Smear of Kansas Gov. Underscore the Right Wing War on Drag

What would be so bad about Kansas art funds going to drag performers anyway?

by Evan Urquhart

Never let it be said that the right wing, or their prapaganda outlets, care anything for accuracy. In the Washington Times, we found a piece by Valerie Richardson, which blatantly misrepresents facts about an accusation that the state of Kansas funded drag performances. The charge, which is completely baseless, has been used to attack Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a moderate Democrat, by her Republican challenger Derek Schmidt, who is the current Kansas Attorney General.

The truth behind this, according to local media, seems to be that a drag show flier used a logo from the Kansas Department of Commerce. This may have been an accident or misunderstanding, and may have to do with the fact that organization putting on the drag shows had accepted funds to support an unrelated art project (or projects). The funds themselves seem to have originated with the US Federal Government, not the State, but were distributed by the Kansas Creative Arts Commission.

Picking on arts funding is a pretty standard play from the conservative playbook, and so are lies and misrepresentations. The Washtingon Times story repeats the lie up top, sneakily forcing readers to click through and read more if they want to see anything resembling proper context.

Even after the link, the story insinuates there’s something shady going on, when real reporting seems to clearly say that there is nothing. This all ties in to the ongoing insanity in the right wing about drag queens and drag performances, a moral panic that has been used by the right to move from hateful attacks on trans people to re-focusing their bile on gay men and their culture. The superficial resemblence between drag performers and stereoptyical portrayals of trans women is all the right needed to make this move, and they continue to act like they can get away with it.