Cincinnati’s drag performers push back

“There’s some commentary suggesting that this means that some drag may actually be protected, so long as it’s not falling into the legal category of obscenities,” said Ryan Thoreson, an assistant law professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. “But I think what’s worrying about a lot of these bills, even when they’re amended that way, is that they have an enormous chilling effect, with performers not knowing what is and isn’t permissible with law enforcement.”

Supporters of the bill claim that the legislation is necessary to safeguard children. In an interview with CNN, one of the legislation’s lead sponsors, Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Republican, clarified that the law “is not targeting any group of people.”

“It does not ban drag shows in public,” he said. “It simply puts age restrictions in place to ensure that children are not present at sexually explicit performances.”

But others see the legislation as vague, unnecessary and a violation of the First Amendment. Though the word “drag” is not in the bill – and some legal experts think the law, as written, does not apply to drag as they know it – many are uncertain about how the law will affect Pride parades, drag performances, and even transgender and nonbinary people.

And the Tennessee law is similar to legislation introduced in at least 14 other states, including Kentucky.

“Some of [the anti-drag bills], on their face, purport to really only go after performances that are sexual in nature,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the HRC. “But the way that they’re written is going to have a chilling effect on all drag performances, particularly where a minor is or could be present.”

Warbelow did make it clear that most of the bills targeting drag performances are not “done in such a way that an average trans person walking down the street in the middle of the afternoon would need to be fearful that these laws could be used against them.”

Kentucky, a state where Cincinnati drag performers often work, saw its own bill targeting drag performances – written similarly to Tennessee’s law. After Republican lawmakers in the state’s Senate passed the legislation, it died in the House after not receiving enough readings before the veto period.

Still, P.H. Dee – who often crosses the Ohio River for performances – said, “it’s terrifying that this is getting the traction and the attention that is.”

According to the ACLU, Ohio has introduced four anti-LGBTQ bills – none aimed at drag performances. Indiana, similarly, has introduced bills aimed at the LGBTQ community, 18, but not drag.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t.

“Almost any state is at risk of seeing a bill like this,” Thore- son said, adding that “there are lawmakers in, I think, every state who are at least interested in making a political name for themselves by introducing these types of bills.”

P.H. Dee said.

Earlier this year, white supremacists violently protested a drag storytelling event outside of Akron at Wadsworth’s Memorial Park while shouting racist and homophobic slurs. The event, “Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour,” did proceed as planned, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

The events came after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that killed five people. Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, who is currently on trial for the killings, ran a neo-Nazi website, according to a detective’s testimony.

Though there has been no documented anti-LGBTQ protest in Cincinnati recently, the drag performers who spoke with the Blade said they feared the threat of one.

“Over time, especially as some of these laws start to pass, we are really seeing a future in which queer spaces can be targeted, and queer people can be targeted, more than they already are,” Stixen Stones said, adding that “it’s scarier when the government is kind of giving the OK.”

On March 19, P.H. Dee hosted a Dolly Parton-themed drag brunch in Cincinnati’s Over-theRhine neighborhood. Dressed in a yellow fringe dress and bleach blond wing, she held the mic and delivered a speech about the state of the country for LGBTQ people – serving, especially, as a call to action for allies.

‘It certainly can happen

here’

Though many anti-LGBTQ bills don’t become law – 91% of such legislation failed to become law last year, according to the HRC – LGBTQ advocates and right-wing extremism experts said hate groups, like the Proud Boys, could be seeing the legislation as a sort of license to target drag events.

“I think that the legislation gives cover to these groups,” said RG Cravens, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, adding that “politicians certainly are lending credibility, lending that kind of legitimacy to these, many times, violent actions.”

And it’s more than politicians, Cravens said, “there’s a right-wing media environment that mobilizes these groups.”

That includes Fox News host Tucker Carlson and popular social media account Libs Of TikTok, among others.

Last year, there were at least 124 anti-LGBTQ protests and threats targeting specific drag events, according to GLAAD –the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy group.

In December, right-wing groups – including the Patriot Front, Proud Boys and White Lives Matter Ohio, all of which are classified as hate groups by the SPLC – protested a drag queen story hour in Columbus. Some donned bulletproof vests and carried military-style assault weapons, while others flashed Nazi salutes. The event, which was meant to build literacy and promote inclusivity, was canceled.

“Columbus is a much more progressive city than Cincinnati is, so if it can happen there, it certainly can happen here,”

“[LGBTQ people] are our own echo chamber, right,” she said in an interview. “It’s really up to the allies to do the outreach because they just kind of have to be that middle person, that conduit that helps the people who don’t see our humanity, see our humanity.”

Stixen Stones also spoke about the importance of allies in the fight against anti-LGBTQ legislation.

“It’s really an ally’s job to speak out for us to the people that we can’t reach,” she said.

“We, as queer people, are kind of being asked to do the work,” Stixen Stones added. “I don’t have a problem doing the work of calling people and speaking out and educating people, but –especially right now – we need our allies to come around us and help us with this and help us fight because we’re fighting every day.”

Still, in many ways, the LGBTQ community looks to local drag performers as leaders, Vanta Black said.

“I also try not to live in fear,” they said. “I try to come out and do things because, as a queen, people look to me and my fellow drag performers for hope, for guidance.”

They added: “We are public figures in the community – I think a lot of people forget that. So if I’m too afraid to go out, people will follow suit. And I don’t want people to be afraid.”

It’s that toughness, one that many queer people exude, that continues to give P.H. Dee hope.

“The resilience of the queer community is probably one of the most beautiful parts of us,” she said. “That is what we have had to learn how to be.”