On March 2, 2023, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a bill that targets drag queens for allegedly exposing minors to inappropriate displays.
Tennessee is the first state to pass legislation such as this, but other states are following suit. The debate over whether children should be exposed to drag shows began last summer, when videos of children attending them were shared online.
Republicans were quick to share their disdain over this occurrence fearing that children are being groomed and exposed to sexually explicit content. At Chattanooga Pride, last summer, former House candidate Robby Starbuck (R) shared a video of a young girl grabbing at the crotch area of a performer dressed up as Ariel. He criticized the performer for endangering the child and stated that we “have to stop this madness.”
The thing that Starbuck and his supporters got wrong, after throwing hate towards this video, is that the performer was actually not in drag, but a biological woman in costume. They assumed she was a drag performer and jumped on this incident to form an argument for why it is harmful to minors.
Yet there are still only a handful of occurrences nationally where minors were exposed to inappropriate behavior because of a drag queen. Tennessee Republicans still deemed this issue to rush legislation over. What exactly does this bill say though?
According to the Tennessee General Assembly website, the bill makes it illegal for an adult cabaret performance to occur anywhere where a minor may be able to witness it. The bill explicitly says that charges will only occur if this performance is considered harmful to minors. It defines something as harmful to minors if it contains nudity, sexual excitement or conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse.
On paper, this bill appears perfectly reasonable. Children should not be exposed to strip teases or pole dances, but that is not happening in Tennessee; at least not frequently enough that an entire law needs to be made out of it. This is Tennessee lawmakers’ way of singling out an already marginalized community and criminalizing their way of life.
The other danger that comes with this bill is that it is still reliant on the interpretation of the one enforcing it. Is a drag show’s presence in public, for example at a drag brunch, inherently sexual?
What kind of message are we teaching children if the mere presence of a drag queen is deemed inappropriate? Once this bill goes into effect in July, we will see the impact it will have on the drag and LGBTQ+ community. One thing that is clear from this, however, is that hatred and close-mindedness have won this battle, a common occurrence within the Tennessee state legislature.
