RuPaul Lambasts Republicans’ Attempts To Ban Drag Queens Around Children

RuPaul has called out attempts by Republican lawmakers to bring in laws to ban drag queens around children as a “diversion tactic”. 

The host of RuPaul’s Drag Race made the comments while speaking with host James Corden on The Late Late Show. RuPaul was asked about Republican Bryan Slaton proposing a law to ban drag shows in the presence of minors in Texas. 

“This is a diversion tactic to take the narrative away from the gun debate into something, to scare people into thinking about something else, and they’ve been successful,” said RuPaul. The Drag Race host referenced the recent national debate on gun control regulation in the wake of the shooting of children and teachers in a school in Uvalde, Texas. 

“They have changed the narrative away from the gun debate into this drag queen thing.”

‘Y’all want to help your kids? Take away them guns, that will help your kids!  Drag queens ain’t hurt nobody. You’re born naked, and the rest is drag. Everybody’s in drag, okay! Child, please.” RuPaul said to applause and cheers from the audience. 

 

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Right Wing Attacks On Drag Queen Story Hour

While conservative groups have targeted drag queens before, in recent months these attacks have become more mainstream. 

Last week, the extreme right-wing fascist group Proud Boys crashed a drag queen story hour event at a library in San Larenzo, California. According to the local police, the men hurled “homophobic and transphobic slurs” at the event organisers in the presence of parents and children. The police added that they were investigating the incident as a hate crime. There have been other incidents of protests outside drag queen story hour events in the US.

 

Earlier this month, Republican Texas State Representative Bryan Slaton, who describes himself as a “Christian Conservative”, announced on social media  that he would be introducing a bill to ban drag queens around minors.

He condemned parents who took their children to drag shows as “perverted adults”, who are “obsessed with sexualising young children”. 

Conservative Attacks On LGBTQI People

Other Republican lawmakers have said they would introduce similar legislation, including Florida Governor Ro DeSantis, state senators in Arizona and Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

Drag Performer Lil Miss Hot Mess, the author of the children’s book If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It, in an opinion piece on NBC News website voiced her apprehensions and concerns over her safety. 

“From protests outside events to hate mail in my inbox, I have to be especially careful about my privacy and safety (which is why I use my drag name publicly rather than my legal name). While I have grown used to backlash from conservative groups, I am disturbed by the recent mainstreaming of overtly anti-LGBTQ and racist discourse, especially legislative attacks on trans kids, attempts to falsely discredit queer people as “groomers” and efforts to ban books with diverse themes,” said Lil Miss Hot Mess.