March 2023
Drag Ban - or a Step Towards Appeal of Marriage Equality
03/31/2023
by Randy Phillips
Sensationalized headlines pander to the right wing conservatives to push the divide. Is this a sensationalize statement or as the statement from NPR on March 6, 2023 when they stated, “The Anti-Drag bills sweeping the U.S. are straight from history’s playbook. Or is this just a ploy to try to legislate gay people in general back into the closet?
The bill that passed in Tennessee last week restricts “adult cabaret performances” in public or in the presence of children, and bans them from occurring within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks, or places of worship. This was passed alongside separate legislation that bans transgender minors in Tennessee from receiving gender-affirming care like puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery.
As of a month ago, at least 9 GOP-led state legislatures were pushing similar anti-drag bills so I would believe it safe to say that this is an orchestrated effort nationwide by the GOP to find a group they demonize to gain traction before the fall elections and run up to presidential elections since they have been losing much of their base due to divisive conservative agendas. The last election they pushed abortion and this topic came back to bite them as many abandon their party over this agenda, so now it is a new tactic, drag performers and the gay community. After all in the 2020 election their printed party platform plainly stated their agenda was to throw out Roe V Wade, and to repeal gay marriage. This would just be the first footsteps in that direction. Is these tactics something new? Not by a long shot. With the Biden administration announcing its support of the LGBTQ community early on, it is not a surprise the GOP is on the attack.
Laws restricting gender expression in public and in private have been around in the U.S. for more than 100 years, with one in New York only just being repealed in 2021. Critics say the Tennessee bill is so constitutionally vague there is little clarity about what falls under the jurisdiction of the ban, making business owners, performers and others uncertain of what could come next. Others say the laws will be used to target queer Tennesseans everywhere: “It’s ... this subtle and sinister way to further criminalize just being trans,” ACLU of Tennessee’s Henry Seaton Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University, who studies transgender history and the history of sexuality stated: “Unlike a lot of other anti-LGBT legislation this doesn’t really have any precedent, we actually have almost 150 years worth of laws of this kind. 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 assigned sex. And those kinds of laws really took off in the late 19th century. They were really used for many decades, well into the 20th century to imperil and harass, but also to silence LGBT people. Because if you were arrested, which was so easy under the way these laws were written, your name might be published in the newspaper, you’d have a criminal record. It could really ruin your employment chances and out you to everyone.
With this legislation in place, it could impact PRIDE events this summer. “True, the notion that police might arrive at pride and start arresting drag queens, or frankly, anyone who could be dressed in a costume, and because there could be children in the crowd, is really, kind of an incredible thing to imagine happening” said Gill-Peterson. “But I think this is the sort of uncertainty of how these 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.
And so the question is, what is going to be the newfound danger that folks are going to face at a popular family friendly events 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.” These laws have been repealed before; often this means they must be appealed to the Supreme Court, yet with current make up of the court that could be a whole different challenge. So is this sensationalize headlining or just a political football by the GOP to take another step towards the goal of repealing marriage equality? This writer believes it is the later.
Sensationalized headlines pander to the right wing conservatives to push the divide. Is this a sensationalize statement or as the statement from NPR on March 6, 2023 when they stated, “The Anti-Drag bills sweeping the U.S. are straight from history’s playbook. Or is this just a ploy to try to legislate gay people in general back into the closet?
The bill that passed in Tennessee last week restricts “adult cabaret performances” in public or in the presence of children, and bans them from occurring within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks, or places of worship. This was passed alongside separate legislation that bans transgender minors in Tennessee from receiving gender-affirming care like puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery.
As of a month ago, at least 9 GOP-led state legislatures were pushing similar anti-drag bills so I would believe it safe to say that this is an orchestrated effort nationwide by the GOP to find a group they demonize to gain traction before the fall elections and run up to presidential elections since they have been losing much of their base due to divisive conservative agendas. The last election they pushed abortion and this topic came back to bite them as many abandon their party over this agenda, so now it is a new tactic, drag performers and the gay community. After all in the 2020 election their printed party platform plainly stated their agenda was to throw out Roe V Wade, and to repeal gay marriage. This would just be the first footsteps in that direction. Is these tactics something new? Not by a long shot. With the Biden administration announcing its support of the LGBTQ community early on, it is not a surprise the GOP is on the attack.
Laws restricting gender expression in public and in private have been around in the U.S. for more than 100 years, with one in New York only just being repealed in 2021. Critics say the Tennessee bill is so constitutionally vague there is little clarity about what falls under the jurisdiction of the ban, making business owners, performers and others uncertain of what could come next. Others say the laws will be used to target queer Tennesseans everywhere: “It’s ... this subtle and sinister way to further criminalize just being trans,” ACLU of Tennessee’s Henry Seaton Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University, who studies transgender history and the history of sexuality stated: “Unlike a lot of other anti-LGBT legislation this doesn’t really have any precedent, we actually have almost 150 years worth of laws of this kind. 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 assigned sex. And those kinds of laws really took off in the late 19th century. They were really used for many decades, well into the 20th century to imperil and harass, but also to silence LGBT people. Because if you were arrested, which was so easy under the way these laws were written, your name might be published in the newspaper, you’d have a criminal record. It could really ruin your employment chances and out you to everyone.
With this legislation in place, it could impact PRIDE events this summer. “True, the notion that police might arrive at pride and start arresting drag queens, or frankly, anyone who could be dressed in a costume, and because there could be children in the crowd, is really, kind of an incredible thing to imagine happening” said Gill-Peterson. “But I think this is the sort of uncertainty of how these 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.
And so the question is, what is going to be the newfound danger that folks are going to face at a popular family friendly events 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.” These laws have been repealed before; often this means they must be appealed to the Supreme Court, yet with current make up of the court that could be a whole different challenge. So is this sensationalize headlining or just a political football by the GOP to take another step towards the goal of repealing marriage equality? This writer believes it is the later.