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ALERT! New Tennessee law bans MUCH much more than Drag Queens! [1]
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Date: 2023-03-09
Comments to a diary I posted today, “WOMEN'S DAY NEWS! Tennessee sued over its new anti-Drag Performance Law” demonstrated that a lot of people don’t realize that the attack on “Drag Book-Readings” and the like is integral to a full-scale assault on LGBTQ expression, and even feminist art itself.
This is operative part of the law being challenged:
"Adult cabaret performance" means a performance in a location other than an adult cabaret that features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers, regardless of whether or not performed for consideration;
Notice a few points:
The law does not discriminate against male VERSUS female impersonation.
This law prohibits gender impersonations that “appeal to a prurient interest," and a term left undefined.
The phrase "similar entertainers" is a Mack Truck-sized hole into which one could fit modern burlesque, feminist-oriented modern dance, you name it.
You can bet your Dita Von Teese that given the right law, more than one prosecutor would shut down burlesque shows at women’s cabarets. They coming for all of us, grrrl!
My friend and colleague Trulee Hall just produced in Los Angeles a multi-media lesbian-oriented dance and operatic piece called Ladies Lair Lake (see photo above) that could never be performed in Tennessee under this law, even though the genitalia depicted are symbolically presented through puppets, papier-mache, etc. (real nipples though)
Furthermore, and the lawsuit that my friend Hannah Miyamoto just filed against Tennessee emphasizes, the new Tennessee law not only leaves the definition of “prurient” up to whatever prosecutor wants to get his name in the news, but provides no defense for ARTISTIC WORKS like a lot of work by women artists. For example, The Vagina Monologues has no chance.
No one, especially no one responsible for a public or private theater, is going to allow their stage to be used by avant-garde work, under these “anti-Drag” laws, because these laws are written too loosely to believe whomever wrote them had any other goal than to prevent women, non-binary women and queer men from using any performative art to express their feelings.
Let’s stop fooling ourselves. These Jesus Creeps are coming for all of us, in any way they can, to use their male power to force our submission to them.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/9/2157186/-ALERT-New-Tennessee-law-bans-MUCH-more-than-Drag-Queens
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