By Nico Lang for Yes! Media.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Yes! Media-Public News Service Collaboration

In the early morning hours of May 10, 2023, Brigitte Bandit waited her turn to testify before Texas lawmakers with a message on the back of her dress that read: "Restrict Guns, Not Drag."

On the front of her white sheath gown were the names of the 22 children killed during mass shootings in the cities of Uvalde and Allen. After waiting 13 hours, she finally got to speak against Senate Bill 12, a Texas bill criminalizing drag performances, and accused GOP lawmakers of failing victims and their families by "spending more time in this legislative session targeting drag queens than gun violence." The provocation struck a nerve: After a Texas House committee member attempted to cut Bandit off before she had concluded her remarks, security escorted Bandit from the room.

Bandit, who resembles a harlequin Dolly Parton when made up in drag, had addressed the Texas Legislature once before: in March of 2023, opposing S.B. 12, which sought to criminalize drag artists who engaged in "sexually oriented performances" in view of minors with a $10,000 fine and a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. In March, Bandit was so nervous that her voice shook during her speech, but during her second visit to the Capitol, she says she was "really fucking angry." Three children were among the nine people killed after a gunman opened fire in an Allen shopping center on May 6-just four days earlier-and the empty sentiments from conservatives about "protecting kids" rang hollow, she says.

"They don't actually care about the truth," she says. "The first time I went to the Capitol, I had a little bit of hope: Oh, they don't know what they're talking about. We just need to show them. But these people want to continue to spread their lies. They don't care about the way this is affecting our community. They just really don't care."

Bandit is part of a nationwide grassroots movement of drag performers fighting back against anti-LGBTQ legislation-whether by speaking at state legislatures, joining lawsuits challenging drag bans, organizing rallies and marches, or any other way they can raise their voices. This advocacy has been extraordinarily effective in helping to move the needle on discriminatory laws. Four months after Bandit's first speech, a federal court declared S.B. 12-which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law on June 18, 2023-to be unconstitutional.

According to the Movement Advancement Project, six states enacted laws over the past few years that could be used to restrict public drag performances; only two of those are currently enforceable, neither of which explicitly names drag performances, while all others have been blocked in court. Courts have issued temporary injunctions pausing drag bans in Florida and Montana as civil rights groups fight to repeal the laws entirely. And in June 2023, Tennessee became the first state to see its anti-drag law, which banned drag from being performed either on public property or in front of minors, fully struck down. Tennessee's Senate Bill 3 was particularly harsh in its scrutiny of drag artists: Repeat offenders were subject to a Class E felony, resulting in a maximum six-year prison sentence.

As one of the faces of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit challenging Texas' S.B. 12, Bandit says she wept the day that the district court enjoined the law. She thought of how much drag has meant to her and what a profound impact it has had on her life since she first began performing in 2018. She had recently left an "intensely abusive relationship," she says, and was living in her mother's house after cramming all the belongings she could fit into her Fiat. "I had nothing," she recalls. "I didn't know who I was."

Bandit says finding drag helped her unlock an inner strength she never knew existed. She no longer felt the need to make herself small for other people's comfort and stopped putting everyone else's needs before her own. Drag became her suit of armor: a protective shield that allowed her to feel strong and ultimately use her voice in defense of the community that has shown her nothing but unconditional love. Although Bandit says that being part of the ongoing lawsuit against Texas has made this "one of the most challenging years" of her life, she intends to keep fighting to make sure others have the same opportunities to experience the beauty and power of drag.

In a time of unprecedented anti-LGBTQ legislation, it's fitting that drag performers are helping protect the decades of hard-won civil rights victories they themselves were instrumental in securing. Two of the leading figures in the early movement for LGBTQ equality were Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, trans women of color who sometimes referred to themselves as drag queens. As a nod to their groundbreaking work with the activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which provided housing for unhoused LGBTQ youth, Johnson and Rivera are often credited with kick-starting the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn. The landmark six-day demonstration against police brutality was among the earliest and most visible LGBTQ-led protests in the U.S., inspiring the first Pride parades the following year.

More than 55 years later, drag performers are yet again on the front lines of LGBTQ activism, at another critical moment for the queer community. So far in 2024, more than 500 bills have been considered in states across the country seeking to curtail basic rights and protections for LGBTQ people, according to data provided by the National Center for Transgender Equality. That number has already surpassed the historic 499 anti-LGBTQ bills considered in 2023. The vast majority of those proposals are aimed at restricting the ability of trans youths and adults to access necessary medical care, educational opportunities, public bathrooms, and IDs that match their lived gender identity.

While this wave of GOP-led legislation has resulted in nearly half of U.S. states banning medical care for trans and nonbinary people, and limiting trans sports participation, the conservative crusade against drag is already waning. Of this year's crop of bills targeting public drag performances, not a single piece of legislation, to date, has been signed into law. Most of 2024's proposed drag bans have been killed in committee, not even advancing to floor debate.

Across the country, drag performers have played a direct role in countering legislation restraining their freedom of expression. When a Senate committee debated South Dakota's Senate Bill 184 in February, the Rapid City-based drag performer Dixy Divine delivered a speech to lawmakers calling the legislation "unnecessary, un-American, and unacceptable." If passed, S.B. 184 would have banned drag artists from exhibiting a "gender identity that is different from the performer's biological sex" in view of minors. Dressed in sparkly gold leggings and a modest black dress, she pointed out that drag has a long history in popular culture, dating from the comedies of William Shakespeare to the Robin Williams farce Mrs. Doubtfire: "We've been enjoying theater, dance, and plays that don't take gender too seriously for centuries."

The committee ultimately voted down South Dakota's drag ban 5-1, marking a year in which no explicitly anti-LGBTQ laws have been passed in the state thus far, according to the ACLU of South Dakota. House Bill 1178, a vaguely worded bill that could potentially be used to restrict the performance of drag on college campuses, was quietly signed into law by Gov. Kristi Noem (R) in March. H.B. 1178 restricts state universities from funding or hosting "obscene live conduct," but what comprises obscenity is left undefined.

Arkansas signed its anti-drag bill into law despite protests from drag performers, but local activism helped to significantly restrain its scope. Athena Sinclair, a local drag artist and former Miss Gay Arkansas, hosted a January 2023 rally on the steps of the state Capitol in opposition to Senate Bill 43, a bill written so broadly that critics warned it would effectively criminalize public gender nonconformity. Sinclair, who also testified before a state Senate panel, led protesters in a rendition of "Seasons of Love" from the Broadway musical Rent, a demonstration that drew hundreds of attendees. The version of S.B. 43 ultimately enacted was so watered down that it didn't even explicitly mention drag at all.

Sinclair says the choice of song was a pointed message to lawmakers who have claimed that drag performers are predators and "groomers"-even though no data exists to support those incendiary claims. "It's so easy to get angry," she says. "It's so easy to lash out, but at the end of the day, that's what they want. They want to make us look like the enemy. They want us to look like we are the problem. If we show them the complete opposite, we can show what drag actually is, which is love. Drag, to me, represents love because it is self-expression, and I don't think that there is any better way to love than to love yourself. That's what drag has done for me. It's made me love myself and trust myself in everything that I do."

Another reason so many of these legislative efforts have failed is that, in the words of drag performer Flamy Grant, the bills are "so on the far side of absurd that it's just exhausting." "We aren't gonna go quietly," the singer-songwriter and podcaster from North Carolina adds. "Drag performers are showing up in drag at their city council offices and their state governments and saying, 'This is who I am. My art doesn't exist to destroy society. It exists to make people know themselves and love themselves. It's not to tear down values. It's to expand what we value.'"

Grant (whose moniker is a reference to the Christian recording artist Amy Grant) was among the performers who fought against the enforcement of Tennessee's drag ban, which was revived by a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that dismissed the case in July 2024. Flamy Grant was scheduled to be a headliner at Blount Pride in East Tennessee when the September 2023 event was threatened with prosecution. Although the drag ban had already been struck down in court, the county's attorney general, Ryan Desmond, vowed to enforce the law anyway. With Grant as a plaintiff, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennesseefiled a successful lawsuit against Desmond, allowing the Pride festival to move forward as planned.

Grant knows that drag can play a major role in resisting anti-LGBTQ hate because she has seen it firsthand. Her post-show meet and greets, which deal with themes like surviving religious trauma and finding joy, are often longer than the performance, Grant notes, because bringing forward those dialogues gives people a space to heal. There are a lot of tears, she says, but a mother who lost her child to suicide once came up after a show to thank her. "You're literally saving lives," the woman said.

That's why Grant says protecting drag is so important: because it has the potential to reach people who really need to hear the message. "When you really get to know the drag community, the fearmongering is so silly," Grant says. "The goal of drag bans is to isolate people from each other. Drag bans try to remove us from public life and keep us in dark corners of the world. They know that the power of this art form is that it's liberating. It's freeing. It's empowering, and it helps people feel seen."


Nico Lang wrote this article for Yes! Media.


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OutNebraska's Prairie Pride Film Festival returns for its 14th year this week.

Johnny Redd, communications manager for OutNebraska, said the festival was started because of a lack of cultural events in the Midwest focused on LGBTQ+ stories. Festival changes this year include adding two additional locations and more fiction films.

Redd noted storytelling through films is both entertaining and one of the most impactful ways to shed light on issues.

"Facts and logic can only go so far, and sometimes just being receptive to a story can really be impactful," Redd explained. "We really love the idea of film as an agent of social change and empowerment, and also just celebration and seeing ourselves on the big screen."

The film festival will be in Lincoln on Oct. 17, followed by Hastings and Omaha on Oct. 19 and Oct. 20, respectively. Redd believes one documentary, "Seat 31," will resonate with Nebraskans because of its parallels to the contentious 2023 Nebraska legislative session. It features Zooey Zephyr, Montana's first openly transgender state legislator, who was censured for her outspoken opposition to a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Seat 31 shows what the film's publicity describes as Zephyr's "shocking, funny and joyous" experiences on the bench she makes her "office" after being barred from the floor of the Montana House. Redd called the story timely, saying wounds still linger in Nebraska from the passage of Legislative Bill 574.

"I think it's a very inspiring story," Redd emphasized. "She still wanted to be able to do her job, even if she wasn't allowed on the legislative floor. I think this will be pretty healing, to see a story from another state that went through something very similar to us."

As of 2020, there are more than 270 LGBTQ+ film festivals worldwide.

The legal process for a person to change their name can feel complicated. A workshop in Boise walked people through it.

The Wrest Collective, a community-funded law firm, and the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence held the clinic to help people with name changes and changing the sex marker on their birth certificates with the state of Idaho.

Casey Parsons, an attorney and cofounder of Wrest Collective, hosted the clinic.

"A lot of folks do feel intimidated and uncertain about how to do it. So, that's part of the purpose of the clinic - to demystify that process and what it takes," Parsons said.

About 30 people attended the workshop, which was called Reclaim Our Names. The name-changing process costs about $300 and the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence raised funds to cover the name-change costs for some of the people who attended.

Parsons said there are many benefits to someone changing their name.

"Having your documents reflect your identity is important for a lot of people legally, but also personally I think it's important, because it's essentially asking the state to recognize you to be who you are," Parsons explained.

Parsons also noted the event was important for reasons beyond the legal aspects.

"There's a lot of value in holding queer-oriented spaces in a city like Boise to make people feel supported, and so that they can see and know that, while things are bad here, we're not alone," Parsons added.


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In a few months, North Dakota lawmakers will reconvene. LGBTQ advocates are still unpacking the fallout from the 2023 legislative session, when many controversial laws were adopted. That session saw the passage of nearly a dozen laws deemed hostile towards LGBTQ people, namely students. One high-profile policy allows teachers to ignore the preferred pronoun of a student.

Faye Seidler, a suicide prevention advocate for queer and transgender populations in North Dakota, suggested that it can be tricky measuring the harm based on the intent behind some of these laws, but added it's pretty clear they have amplified the perception that these youth feel unwelcome.

"That then translates into a suicide contagion where a lot of folks feel more dread, feel more scared, have heightened risk factors and are more susceptible to suicidal ideation," Seidler said.

She pointed to national data from the Trevor Project that show elevated demand for mental health crisis lines amid a wave of these laws pursued by conservative legislatures. Seidler said the inconsistent application of restrictive policies in school settings remains an underlying issue. The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction declined to comment.

Seidler said uneven approaches among school districts make it harder for educators and students to handle gender identity matters, potentially creating the risk of parents being notified when the child might not want that to happen.

"So, what ends up happening is a lot of these kids who aren't safe at home no longer are safe at school and mostly just have to sit with a lot of trauma," Seidler continued.

Despite the ripple effects, Seidler said there is more community-level support, including in rural areas, for LGBTQ youth than some might think - it's just a matter of creating awareness. She noted there was an increase in Pride events around North Dakota over the past year, even with the new laws. Survey data from the Trevor Project show that LGBTQ young people who reported living in accepting communities attempted suicide at lower rates than those living in unaccepting communities.


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