around the country are taking up bills to criminalize drag performances anywhere children might see them, often redefining even family-friendly drag acts as “sexually explicit.” and, in some cases forbidding shows by people “reading to kids in flamboyant makeup.”
In Tennesee, the state senate just passed a bill forbidding shows open to children featuring “male or female impersonators.” The bill defines drag shows as “adult cabaret performances” equivalent to strip shows. Now that it’s passed the senate, the bill will be taken up by the state house tomorrow, and if passed, will likely be signed into law by anti-trans governor Bill Lee. Dozens of bills targeting drag shows have been introduced in at least 15 states so far, including Arizona, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Texas. Florida governor and anti- “woke” crusader Ron DeSantis wants parents who take their kids to drag shows investigated for child abuse.
This war on drag has taken over political culture on the right. Reactionary media personalities like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson regularly rail against the supposed evil of drag, with Carlson accusing Drag Queen Story Hours of “indoctrinat[ing] and sexualiz[ing] children.”
The attacks on drag queens are, of course, part of a larger anti-trans crusade. Though drag queens aren’t trans women, but rather men who perform in women’s clothing, the two groups have been conflated in right-wing propaganda, with both groups being targeted for supposedly “grooming” children. Dozens of bills restricting everything from trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports to receiving gender-affirming care have been introduced across the country.
“This is them trying to silence trans people,” a drag queen known as Tara Lipsyncki recently told LGBTQ Nation,
taking away children and teenagers’ rights to their own body autonomy, banning books in libraries and everything else — they’re trying to literally kill the next generation. They are trying to eradicate trans and queer youth so we don’t have anything behind us.
This isn’t just about drag shows. They want trans people eliminated from public life.
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Because little kids don’t like dress-up, and pretend, or having stories read to them.
I think you can remove the last three words from that statement and it will be equally true.
Trans people create cognitive dissonance because they don’t fit into the neat little boxes of how things ‘should’ be, and so some people want to get rid of them to avoid having to question assumptions ever again. Since actually killing people would be illegal, those people will settle for just making it illegal to be trans in public instead.
So, basically making LARPing illegal too. Tons of kids of parents in the LARP scene.
@ milotha
Eh, things like LARP, Dungeons and Dragons, etc are mainstream now. First they eliminate trans, gays, put the minorities back in their place, make everyone go to church, then worry about cracking down on LARPers.
TLDR: They love to take a Slippery Slope argument and make it reality, but LARP is way further down the hill than Drag Queens
@.45
They never stop and wait at the group they’re currently genociding, to start on the next. There’s already a new wave of Satanic Panic gaining momentum. Don’t think for a second that won’t hit the table top gaming community and LARPers right in the face. Especially when a lot of LARPing is furry related.
And here I’d taken to calling them Cooperative Boys. Guess I was wrong. That’s a damn shame.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091693738/proud-boy-leader-pleads-guilty-to-jan-6-conspiracy-agrees-to-cooperate-with-doj
I want RuPaul to smack all of them.
He’s a big guy out of drag, pretty sure he (or she in full glam and heels) could take ’em. But Ru is a better person than I am, and also prettier.
(werk!)
Their logic and their reasoning are both genocidal, even if their tactics arne’t quite there yet.
Makes me scared as hell.
Does the US not have pantomime shows? Just wondering if there’s the same level of hysteria over Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella etc at Christmas…
I would not be to surprised if people start finding copies of the old “Dark Dungeons” comic stuffed between the pages of RPG rule books or something.
@Fabe: I’ve enjoyed Chick-tracts in a so bad it’s good kind of way, but these clowns are beyond satire.
Once again, very happy I don’t live on your side of the Atlantic. (or the North Sea, for that matter). I hope you are all safe.
Right-wing men probably perceive both drag performers and trans women as Crying Game false advertising.
Great title. Given current events in Europe, one might think this was going to be commentary on the war in Ukraine.
Yup. Huge overlap between transphobes and subscribers of “traditional gender roles.”
@GSS Ex-noob
Nah, Ru is a right asshole in many, many ways.
@sunnysombrera – Not just an overlap but a core philosophy about male supremacy, specifically women’s bodies belonging to fathers or husbands. Unfortunately, many women share that philosophy because they falsely believe it equates to protection. Both homosexuality and transgender, by their very existence, threaten that supremacy.
I know this is a minor complaint compared to what the LGBTQ community is facing, but I’m a straight cisgender white suburban mom in Texas who was really looking forward to taking my AFAB child to Drag Queen Story Hour when I first heard of it when she was an infant. I mean, a G-rated family friendly drag show? Sounds like lots of fun!
But just as she gets old enough to take to something like that (she’s 3 now), all this anti-drag stuff happens and now either DQSH gets cancelled, or if one is held, Nazi protestors show up.
Whatever happened to my rights to raise my kid the way I want? What if I want to take her to something that shows her that it’s OK for boys dress up in pretty makeup and fancy dresses if they want to? (Which is how I was planning to explain it to her.) What if I want her to learn that people don’t have to adhere to traditional gender roles if they don’t want to?
I know, they never really cared about parental freedom or anything like that. They want to force me to raise my kid with strict traditional gender roles and accuse me of child abuse if I don’t.
Oh dear. Over here on this side of the Pacific things are looking up in many ways. Here in Adelaide The Garden of Unearthly Delights open s tonight kicking off the arts festival. The chosen weather for this year’s opening is a sweltering 40 + degrees. The only alternative is cold damp and miserable.
Over on the east coast Sydney is opening World Pride Week. Apart from all the usual flamboyance, it occurred to a few people that there was a glaring </em omission. So we’re having a float or whatever for Drag Kings! Concert tonight at the Domain, parade Saturday night. Should be great.
Just when I thought Vladimir Putrid couldn’t disgust me any more.
Apparently, in Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine, Ukrainian children are being rounded up and sent to Russia to be “re-educated” and then adopted out.
The last time I checked, that was considered to be genocide.
When will this chucklefuck face a war crimes tribunal?
Whack job Proud Boys members on both Twitter and Facebook ritually deface any post that seems gender obscure. A person could spend their entire life blocking these supposed “gentlemen” having a mythical magic sausage, also deleting their dribble. As the cucumbent gonads they supposedly are, they need to “go north and defend stupid” insipidly instead. P.S.: Greetings from Germany. Lol!
Well they are trying pushing through a bill in my state that will “baned transgender people from using women’s restrooms and locker room” just trans people. Not trans women. Trans women and men can go into the men’s restroom i guess. But trans women and men can’t use the women’s rest rooms. Looking forward to when the cops or security get called on me because I didn’t want to dress feminine one day.
@Elaine
That almost happened to a friend of mine a few years back when this nonsense was gaining steam. She was minding her own business, using the facilities as intended, when she realized someone was spying on her through the crack of the stall door. My friend is a tall, rangy woman who only dresses “feminine” when she’s in a setting requiring it. Usually she wears jeans and plain shirts, because most of her days are spent out working/inspecting their land.
She managed to not punch the peeper, though she was sorely tempted.
Speaking as a Brit, don’t you have pantomime over in the US?
Those who scream the loudest have the most to hide.
@NotEdward
Not in the US.