All posts tagged "Drag"

A drag show fundraiser was banned at West Texas A&M, but a constitutional law scholar found a new way of challenging the ban.

Speaking Wednesday, Andrew Seidel, who sometimes writes for Religion Dispatches, spoke out about the ongoing battle between the university and student groups. At the end of March, several local chapters of organizations were hosting a drag show to benefit The Trevor Project, which works to prevent suicide for LGBTQ youth.

"The student groups met all the university’s requirements, booked an on-campus venue, and began to advertise the event and sell tickets," said Religion Dispatches. "Then, 11 days before the drag fundraiser was set to take place, WT President Walter Wendler, who has a record of inserting his right-wing Christian bias into his public roles, unilaterally canceled the performance via a pedantic email."
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A federal judge in Texas known for a ruling that attempted to ban a widely-used abortion drug is citing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group in his ruling allowing a ban on drag shows to stay in place.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for an anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian legal organization, and a member of the Federalist Society, in his 26-page ruling dated Thursday cited the “About” page of Gays Against Groomers to claim, “it’s unclear how drag shows unmistakably communicate advocacy for LGBT rights.”

Judge Kacsmaryk, appointed by Donald Trump twice before finally assuming office in 2019, suggests the First Amendment does not provide for freedom of expression for drag shows, calls drag “sexualized conduct,” and says it is “more regulable” because “children are in the audience.”...

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is getting some heat after video footage showed her in close contact with a male companion at a Beetlejuice musical from which she was booted after allegedly vaping in front of a pregnant woman. That companion is reportedly the owner of a pro-LGBT bar that has hosted a drag show.

Boebert has already been skewered by fellow Republicans for not living up to her "family values" promises, and there have been questions about what was in the vape she ultimately admitted smoking.

Now, there are new details being reported about who she was with....

Sean Kauffmann gave a stiff-arm Nazi salute as he arrived at a protest outside a drag show at a local brewpub in Cookeville, a small city about 75 miles east of Nashville, Tenn., in late January.

“Kill all the n—ers and the Jews!” shouted a 16-year-old boy who had come with Kauffmann to protest the “Celebrity Drag Brunch,” an event benefiting a local LGBTQ advocacy organization.

An array of fascist and far-right groups flanked Kauffmann and the boy, chanting homophobic slurs at the several dozen people across the street who had arrived to serve as informal protectors for the drag show performers and patrons, according to police body-camera footage exclusively obtained by Raw Story through a state open records request....