Republican lawmakers in Texas have introduced a bill that would allow individuals to sue drag performers and the venues that host them if a child is in attendance at a performance— an enforcement mechanism that LGBTQ and abortion advocates have compared to that of Texas’s 2021 abortion ban, which effectively encourages bounty hunting.
House Bill 4378 is one of six anti-drag bills introduced by Republicans in Texas, and comes days after Tennessee became the first state in the U.S. to criminalize drag performances. Fourteen other states have introduced similar legislation this year.
While Texas has not yet outlawed drag performances, a Dallas restaurant that has hosted drag brunches in the past recently received a letter from the Texas Comptroller’s Office announcing that the agency had launched an investigation into the business to determine if the establishment should be considered “sexually oriented.”
LGBTQ advocates have warned that Texas’s latest anti-drag bill could have dangerous consequences — specifically for transgender people, who have been the target of legislative attacks in the state for months.
On February 18, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion defining gender-affirming care for minors as an act of child abuse after the legislature failed to pass a ban on gender-affirming care. Four days later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a widespread ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth and ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the families of trans kids. While civil rights groups sued to block Abbott’s directive, leading to an issuance of a temporary restraining order by a district judge, many families of trans children have been forced to leave the state.
In 2022, transgender activist and civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo wrote that the Texas legislature was organizing an “all-out war on trans people’s existence.” In November 2022, lawmakers had introduced two bills that would classify venues that host drag shows as “sexually oriented businesses,” legally similar to strip clubs. The bills’ definition of drag “would encompass every trans person who so much as sings or dances in any public venue,” Caraballo warned.
While these bills have not moved since being referred to State Affairs, 45 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this session in Texas. Advancing bills include legislation that would make providing gender-affirming care a felony offense; a bill that would define gender-affirming care for transgender youth as “child abuse,” which would lead to the criminalization of parents of trans children; legislation to ban gender marker changes on birth certificates for minors; and a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Texas has also introduced a bill that would ban trans children from participating in sports, although a sports ban was already signed into law in the state in 2021.
Most notoriously, Texas lawmakers have advanced Senate Bill 1029, which would effectively end trans adults’ access to gender-affirming care. This bill would ban public funding for gender-affirming care, bar some health plans from providing “coverage for a gender modification procedure,” and expand legal liability for providers that offer gender-affirming care.
“Texas has become one of the most dangerous and hostile places for transgender youth and transgender people and their families in America,” said Andrea Segovia, senior field and policy adviser of the Transgender Education Network of Texas.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.