National
Republican states target drag performers
Bills seek to restrict shows, label venues as ‘adult-oriented businesses’
A number of bills targeting drag performers are popping up in majority-Republican states across the nation.
At least 14 states have introduced bills that would restrict drag queens from performing in public spaces and in venues viewable by minors. Some of the proposed legislation would require venues that host drag events to register as “adult-oriented businesses.”
These bills are the latest legislative attempts targeting LGBTQ rights, particularly transgender rights. Other proposed legislation across the country includes access to gender-affirming health care and banning kids from being able to play gender-affirming sports.
Shawn Stokes, a drag queen who performs as Akasha Royale and is based in St Louis, said he’s “embarrassed” these bills have been introduced in his home state and across the country.
“We have plenty of other things to do. We have a failing educational system,” he said. “We are just wasting a lot of time.”
In Missouri, legislators are considering several bills, including one described as changing “the definition of a sexually oriented business to include any nightclub or bar that provides drag performances.” Another bill would classify “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” as adult cabaret performances. Performances on public property or viewed by minors could result in a misdemeanor punishable by jail time and a hefty fine.
Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has endorsed a similar bill in her state.
In Tennessee, a bill would classify “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” as adult cabaret performances and would ban performances on public property. Shows would also be banned where minors could be present.
A rural county in Tennessee has already approved regulations on drag performances — the Giles County Agri-Park Board Committee passed a slew of restrictions in early January, including banning “male or female impersonators” from the park, the Tennessean reported.
Steven Raimo, a Nashville-based drag queen who performs as Veronika Electronika, said legislators are trying to “eliminate the art of drag.”
“They want to put fear in entertainers,” Raimo said.
Raimo predicts venues will stop hosting drag performers because of the risk of retribution.
“One of the restaurants that I do our brunch and bingo show has big glass windows that look onto a public street,” he said. “I could potentially be arrested in violation of this law because anybody of any age could walk past the windows and see the show.”
Raimo added he would be much more careful in choosing where he performs because of the ambiguity of the bill as it stands.
And it’s likely the bill will pass in Tennessee, according to Kathy Sinback, the executive director of American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. The Tennessee Senate passed the bill Feb. 9, and the state House of Representatives also has a companion bill in motion that would require drag performers to obtain a permit.
“It is moving so quickly,” Sinback said. “These [anti-drag bills] are their top priorities this session.”
Bills could target transgender people
Because of the vagueness of the bills and classifying drag performers as “male or female impersonators,” advocates fear this proposed legislation could attack transgender people.
“This is in fact a transphobic bill, even more so than it is a drag-phobic bill,” Raimo said. It’s a very important piece of this story that I don’t want to be lost.”
Trans people in Tennessee could be viewed as “male or female impersonators” by law enforcement because people cannot change the gender marker on their birth certificate, Raimo said.
“So if someone’s singing karaoke in the bar, and they do a little twerking, maybe that’s harmful to minors all of a sudden. It can be interpreted so broadly,” Sinback said.
Even in states where it’s unlikely to pass, ‘damage’ is still done
The Arizona Senate is considering legislation that would prohibit federal or state funds from being allocated to places where drag shows are hosted. Another bill, similar to those in Tennessee and Missouri, would classify drag as “adult cabaret performances,” and would ban shows on public property.
It’s unlikely the bills will be passed into law in Arizona given Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is in power, according to Richard Stevens, a Phoenix-based drag queen who performs as Barbra Seville. But still, “even if it’s not made into law, damage has been done,” he said.
“Their mission in a lot of ways is accomplished,” Stevens explained. “They’ve now connected grooming and pedophilia and attacks on children to drag. People who weren’t thinking about drag a year ago are now paranoid of drag.”
Stevens was once friends with Kari Lake, a Republican who continue to claim she won last November’s Arizona’s gubernatorial election. Stevens subsequently became a vocal Lake critic after she criticized drag queens and claimed they are “grooming” children.
The classification of drag performances as “sexual” is also an archaic perspective, Stokes said.
“This narrative that drag queens are predators or groomers is absolutely false,” Stokes said. “Going to a drag show with your kid in a public place is no different than taking your 12-year-old kid to a PG-13 movie.”
“It’s 100 percent fearmongering. It’s demonization,” Stevens said.
This is a common thread in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric — the false narrative that all LGBTQ people are out to get children, said Misty Eyez, the director of the women’s program and transgender services, and the manager of LGBTQ competency training at SunServe, an LGBTQ services organization based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
“It’s not a new story that LGBTQ individuals are stereotyped as … a threat to traditional values or morality,” she said.
State Department
HIV/AIDS activists protest at State Department, demand full PEPFAR funding restoration
Black coffins placed in front of Harry S. Truman Building
Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday gathered in front of the State Department and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
Housing Works CEO Charles King, Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matthew Rose, and others placed 206 black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department before the protest began.
King said more than an estimated 100,000 people with HIV/AIDS will die this year if PEPFAR funding is not fully restored.
“If we continue to not provide the PEPFAR funding to people living in low-income countries who are living with HIV or at risk, we are going to see millions and millions of deaths as well as millions of new infections,” added King.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.
The Trump-Vance administration in January froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Two South African organizations — OUT LGBT Well-being and Access Chapter 2 — that received PEPFAR funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent weeks closed down HIV-prevention programs and other services to men who have sex with men.
Rubio last month said 83 percent of USAID contracts have been cancelled. He noted the State Department will administer those that remain in place “more effectively.”
“PEPFAR represents the best of us, the dignity of our country, of our people, of our shared humanity,” said Rose.
Russell described Rubio as “ignorant and incompetent” and said “he should be fired.”
“What secretary of state in 90 days could dismantle what the brilliance of AIDS activism created side-by-side with George W. Bush? What kind of fool could do that? I’ll tell you who, the boss who sits in the Harry S. Truman Building, Marco Rubio,” said Russell.
U.S. Military/Pentagon
Pentagon urged to reverse Naval Academy book ban
Hundreds of titles discussing race, gender, and sexuality pulled from library shelves
Lambda Legal and the Legal Defense Fund issued a letter on Tuesday urging U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reverse course on a policy that led to the removal of 381 books from the Nimitz Library of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the institution screened 900 titles to identify works promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” removing those that concerned or touched upon “topics pertaining to the experiences of people of color, especially Black people, and/or LGBTQ people,” according to a press release from the civil rights organizations.
These included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, “Stone Fruit” by Lee Lai, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James W. Loewen, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, and “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul” by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
The groups further noted that “the collection retained other books with messages and themes that privilege certain races and religions over others, including ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ by Thomas Dixon, Jr., ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.
In their letter, Lambda Legal and LDF argued the books must be returned to circulation to preserve the “constitutional rights” of cadets at the institution, warning of the “danger” that comes with “censoring materials based on viewpoints disfavored by the current administration.”
“Such censorship is especially dangerous in an educational setting, where critical inquiry, intellectual diversity, and exposure to a wide array of perspectives are necessary to educate future citizen-leaders,” Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer and LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee said in the press release.
Federal Government
White House sues Maine for refusing to comply with trans athlete ban
Lawsuit follows months-long conflict over school sports in state
The Justice Department is suing the state of Maine for refusing to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday.
DOJ’s lawsuit accuses the state of violating Title IX rules barring sex discrimination, arguing that girls and women are disadvantaged in sports and deprived of opportunities like scholarships when they must compete against natal males, an interpretation of the statute that reverses course from how the law was enforced under the Biden-Harris administration.
“We tried to get Maine to comply” before filing the complaint, Bondi said during a news conference. She added the department is asking the court to “have the titles return to the young women who rightfully won these sports” and may also retroactively pull federal funding to the state for refusing to comply with the ban in the past.
Earlier this year, the attorney general sent letters to Maine, California, and Minnesota warning the blue states that the department “does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law.”
According to the Maine Principals’ Association, only two trans high school-aged girls are competing statewide this year. Conclusions from research on the athletic performance of trans athletes vis-a-vis their cisgender counterparts have been mixed.
Trump critics and LGBTQ advocates maintain that efforts to enforce the ban can facilitate invasive gender policing to settle questions about an individual athlete’s birth sex, which puts all girls and women at risk. Others believe determinations about eligibility should be made not by the federal government but by school districts, states, and athletics associations.
Bondi’s announcement marked the latest escalation of a months-long feud between Trump and Maine, which began in February when the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, declined to say she would enforce the ban.
Also on Wednesday, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the findings from her department’s Title IX investigation into Maine schools — which, likewise, concerned their inclusion of trans student-athletes in competitive sports — was referred to DOJ.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department pulled $1.5 million in grants for Maine’s Department of Corrections because a trans woman was placed in a women’s correctional facility in violation of a different anti-trans executive order, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture paused the disbursement of funds supporting education programs in the state over its failure to comply with Title IX rules.
A federal court last week ordered USDA to unfreeze the money in a ruling that prohibits the agency from “terminating, freezing, or otherwise interfering with the state’s access to federal funds based on alleged Title IX violations without following the process required by federal statute.”
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