How Did Drag Bans Get This Far?

The breathtaking assaults on the basic freedoms of LGBTQ+ Americans only began in earnest after a propaganda war which redefined freedom to mean whatever the right wanted it to mean.

by Evan Urquhart

The wave of Republican legislation targeting trans and gender nonconforming people continues today, with news of two separate attempts to ban drag performances that have been introduced in Arizona by State Sen. Anthony Kern. One bill targets drag brunches by banning drag shows during certain hours of the day, the other targets all ages shows, prohibiting drag when minors are present. The bills join proposals to ban drag shows in several other states (we found stories about bans proposed in Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, Florida, Texas, Montana, Nebraska*, and Missouri). 

Drag performances, which do not typically include full nudity or sex acts, are almost certainly covered by 1st Amendment protections on free expression in the US constitution. This means that, ultimately, the chances these bills could succeed in banning drag performances is remote, at least as long as Americans’ constitutional rights remain. However, the fact that Republican legislators across multiple states think it’s within their power to impose a ban on forms of expression they don’t like is concerning in itself. How did we get to this point?

It all began with a sustained attack on the idea of free speech, craftily presented as a defense. The phrase “freedom of speech” was once synonymous with the constitutional protections afforded in the first amendment.

The 1st Amendment prohibits the government (initially just the congress, with protections later being extended to cover state and local governments as well) from making laws that would limit Americans’ right to free speech. For example, a state government passing a law banning drag shows at certain hours of the day. In recent years, however, conservative propagandists have repeatedly used the phrase free speech in a different way. Slowly an association has grown up between free speech and the right of conservatives to say unpopular things without criticism. At the same time, this has eroded Americans’ ability to recognize clear cut cases of illegal government bans on speech for what they are.

In 1985 the understanding of free speech was not nearly as confused. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a moral panic over “objectionable” lyrics in rock music resulted in Senate hearings on whether heavy metal lyrics should be regulated by the US government. Ultimately, under pressure from the federal government, the music industry agreed to append parental advisory labels on music which contained profane, sexual, or otherwise offensive content. This was seen as a partial loss for free speech because governmental pressure was what resulted in the labels being applied. Many performers and fans wished that the music industry had insisted on their 1st Amendment rights.

It wasn’t until recently that conservative propagandists began to circulate a new and different meaning for the phrase. Instead of freedom from government bans, these conservatives have sought freedom from social stigma, freedom from private companies’ moderation policies, and freedom from diversity trainings at private companies. This expansion of the concept of free speech migrated from the right wing fringe and gradually infiltrated mainstream thought.

In the pages of the New York Times a college student complained that students at her school self-censored to keep the good opinion of their peers. The spontaneous social dynamics of young people, now, was presented as an infringement on free speech. Conservative writers complained that when private companies such as Twitter instituted moderation guidelines that banned harassment and slurs. This, too, was an attak on free speech rights. The issue has become so confused that some conservatives have sued, and lost, because they think diversity training at their places of work somehow abridge their right to freedom of speech.

This slow conflation of free speech with conservative speech, and the belief that conservative’s rights include the right to dictate social norms is the key to understanding why conservatives feel empowered to use governmental power to suppress drag shows after appointing themselves the protectors of offensive speech. Legally, of course, the constitution says conservatives can’t ban drag shows. But culturally many Americans have gradually lost their understanding of what the constitution protects and what it does not. This helped fuel a moral panic about college campuses, workplace standards, and evolving social norms. Far more damagingly, though, it’s led many Americans to forget what rights our constitution actually protects.

*A Nebraska bill that would ban minors from attending shows which include drag was introduced a few hours after the initial publication of this article. We updated our story to include a link to that story as well.