Drag performers are more visible than ever after decades in the underground, but will recent protests, threats of violence and restrictive laws set them back?
Drag performers are more visible than ever after decades in the underground, but will recent protests, threats of violence, and restrictive laws set them back?
Today, we dive into the origins of the backlash and how drag performers are reacting to it. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times national correspondent Jaweed Kaleem
More reading:
Drag Queen Story Hour disrupted by men shouting slurs and threats at Bay Area library
Children’s drag queen event at Costa Mesa church draws protest
Arkansas legislative panel advances bill to restrict drag performances
Gustavo Arellano: Drag has exploded in mainstream popularity in recent years. From hit shows like RuPaul's Drag Race
RuPaul’s Drag Race: may the best drag queen win.
Gustavo Arellano: to drag brunches, and bingo,
Sylvia OStayForMore: We're ready.
Gustavo Arellano: even story time with kids led by kings and queens.
Sylvia OStayForMore: There are many ways to say, I love you. Just by being there when things are sad and scary….
Gustavo Arellano: but with that rise in popularity has come a surge in threats and even violence.
AP News: It's with a heavy heart. I have to tell you that we had a shooting at a local club this evening.
Gustavo Arellano: Will these attacks set back years of hard-won progress, not only for drag queens, but for the LGBTQ community?
Gustavo Arellano: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to the Times Essential News from the LA Times. It's Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023. Today, how the growing appeal of drag became a symbol of progress for many in the LGBTQ community and how a backlash against it might be a troubling omen.
Gustavo Arellano: Here to talk about all of this as my times colleague, national correspondent Jaweed Kaleem. Jaweed, welcome to Times.
Jaweed Kaleem: Thank you for having me.
Gustavo Arellano: So drag's really gone mainstream in recent years. I still remember when it was mostly underground, and this wasn't that long ago. How did it get so mainstream?
Jaweed Kaleem: It's a lot of things, but it's really one thing also, which is one name, RuPaul.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
Jaweed Kaleem: RuPaul is probably the world's most famous drag queen.
Gustavo Arellano: I mean I remember when he came out into Brady Bunch movie and everyone's like, oh my God, that's so shocking now. RuPaul's just part of life now.
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah, um, and so for people who don't know, and it's very hard not to know, but if you don't know, RuPaul is a drag queen that came up in the eighties and nineties inI believe Atlanta. A gay Black man. And then he got very big in the eighties and nineties. And then in 2009 released a reality show called Drag Race, where it's a singing, dancing, clothing making runway strutting comedy, you know, a mix of everything, drama drag competition. and it's in its 15th season now and it's had events around the world, shows in London and Thailand Vegas. And, it's made drag a huge pop culture phenomenon, that more than just gay people, or queer people like to watch and enjoy.
Music out
Jaweed Kaleem: to the point where drag queens are, you know, celebrities and in movies they're everywhere now. they're endorsing products and doing commercials and, uh, not just a performance you can go to at night at a gay club.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, you see drag in so many places these days...I've heard of drag brunches and shows for all these different fundraisers….corporate events that host drag shows as part of the entertainment...it's just everywhere these days....
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah, the Bingos have become huge.
Sylvia OStayForMore: when you see the bingo appear, what do you do?
Crowd: BINGO!
Gustavo Arellano: Bingo, too, yeah!
Jaweed Kaleem: People love to have, uh, drag queens, use them as an attraction for fundraisers, because they're big over the top. You know, they're funny. That's their job to be hilarious usually. And they get you to laugh and enjoy yourselves.
Jaweed Kaleem: And, and now, the last, you know, six, seven, eight years, we've started to see a lot of, different kinds of drag events where it's drag queens and some women also dressed in drag as men
Gustavo Arellano: Drag Kings
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah. uh reading books to little kids, in libraries and schools. still dressed up and with the makeup the, uh, fake breasts and everything. But, um,maybe a little more, covered, I guess you could say a little more kid friendly.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, I mean, there's different levels of drag. some's gonna be adult, only some's gonna be family friendly. But my experience has always been, it's always a message of positivity, self-love, and as you mentioned earlier, it's almost always very, very funny. All of that seems to me like a good thing, but sadly and clearly not everyone's okay with it.
Jaweed Kaleem: No, so, drag has kind of become this lightning rod for conservatives. And, different elements of the right wing, it's become a really easy target.
Music in
News Clip: next to what investigators are describing as a deadly hate crime attack,
News Clip: there is, without question arise in anti LGBTQ plus hate across this country
Threats and attacks on drag events and queer spaces, targeting the LGBTQ community
Jaweed Kaleem:There's been a count done by some LGBTQ advocates where there's been more than a hundred attacks, or protests, or threats in just the last year against drag. And it's not just that,so there’s been a bigger backlash against the LGBTQ people also. Most recently there was the shooting at the Q Club in Colorado,
News Clip: Breaking news. Police say at least five people are dead after a shooting at a Colorado Springs nightclub. . The shooting happened just before midnight at Club Q. That's an L G B T Q nightclub
Jaweed Kaleem: the person arrested was charged with a hate crime for these deaths.
News Clip: according to authorities in Colorado Springs, police say they have the suspect in custody.
Ambient Noise
Jaweed Kaleem: And then there’s also a whole debate happening on transgender rights and laws, but some of the most stark examples are story hours with kids. I mean, the proud boys have literally stormed, public libraries,
Ambient Noise Yeah, we're headed. Shut up groomer.
Jaweed Kaleem: you know, with guns and with armor, uh, to come out against these story hours as they're happening with kids present.
Ambient Noise: send the groomers home
Gustavo Arellano:: What is it about these story hours that's driving all this hate?
Jaweed Kaleem: What you'll hear from people who are against drag story hours is two different factions: One, you'll hear from people who are just opposed to anything LGBTQ. They think it's immoral or if they're religious and think it's a sin. So there's that aspect. And then you also hear from people who say they're not anti-gay or anything, but they think that having drag queens around kids is inappropriate. They think it's introducing kids to ideas about gender or even cross-dressing way too early. Or they say they think it's, you know, tricking kids into thinking they're transgender even, or teaching kids about sexuality when they should not be learning about that. And they actually use some pretty extreme language people who are opposed to these story events. They use basically sexual abuse terms. They say that kids are being groomed. Grooming is a term that people usually know from how a sexual abuser gains a child's trust, right? They use that term.
Jaweed Kaleem: And it's interesting cuz if you look at the story behind, drag Story Hour, the people who began, it's actually a completely opposite story that's a lot more positive.
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem:Drag Story Hour is actually from here in California
Jaweed Kaleem: In 2015 and there's an author, Michelle Tea, she's a queer author artist who's pretty well known in the community. Had a baby in her, late forties, early fifties. A baby boy. He was under one and she started to, uh, try to find family friendly kind of kids activities for her and her child.
Jaweed Kaleem: But she was so involved in this queer subculture of artist, and she felt kind of weird, having no options of that kind as a queer mother.
Music out
cuz she wanted that vibrancy, flavor and fun that she was used to with her,her readings and books and queer art projects. so she actually got together with some performers, some artists, and she organized and launched.
the first drag story hour, and it just kind of grew from there. so it began in San Francisco at the public library and the Castro District, which is the historically gay district and now you see them in la in Philadelphia, in London, in Mexico City. You see them, happening. All over the place because people tend to like them for the most part.
Music in
Gustavo Arellano: After the break...what exactly goes down at a drag queen story hour, and the threats that one establishment faces for putting them on.
BREAK 1
Gustavo Arellano:Jaweed...these drag queen story hours that we've been talking about.....I have friends who are librarians who have hosted them...I've had friends who participated in some...I haven't been to one, yet, but what about you?
Jaweed Kaleem: I just went to my first one very recently.
Gustavo Arellano: oh, cool.
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem: I just traveled in Seattle and. Headed to the Brewmasters tap room, It's a bar where they do bake goods and do family events and sell beer, obviously.
Jaweed Kaleem: I, got on the plane and I went to a drag story hour in Renton, which is, south of Seattle.
Music out
Jaweed Kaleem: Now, there used to be a drag story hour a few years ago that was happening at the local public library in Renton. That story hour shut down.
Jaweed Kaleem: They pulled out of it because there was. Protests and critiques of people saying, uh, should you be using a library and public money and funding for this kind of event? So it stopped happening. And then, a little bit later, about a year and a half ago, a local brewery decided, “You know what? Let's resurrect this and let's host it.” And the owner there a she recruited a, a drag queen and started doing them,
Jaweed Kaleem: Thanks for dealing with the in-car recording.
Sylvia OStayForMore: Of course. .
Jaweed Kaleem: Uh, okay. So tell me, um, tell me your name and what you do.
Sylvia OStayForMore: Sylvia Oste for Moore and I am a drag queen and performer here in Seattle. WA,
Jaweed Kaleem: So Sylvia is in her fifties. She's been doing drag for more than 30 years. so she's really well known in Seattle as a bingo host, where she does fundraisers for senior centers and that's actually her day job. She is a senior assistant.
Sylvia OStayForMore: I call it a sidekick. I'm a senior sidekick where I help seniors, doing different social activities, doing exercise classes with them. We go on trips to shopping. I help them with their bills.
Sylvia OStayForMore: I help them with their, medications and, uh, help them just get that, um, interaction and so forth
Jaweed Kaleem: and for Sylvia Drag is an outlet for her to just, you know, kind of have fun and bring people together and, create a, space, whether it's kids or adults or whoever it is.
Sylvia OStayForMore: I use drag as a creative outlet for my theatrical kind of crazy ideas that I like to come up with and then, you know, express on stage
Gustavo Arellano: what goes into one of these story hours that Sylvia.
Jaweed Kaleem: So I got to go to Sylvia's house.
Jaweed Kaleem: I got them. I got them. I got You guys aren't gonna get out.
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem: she lives south of Seattle as well. .
Jaweed Kaleem: what's this collection of uh, items ?
Sylvia OStayForMore: Well this is drag through my 30 years
Jaweed Kaleem: and in her basement she has this, tiny little room that's just stuffed with wigs, wigs, wigs with makeup, with tool, with sequin,
Sylvia OStayForMore: three clothing racks and one full closet
Jaweed Kaleem:she has a photo of her and John Waters, the famous director
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah
Jaweed Kaleem:and then she has a little vanity, where she sits,
Sylvia OStayForMore: So I'll put some lotion on first.
Jaweed Kaleem: and that's where I got to watch her, put on her makeup.
Sylvia OStayForMore: Slather it all on.
Music out
Jaweed Kaleem: The day I went to a drag story hour there were about a dozen kids the parents were a mix of, gay and lesbian couples as well as straight parents. The kids were, you know, 2, 3, 4,
Jaweed Kaleem: I'm here at the, brewmasters tap room and we're about to start drag a story hour with Sylvia OhStayForMore and they have a bunch of books laid out outside. It happens outside,
Jaweed Kaleem: And the books that Sylvia reads to the kids, they're a mix. So you'll find books that you'd find at any kid's story time. and then you find books that are, for drag story hours, about drag queens, about gender, about two Santas who are married. Um, topics like that.
Sylvia OStayForMore: This is Santa Claus. This is Santa Claus's husband, Mr. Claus.They are married.
Jaweed Kaleem: and then you know they even had songs that they sing in poems. So she sang one nursery rhyme, that was, everyone knows it with some updated lyrics. I'll hum it for you if you can recognize it. Mm-hmm.
Gustavo Arellano: If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…
Sylvia OStayForMore: If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands, if you're a drag queen in, you know, it, say Tata, if you're a drag queen in, you know, it say Tata. If you're a drag queen in, you know it, then say, Tata. Tata. If you're a drag queen in, you know it say Tata. Yeah
Jaweed Kaleem:and goes on for about 45 minutes, which is just a little bit longer, than how much time a kid that age can handle, sitting still.
Sylvia OStayForMore: Hang out. We'll see you next month hopefully with more stories and more things you want to hear. And
Jaweed Kaleem: so, so that was my first time going to one.
Gustavo Arellano: Jaweed, what do supporters say about these drag story hours, like the owner of that brewery in Renton. Why did she decide to open up her space for these events?
Jaweed Kaleem: So the brewery is owned by Marley Rall. She's in her thirties.
Marley Rall:I grew up in Hawaii and we've always been around all different cultures and involved with all different people and practices.
Jaweed Kaleem:very liberal, uh, woman, kind of very open-minded about a lot of things.
her bar sells, you know, C b D and allows dogs and, Host drag queen hours and all kinds of stuff like that.
Marley Rall: we do a lot of different things here because I don't know how to just do one thing.
Jaweed Kaleem:she wanted to. create a space for, this kind of event, especially after she heard and read about what happened at the local library there where, um,the event had to be pulled out.
Marley Rall:for me it's always been about making sure that, everybody understands that you should always feel safe and comfortable to be who you are and be your most authentic self no matter what.
Jaweed Kaleem: she wants kids and parents to get comfortable with different kinds of people from them, and use her bar to do that.
Marley Rall: if they have an opportunity once a month to sit down and just have this person read a really fun, you know, age appropriate book to them, it means that once they grow up, they'll say, oh, this is just a normal thing my friend does.
Marley Rall: It's not something I'm scared of
Gustavo Arellano: What sort of backlash has Marley received for hosting these monthly story hours?
Jaweed Kaleem: pretty much immediately when Marley began hosting these and recruited Sylvia, the backlash began, not so long after that. Late last year, somebody drove up in a car and shot at the bar door. Nobody was inside. Nobody was injured. But there's actually I taped a pole in the glass door now, and Marley has printed a sign that says, this is what intolerance looks like.
Jaweed Kaleem: And she wants to still carry on. She gets a ton of calls. from all over the country, cuz it's, it spreads on Facebook and Telegram that these drag stories are happening. So she, um, you know, often ends up getting these kind of like, arguments on the phone with strangers. You know, one time some guy called and said it, something along the lines of, you know, is this where the child grooming event is happening or something like that?
Marley Rall: And my response was, I have no idea what you're talking about. What are you talking about? Right? you're about to be my entertainment because I don't know what else to talk to you about today. It's Tuesday, it's a pretty slow day for a craft beer bar. Like, I don't know.
Jaweed Kaleem: And he hung up and he said, okay. And then he called back. He's like, wait, I have the right number.
Jaweed Kaleem: And kind of went off on her.
Marley Rall: of course they don't really care and they're definitely not listening. And then they yell some obscenities and then they hang up.
Gustavo Arellano: Geez, so, are there concerns that all these threats, these instances of violence that you mentioned, and just angry, hateful callers that all of this might force drag back underground?
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah, there is concern about this and it is actually working in some ways.
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem: a lot of the drag story hours end up getting canceled, or rescheduled, because of threats. In the case of Marley and Sylvia and Seattle, they've gone on, but they've added a lot of security. Now they have, you know, four,security cameras outside on a pole that they never had before. And the police are aware every single time it happens and waiting really even. but you know, in other states, the events have just been canceled. So the backlash Is actually already, reducing drag in kind of the scope of it in many ways.
Music beat
Gustavo Arellano: After the break, what it means for the LGBTQ community when drag events get canceled.
BREAK 2
Gustavo Arellano: Jaweed,what does that mean if drag is being reduced in its public visibility?
Jaweed Kaleem: That means a lot actually for the LGBTQ movement. So if you talk to any activist or historian,you always hear that drag queens transgender people have been at the forefront of, LGBTQ rights movements and protests and organizing and history. like the Stonewall Bar Rebellion in New York City. Some of the first pride marches and events were heavily including and, and sometimes led by drag queens or transgender people. And I, I mentioned both, of those groups, drag queens and transgender because they're not the same thing. Although, there are some connections sometimes. So when you're transgender, you, are, given a, a name, a gender, and raised as a boy or a girl by your parents. and at some point, you say, you know, this is not me. I'm not a boy, I'm a girl, or I'm not a man, I'm a woman. and you come out as transgender. But drag queens typically, mostly gay men who dress as women as performance and take on a character. There's women who dress as men also, and there, there are some transgender drag queens as well. And there are some people who are straight who are also drag queens. So there's some mixing happening there as well. but drag or for all it is being pushed a little bit back. and that has people worried.
Gustavo Arellano: Beyond just those threats and violence that you've been talking about, are there other pushes against drag story hour?
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah. Yeah. So it's not just, you know, groups of people who are against drag story hour or protesting or even, you know, bringing their guns. There's actually laws being crafted against drag specifically,
Music in
Jaweed Kaleem: There's more than a dozen bills introduced in, mostly red states that will restrict or censor drag shows.
News Clip: Tonight at 10 o'clock, a state representative from Central Florida wants to make it illegal. If you bring a child to a drag show
News Clip: A Texas lawmaker has drafted what has become a controversial proposal to make it illegal for children to attend drag shows in Texas
News Clip: the bill that's drawing a growing drumbeat of attention here in Arkansas. The bill to restrict drag shows by putting them in the same legal category as strip clubs and porn shops
Jaweed Kaleem: these bills say something along the lines of, you know, a drag show can't happen in the place where there are people who are under 18. you can't have a drag queen in a school maybe, so that would be the story hours that happen in schools sometimes, or a library. they're basically saying that drag can happen, you know, at, a, a bar or a club at night.
Music out
News Clip: Madame Secretary, please read Senate Bill 43, Senate Bill 43, to classify a drag performance as an adult-oriented business and to add additional location restrictions to an adult-oriented business.
Jaweed Kaleem: and. some of these laws are kind of modeled a, a bit after, anti-sex offender laws where they say things like,you can't be within 500 feet of a school, if you're a sex offender. They have similar language in the laws on drag. The fines can be thousands of dollars even, prison, they're registering as a sex offender if you do break the laws that are being imposed. there's even a suggestion in some cases that the parents who take their kids to a drag event could be criminally charged also and some advocates say that these laws also affect transgender people because of the way they've written where they, could even get caught up in this as well.
Gustavo Arellano: It just seems. Anything to do with gender and kids or really kids and anything LGBTQ is what's really setting people off.
Jaweed Kaleem: Yes. the kids issue is really at the center of it. You know, a growing number of people are really uncomfortable and bothered by, you know, anything kind of toys with the idea of, different than just being a, boy or a girl, essentially. and when you see a drag queen, probably as a kid, you might start to wonder a little bit about that. or at least understand that there's different things out there beyond just those two options. And these are the books, some of the books they read too are about these topics. So it's really a major issue in that regard. And like I said earlier, the issue of drag queens and transgender rights is very related. There's a lot of controversy right now and laws being discussed as well around, kids and teens who are transgender. When you can, transition, um socially, when you can, medically, what kind of therapy and, treatments it's, a whole controversy that's really building in the country and, led in part our Republicans, you know, they kind of connect the dots of all of these when I talk to them and they say, it's teaching them about sexuality when they're only five you know. Drag for kids is bad. It's teaching them to be transgender. and then the drag queens say we just wanna read books to kids. That's all we wanna do.
Gustavo Arellano: The sad irony in all this is that this backlash against drag is happening at a time that has seen a lot of impressive gains in social protections for L G BT Q people over the past couple of decades.
Jaweed Kaleem: Yeah, it's been a huge era of progress.
MUSIC IN
Jaweed Kaleem: So 2013, the Supreme Courts said that the defense of marriage act was unconstitutional.
AP News: A majority of the justices seemed ready to overturn the 1996 law that allows more than 1100 kinds of federal benefits to kick in only when a marriage involves a man and a woman, and not same sex couples.
Jaweed Kaleem:Same-sex marriage was allowed by the courts constitutionally in 2015. Two years later
Ambient Noise:,Usa. Usa. Usa, usa, usa, USA.
AP News: There were tears of joy inside the courtroom, as well as hugs, cheers, and dancing on the sidewalk outside as supporters of same-sex marriage. Reveled in the narrow five to four ruling
Jaweed Kaleem:last year, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which, required every state to allow same-sex marriages.
Joe Biden:Today's a good day. Yeah, A day America takes a vital step toward equality,
Music out
Jaweed Kaleem: I mean, in most parts of the country, being gay or married to the same sex is, is just not an issue anymore at all. There's a Gallup poll that showed a 1996, 27% of Americans said they were okay with same sex marriage. They approved of it. More recently, the same question asked by Gallup found that 71% approved of it. That's huge.
Gustavo Arellano: To what extent then do you think that this backlash against drag and this violence against drag might foreshadow more hatred overall toward the wider LGBTQ community?
Jaweed Kaleem: I've talked to some historians and scholars and activists, and one thing people say to me is there's an idea of two steps forward, one step back, that there's progress, you know, marriage rights, adoption rights and non-discrimination laws, drag LGBTQ people and, broader culture.
Jaweed Kaleem: And then there's backlash also, to that progress, especially when that progress comes very fast sometimes. You know, on the legal level there's things happening like the, uh, so-called Don't Say Gay bill in Florida. And the Supreme Court level when Roe versus Wade was declared unconstitutional. Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court Justice said that the same legal reasoning that was used against Roe versus Wade, Could also potentially be used against the decision on same-sex marriage from 2015. So that got a lot of, people concerned as well.
Jaweed Kaleem: There's also issues happening on religious freedom,you know, there's cases going on about evangelical Christians and conservative Christians and, if they need to provide business services to gay people for a same-sex wedding, for example, a website or a cake, they're making – things like that. So, all of this is happening all at once even as there are these, leaps and acceptance and progress that’s happening too.
Gustavo Arellano: Finally Jaweed, How's Sylvia, the queen that you followed, how is she coming to terms with this evolution that drag has seen? You mentioned that she's been. Warming for over 30 years.
Jaweed Kaleem:So, uh, Sylvia thinks that drag is the most visual, kind of the most, in your face way of challenging traditional gender norms because you see a man transforming, you know, every performance into a woman, and it's over the top and very obvious, and it's supposed to be known. So she thinks that's an easy way to target drag queens and LGBTQ people in general, really.
Sylvia OStayForMore: it tends to be an easy way for people to show their homophobia, by setting up these different laws and rules and protests, masked behind a drag queen reading these stories to kids, and they can just say, oh…
Jaweed Kaleem: she sees herself as kind of the obvious target in the way,
Sylvia OStayForMore: we just don't like any transsexuals. We don't like any gay people. We don't like any drag queens, and we're just gonna use this all as a simple thing because we're supposedly grooming children, and I'm not sure what we're grooming them for other than being open and affirming and accepting other people so it doesn't make sense.
Music in
Sylvia OStayForMore: It really doesn't make sense.
Jaweed Kaleem: and she feels very uncertain about it because she's in her fifties, she's from Utah, grew up Mormon and left that state, and that faith, to live in, in Seattle and kind of live her life as a gay man and as a drag queen. and saw this progress talked about, but then she's seen this more recent backlash as well. But she's determined to stand her ground and push back against it and keep on doing what she's doing.
Sylvia OStayForMore: I think it just reminds us that what we think is the case can change very quickly depending on who's in charge and to constantly be vigilant and work on our rights and keep protecting them as much as we can.
Gustavo Arellano: Thank you so much for this conversation.
Jaweed Kaleem:Thank you for having me.
Gustavo Arellano: And that’s it for this episode of The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times.
Kasia Broussalian and David Toledo were the jefes on this episode. It was edited by Jazmin Aguilera and Mike Heflin mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Monday with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.