Tennessee law strikes fear among drag performers ahead of Pride Month

Renae Green-Bean had already begun taking public precautions before the Tennessee legislature passed a law in March restricting “adult cabaret” performances.

Ms. Green-Bean had seen the proliferation of legislation restricting LGBTQ rights and was concerned that restaurant nights with her wife, children or grandchildren, or her preference for male clothing and cropped hair, would lead to harassment. So she worried that the new law would make her feel less safe in pursuing her creative outlet: don a dazzling jacket several nights a week and transform into El Rey, a drag king.

If a federal judge allows the law to take effect in the coming weeks, it would ban what he defines as adult cabaret performances, including by “male or female impersonators,” on public land or anywhere children can see them. It won’t stop the shows Ms. Green-Bean, 46, puts on at an adult club in Clarksville and other clubs near the Kentucky border.

Still, she and other performers said, it now feels much riskier to be seen in drag somewhere in public. The law and other similar laws come as far-right activists increasingly target drag shows across the country, with members of the Proud Boys and other protesters, sometimes heavily armed, appearing at the shows and during library story hours when drag performers read books. children.

“There’s a fear factor,” Ms Green-Bean said of the law, “because they’ve given people the right to be hateful.”

The judge temporarily blocked the law’s enactment in late March after a Memphis theater group challenged its constitutionality, but its approval has created fear and confusion among drag performers that is unlikely to go away even if the law is overturned.

Ahead of a ruling that could come as early as this week, the law is also scrambling the plans of entertainment venues, artists and event organizers preparing for Pride Month celebrations, many of which take place on city streets and other public places. Such events, along with all-ages drag brunches at a few locations across the state, appear to be the main targets of the law.

So are groups planning Pride celebrations restrict participation to adults or canceling drag performances — not just in Tennessee, but also in Florida, Montana, Texas and Arkansas, which passed similar laws this year banning anyone under the age of 18 from doing live performances that meet the definition of inappropriate by the legislator.

The laws have been sparked by conservative backlash as Pride parades and festivals have spread across the country and drag has gained a foothold in the mainstream media. The hit reality TV show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has catapulted a number of performers to roles in movies, TV shows, and musicals, and giant retailers like Target and Walmart are marketing LGBTQ merchandise, the focus of a new outcry ahead to Pride Month.

Despite that growing visibility in mainstream culture, many people who support anti-drag laws — which have been debated this year in more than a dozen states — view drag performances as too adult for young people or in direct conflict with deeply religious values ​​and claim they need to draw the line.

Drag’s most outspoken critics have characterized it as invariably sexual. But as audiences grew, many drag performers say they modified their performances, making them suitable for drag brunches and public events such as Pride parades when children may be present.

“Drag artists were already regulating themselves,” said Vanessa Rodley, the president of Mid-South Pride. “They didn’t need the government to come and regulate them.”

Even with the law on hold, Ms. Rodley has spent weeks reviewing costumes and music for the dozens of drag performers who will appear at next month’s Mid-South Pride festival in Memphis. To avoid photos or video clips being taken out of context and implying suspicious behavior in front of children, she has also ruled out changing costumes on stage or accepting tips by hand, which is common in drag shows.

The Tennessee law emerged last year from a conflict in Jackson, a city between Memphis and Nashville, where two state legislators and some members of a local church filed a lawsuit to prevent a drag show from taking place in a public park during the annual Pride city ​​festival. . A settlement restricted the event to people 18 and older.

Soon after, one of the legislators, State Representative Chris Todd, sponsored the bill to criminalize adult cabaret in certain settings. A first offense under the law would be a misdemeanor punishable by nearly a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. Subsequent offenses would be felonies, punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $3,000.

Adam Dooley, pastor of Jackson’s Englewood Baptist Church, testified for Tennessee’s measure this year, saying that while adults “have every right” to see a cross-dressing performance, “they have no right to insist on it.” that children are present, and frankly I wonder if there is some sinister motive that would drive the demand for children to be present.

Opponents of the law and others who like it say they are repeating a decades-old anti-LGBTQ smear by suggesting that performers prey on children.

Benjamin Slinkard, who stars as Kennedy Ann Scott, the resident drag queen at Nashville’s Lipstick Lounge, said he saw a motivation for the law that had nothing to do with protecting minors: Sharing that with the world, I think, terrifies people who have only seen the world from one point of view.”

The crackdown on drag performances belies the deep history of drag performers in the South, which began long before it became a mainstay in the region’s biggest entertainment districts.

Sarah Calise, the founder and director of Queer History of Nashvillea project dedicated to the history of the city’s LGBTQ community, said drag largely began in the region with white men performing as women in 19th-century minstrel blackface shows before expanding through vaudeville and then LGBTQ clubs.

Later, performers were required to carry ID cards and saw their clubs targeted by police and arsonists in Tennessee, even as the state became the birthplace of Miss Gay America, now a 51-year-old drag pageant.

Now many drag performers have resumes littered with pageantry or performances featuring Nashville’s music stars, while also lip syncing and dancing to variety shows or weekend brunches packed with groups visiting for bachelorette weekends.

In interviews, several artists reflected on how drag has been an antidote to the loneliness and pain they experienced in their youth, when their deeply religious or conservative communities ostracized LGBTQ people. Many performers have watched their own families struggle to understand their sexual or gender identity or their passion for cross-dressing, and accept that some parents may not be comfortable with their children seeing a cross-dressing show, even one with family-friendly routines.

Miami Miller, a drag performer who takes care of a young cousin who earns income from performing at Atomic Rose, a Memphis club, said the boy “knows what I’m doing, and he’s super proud of me.” Attending his first Mother’s Day drag show this month, Mx. Miller said, the boy marveled at the performers transformations and talked about it for the rest of the day.

“It’s like any other parent when you’re around a kid,” Mx. Miller said. “I try to keep everything appropriate around kids.”

As lawmakers scramble to define what types of live entertainment are inappropriate for minors, the rights of parents who see benefits — including learning about self-expression and acceptance — for their children are being overlooked, according to several performers.

“For a little boy like me, who knew I was different from a very young age, it would have been powerful to see myself in someone else and to know there was a future for me,” said Slade Kyle, 43, who works as Bella DuBalle, the show director and host at Atomic Rose, who is now one of the most outspoken drag performers in the state.

At a recent all-ages brunch at Atomic Rose, Ms. DuBalle brought Elizabeth, a 9-year-old fan, onstage to dance after chatting with her about the challenges of elementary school.

Her father, Seth Bowlin, 33, recalled initially rejecting his own father for being gay and a drag performer in Memphis before embracing him. Taking his daughter to drag shows was an opportunity to model acceptance, Mr. Bowlin said, and to let her know “we’ll support her,” no matter who she becomes later.

In Clarksville, Ms. Green-Bean and her wife, Lizette, say they will continue to perform a few nights a week for now, dance with each other or take the spotlight alone with the support of their children in what feels like an escape from the world . expectations.

“Sometimes you get lost in who society and everyone else wants you to be as a mother,” said 43-year-old Lizette. “Drag is a place where you don’t have to be. You don’t have to be your typical, everyday label.