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Dolly Parton might sadly be gone, but her legacy as one of America's greatest continues to live on in many ways. Today being a victory for free speech, with Texas Senate Bill 12, the "drag show ban" being ruled unconstitutional by Reagan appointee judge David Hittner for the pretty obvious reason that it violated the first amendment.
Dolly Parton's legacy is intertwined in this ruling in a few ways.
She is cited by Hittner as one example of ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” citing Dolly Parton specifically with "“as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure”.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Brigitte Bandit is a drag queen known for doing Dolly Parton impressions.
Parton herself had given Bandit a guitar covered in rhinestones after Bandit had testified at the Texas capitol against the drag ban.
It is important to note that the drag ban was on its face, "neutral" and didn't mention drag at all. The phrasing used was "sexually oriented performances", as Texas had tried to get around any textual blatant viewpoint discrimination. But expanding it to cover typical drag shows as stated for the intent required such vague wording that it could also possibly impact things exactly like Dolly Parton. If a impersonation of Dolly Parton by a man is too sexual, than Dolly Parton is too sexual.
Some other examples Hittner used included Miley Cyrus twerking, Lady Gaga, some more revealing cosplays, and swimmers in attractive bikinis. And even before the law was put into action, apparently The Texas House Research Organization had specifically listed cheerleading alongside concerts and theatrical performances as potential threats. It's so broad and the problems so well known ahead of time that it's possible this law was intended to fail to begin with, that it was red meat for censor loving voters.
Regardless of intent, there's one interesting takeaway from this then. If the state has to textually prohibit a large berth of standard constitutionally protected mainstream entertainment in order to target and censor drag shows, then the problem exists entirely within the attempted censoring of drag shows. If any drag show had a unique and non protected issue, that particular issue can be dealt with specific and focused laws.
Hittner also includes an answer for those who don't wish for them or their kids to see a drag show. Don't go. If you find something offensive, instead of using big government to censor it just don't show up and watch it. You have every right to boycott whatever you please.
This argument is like saying that if an impersonation of Barack Obama by a white man is racist, then being Barack Obama is racist.
That doesn't follow. In many contexts the act of impersonation itself is sexual, above and beyond the fact that there's sexuality because of the target of the impersonation.
This. For the most part, drag queens don't just "look like" women. If that's all they were doing, most people wouldn't care (and how would you even know?). Instead, they do a ridiculously exagerated caricature of women. Ridiculously stuffed breasts, buttocks, falsetto voice, etc. Some have described it as "girl face," like the "black face" that people used to do in minstrel shows to make fun of black people. It's completely different from how actual trans women dress, or how actors dress to present as a realistic woman. It makes for an incredibly cheesy, campy effect, and I'm tired of pretending that it's not in horrible taste. We don't have to ban it all together, but we can limit it to the more fringe parts of society, like strip clubs outside of town, rather than welcoming it into public streets, libraries, and everywhere else where we're forced to look at it without consent.
@magicalkittycat
If only that were true. Every ex-man I know has bad fashion sense (they all do the falsetto thing, too).
If they looked like this, I'd be a lot more OK with it; if I had to cross-dress in casual [or business casual] environments, that is what I would select. Or just the underwear, for a more privately/inherently sexual example that is invisible unless you're doing it wrong (and provides the majority of any sensory benefits for those so declined- even the male attempts at a "panty"-style brief don't work because they're still made of heavier cloth and have a seam parallel to the axis of dangle, where the female ones are made of lighter material, fit a bit baggier on men, and the front is completely flat and seamless with nothing to bother the relevant areas).
To the point I'm not really sure you could meaningfully call that cross-dressing; it's just shorts with one less leg hole and integrated undergarment, and certain models are nearly built for men to wear them (if the fit was slightly different; a little tight in the crotch and wide in the hips for obvious reasons, but that's par for the course when you're wearing something not actually meant for you).
But it's not just putting the clothing on because I felt like it, it's being seen/others' reaction to putting the clothing on, whereas that's something I would want to avoid at all costs. And that's hard to prosecute because that's a woman thing (and ironically one of the stronger arguments for transgenderism being treated as a legitimate mental condition)- literally, the fashion police- which perhaps is part of why 'no crossdressing' [implication: no bad crossdressing] was at one time a reasonable compromise.
Huh. I wonder what extent that drives a lot of the differing reactions : I've worked with trans women that would be the spitting image of that link, modulo a purple sweater if it's winter, and even a lot of fairly obnoxiously political trans women tend closer to its look than to drag.
Historically, there was a lot more overlap between day-to-day trans people and drag, largely downstream of WPATH v6's three-to-six-month lived experience requiring hyperfeminine behavior by someone not yet allowed to do anything but clothing, but that's faded pretty aggressively over a decade ago.
Judging by what I have hanging in my closet I am intimately familiar with the concept (and why you would do that).
But I can't wear that outside (or on camera), for the same reasons I would have problems conducting same-sex PDA- others have plenty of good, evolved, biological reasons to find that disgusting and off-putting, and I feel that's going to get in the way of my other objectives. (And even worse, it also marks me as belonging to the faction that gets off on making that fact everyone else's problem, so I believe I would alienate both the traditionalists and the low-information liberals upon whose support I largely depend. Something about "fisher of men".)
So now I get to suffer the "if my initial conditions and social circle were different I conceivably could have gone that way" outlook for a very good reason, and get to be just as much on the back foot on that topic as any
of the dozenother principled libertarian is. I guess the only prosecution for bad actors is that they simply find themselves mysteriously excluded, but the State (and its supporters) are naturally only interested in making sure I bear the costs for those bad actors.More options
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