Anti-drag bills have proliferated in 2023. States like Arizona, Montana, and several others have seen bills proposed to ban drag being seen by minors or drag in public. One state, Nebraska, would even say that people who are under 21 years old cannot see drag. Arizona’s bill says that drag events can’t happen before noon on Sunday. All of the bills include language on how they define drag that leaves people wondering if these laws will also target the transgender community. A new bill being proposed in West Virginia, however, goes a step further: it outright bans any “transvestite or transgender exposure, performance, or display” if minors are present.
There have been increasing escalations in anti-drag bills recently. Nebraska’s bill states that a performance is banned if “the main aspect of the performance is a performer which exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers.” Transgender people could easily be read into that law and thus banned from doing any sort of public performance. These bills also make no distinction between a live and recorded performance, leaving some to wonder if movies like Mrs. Doubtfire would be banned. Several Shakespearian plays utilize drag. What about transgender comedians, transgender musicians, and plays in which transgender people are cast?
Needless to say, things are scary and uncertain in the states in which drag laws are being proposed.
Four Senators in West Virginia today just decided to clear up any uncertainty: yes, they absolutely do intend to include bans on transgender people being in front of minors in anti-drag bans. West Virginia SB 252 explicitly targets the trans community in a bill that defines any “transvestite or transgender exposure to minors” as obscene matter.
erininthemorn.substack.com
