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Producers of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Fight Back Against Christian Nationalists’ anti-LGBTQ+ Attacks [1]

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Date: 2023-04-11

The beat goes on: Over the past several months, armed white supremacists have demonstrated against Drag Queen Story Hour in several states; a bakery in Chicago was forced to shut down when physical attacks were aimed at it for deciding to host drag performers; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attacked the Hyatt Regency because it hosted a drag show; anti-transgender bills are advancing in Republican-controlled state legislators; and, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, right-wing commentator Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

Why are Republican Party politicians, Christian nationalists, white supremacists, right-wing media, and relatively obscure social media platforms launching these seemingly coordinated campaigns against trans people and drag queens?

“[As] traditionally conceived, hierarchical male sexuality, both masculine identity and sexual activity, is a pillar of the extreme right belief system,” psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the UC San Diego J. Reid Meloy told PRIDE’s Adam L. Brinklow. Thus, “LGBTQ, in all its variations, is a deeply felt threat, especially open, colorful,” non-conforming behavior (https://www.pride.com/drag-queens/drag-queen-ban#rebelltitem1).

And there’s the politics. The above-mentioned groups believe that there is political capital to be gained by labeling drag queens and transgender people as threats to children. “The reason this panic is singling out trans people and drag performers is mostly opportunistic, Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, told Pride.

“There was a moment when the right felt they had lost the culture war attacking LGB people and began a very concerted attack on trans people” instead.

Republican controlled state legislatures are advancing anti-drag and anti-transgender legislation in record numbers, and at breakneck speed. According to Track Trans Legislation, as of April 6, 45 states have proposed anti-trans legislation so far this year (https://www.tracktranslegislation.com/).

Chase Strangio, a Deputy Director for Transgender Justice with ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that “that in the legislative context, we are at a catastrophic point in terms what we're seeing: the volume of bills attacking the community, the subject of the bills attacking the community, and the pace at which their moving through state legislatures and being enacted into law” (https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/why-is-this-happening/discussing-fixation-anti-trans-legislation-chase-strangio-podcast-transcript-n1304130).

Last year, right wing groups started attacking Drag Story Hour events for children at local libraries. Drag Story Hour was launched in 2015 in San Francisco by author Michelle Tea to organize events for drag performers to read stories to children, among other literary and creative programming focusing on diversity and inclusivity. It was until last year that groups like the Proud Boys started showing up at these events and disrupting them.

Now, after being pretty much apolitical during the life of the very popular show, “RuPaul's Drag Race," its producers are fighting back. World of Wonder, the production company behind the show founded by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey — have formed The Drag Defense Fund in conjunction with the ACLU. More on that later.

In the meantime, Republican Party governors, notably Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckaby Sanders are spearheading the charge against drag queens and the transgender communities.

In Tennessee on March 2, “Republican Governor Bill Lee signed into law SB003, criminalizing drag performances in public or in any location within one thousand feet of a school, church or park at any time of day that a minor may see, with the intention of protecting children from inappropriate entertainment,” NBC’s Sean Hickey

Hickey reported.

Hickey noted that the law was “scheduled to go into effect on April 1st, [but] it was temporarily blocked by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, one day before, after a Memphis theater company filed a lawsuit in opposition of the ban.”

“On the same day as the drag ban, Tennessee Gov. Lee also signed SB001, banning gender-affirming care for transgender people under 18, like puberty blockers, hormones and surgery,” Hickey noted.

The Drag Defense Fund

According to a February report by Forbes’ Conor Murray (https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/02/03/how-drag-queens-became-a-right-wing-target-from-alex-jones-to-tucker-carlsonwith-these-states-trying-to-ban-story-hours-and-shows/?sh=43cb59229a77), 141 “protests against drag events GLAAD—the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation— [were] recorded in 2022.”

“We’ve usually steered clear of being overtly political,” Barbato told TODAY.com. “Like Ru said long ago, ‘Every time I bat my eyelash, it’s a political statement.' And just being able to still have this show on the air is our work. But as we’ve been watching the vitriol grow and the number of bills increasing, it just felt like there must be a way to fight back. We’ve been fans of the ACLU for a very long time. They are effective, they’re strategic, and they understand how insidious this battle is.”

“It’s the same playbook, year after year, decade after decade,” drag performer Peppermint tells TODAY. “The attacks that (lawmakers) are levying on drag entertainers are pretty much the siblings to the attacks that they were levying on gays in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, especially when marriage equality was a hot topic. It’s incredibly important for people to realize that this didn’t come out of nowhere."

While the Christian right has always viciously opposed gay rights, few have so blatantly associated themselves with white supremacists as they are doing now. “I've been doing this since the ’90s, and all of a sudden it was like a switch got flipped,” says Starshine, a burlesque and drag performer from Florida. “We never had protesters in front of Pride before, we never had threats,” but now “bomb threats [are] called in, email sent or text being sent, people saying if you host these events we'll burn the place down.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/11/2163313/-Producers-of-RuPaul-s-Drag-Race-Fight-Back-Against-Christian-Nationalists-anti-LGBTQ-Attacks

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