ARTS & CULTURE Rural Queen

BY MADELINE FENING

Hope Sexton’s hands used to shake before going on stage, but not anymore.

“I had a lot of guilt because of my religious background. I would try to calm myself and my hair would be literally shaking on my head, you could see it physically move,” Sexton tells CityBeat “Now I emcee shows.”

Sexton is getting ready to go on stage for his first performance of the night at Old Street Saloon, a nearly 30-year-old gay dive bar and performance venue in Monroe that, according to its owner, used to be surrounded by corn.

After 20 years of performing at Old Street, Sexton can expertly tease the anticipated crowd with what’s to come from behind a curtain like the great and powerful Oz – all while applying finishing touches to a five-foot-wide feathered costume in a closet-sized dressing room occupied by three queens and two CityBeat staffers.

Sexton emerges on stage to gasps from the crowd, floating under a blanket of carnival lights and disco balls. Brides-to-be, birthday boys and regulars galore line up with dollar bills. The crowd is eating out of the palm of Sexton’s steady hand.

There’s nothing overtly sexual about Sexton’s performance, or about many performances in general, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers in nearby states from targeting drag shows while implying –or outright claiming – that drag queens are sexually grooming child audience members.

Tennessee’s Senate Bill 3 passed in February, making it a misdemeanor for a person to perform “adult cabaret” on public property or in a location where the performance could be viewed by a minor. The bill defines an “adult cabaret performance” as adult-oriented performances that are “harmful to minors,” such as ones featuring go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, or male or female impersonators. A first violation could result in a Class A misdemeanor, and a second violation is a Class E felony.

The broadly defined “male or female impersonators” is what effectively outlaws some forms of drag in the state. It was the last straw for Wendy Williams, a drag bar owner and performer from Tennessee who was crowned Miss Old Street in 2015 during the bar’s annual beauty pageant.

“We just recently had another distillery that had a drag brunch and white supremacists with swastikas [protesting], saying they were grooming children. I finally decided at that point to put the bar on the market,” Williams tells CityBeat

Ohio has not been immune to neonazi protests at drag events. In December, a “Holi-Drag Storytime’’ event organized by Red Oak Community School in Columbus was supposed to feature three fully-clothed drag queens reading to children and performing holiday music. Instead, the event was interrupted by far-right hate groups the Proud Boys and Patriot Front, whose members flashed nazi salutes and chants while touting guns and tactical gear. In March, a drag story hour in Wadsworth was shut down by agitators from these same neo-nazi groups, far outnumbering the event’s supporters. At Old Street Saloon, children under the age of 18 are not permitted to come inside, and they never have been.

During CityBeat’s visit, the youngest audience member, 18-year-old Aarron Moore, was escorted to the bar with his mother. CityBeat remarked to the pair about how progressive Christy Mormino’s decision to bring her son to the bar seemed.

“You have no idea!” Moore quickly replies, a Sprite in hand. “You know, of course on the internet you can meet more people, but it’s different when it’s actually, like, a face-to-face conversation. COVID did kind of ruin a lot of that for me, some of the most important social years of my life, so having this ability now is just really nice.”

Mormino knows there are people out there who would raise an eyebrow – or even a pitchfork – at the idea of a mother bringing their child to a drag bar, even if they’re a legal adult at age 18. But she doesn’t care.

“My dad and his wife are coming to visit us in a couple of days and they’ll tell me how wrong this is and how I’m going to burn in hell, but I feel like it’s important to give my children the outlet to be who they are,” Mormino says without hesitation.

One of Old Street’s most seasoned queens is quick to talk about damnation while talking to CityBeat about drag’s latest satanic-panic moment. Ashley West has been performing drag for 40 years. She was the second Miss Old Street, and she wants lawmakers to read their Bibles.

“You’re so dead-set on what’s good and what’s Godly, read your Bible. The Bible says, ‘Judge ye not lest ye be judged.’ Being a hypocrite is a horrible thing, you’ll go to hell for that quicker than anything else,” West says, her strong Southern accent elongating the presence of her petite stature.

On stage, Mr. D glides side to side to Barry White’s “Practice What You

Preach.” Mr. D is Old Street’s only drag king performer of the night, a comparative newcomer for only having performed at the bar for two months.

Her inspiration to start came from her friend Tyese Rainz, Miss Old Street’s 2017 pageant queen. Rainz died in May 2022 from a medical episode after a performance at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton. Rainz was known for raising money for animal shelters through charitable performances, which Mr. D said was her softlaunch into drag.

“He’d say, ‘You’re getting up there. It’s for the puppies,’” Mr. D recalls. “I didn’t know I had all this hidden inside me until I got up on that stage.”

Barry White, The Temptations, The O’Jays; these are the old school musicians Mr. D’s parents played growing up. She says that not all of her friends and remaining family know about her newfound weekend persona, which she isn’t necessarily hiding.

“If they show up, they know. If they don’t, they don’t,” she says.

Kimberly Lourainne’s parents show up to almost all of their son’s performances, but it wasn’t always this way.

“At first my mom was against it,” Lourainne, Miss Old Street 2019, tells CityBeat. “Then my dad was actually one of the first ones to come to my shows. And now every time we have something they’re like, ‘Tell us when, we want to be there!’”

Lourainne’s father Cecilio Acevedo imparts a message to parents who may be alarmed to learn their child is a drag queen, especially if their only understanding of drag comes from conservative news accounts.

“That’s your son no matter what,” Acevedo says with a shrug. “I had a hard time with it at first, but I came around and I love my son no matter what.”

Ashley West says she wants audience newcomers to keep an open mind and remember that drag is not as serious as some legislators want people to think.

“It’s just entertainment!” she says laughing, her hands gesturing to the diverse set of customers dancing to “The Electric Slide” during the night’s break in between shows. “When you start infringing on people’s rights, their beliefs and what they enjoy doing, then we go back 50 years, and the gay community is not going to stand for that.”

Editor’s note: many drag performers use different pronouns in drag than they use in their day-to-day lives. CityBeat confirmed the preferred pronoun use with each performer and customer interviewed for this story. Old oldstreetbar.com.