Drag is an art form that has been around for centuries, but in recent years has come under fierce attack from conservatives as part of their broader villainization of the LGBTQ+ community.
More than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced nationwide this year alone, and roughly 30 of those have targeted drag. Opportunistic lawmakers and far-right groups have attacked drag, largely by falsely representing what it is, including by conflating it with pornography.
Drag bans amount to little more than “an effort to erase LGBTQ+ people from public life,” Emerson Sykes, a senior staff attorney for speech, privacy and technology at the American Civil Liberties Union, told HuffPost.
Donald Trump hasn’t made any public comments about wanting to ban drag, but he did use a clip of a drag queen in an attack ad against Kamala Harris that criticized gender-affirming care. Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term put together by conservative organizations and Trump’s allies, broadly lays out plans to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
Nearly 40% of the judges Trump appointed in his first term had a history of bias against the LGBTQ+ community, according to an analysis by the civil rights legal and education defense fund Lambda Legal. In the years since, many of those judges — and justices Trump appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court — have issued significant rulings, including those that have unwound civil rights protections and anti-discrimination laws for the LGBTQ+ community.
Two drag artists based in Washington, D.C., told HuffPost their art will be a profoundly political and meaningful tool in the months to come and, according to free speech advocates and legal experts who also spoke to HuffPost, the Constitution gives them every right to wield that tool. However, key court decisions on state-level bans are still to come, and conservatives have been trying ― with some success ― to say free speech protections shouldn’t apply to these kinds of performances.
Cake Pop!, who styles herself to look like a fantastical intergalactic queen for her performances, owns her own bar and was recognized as Washington’s best drag queen in 2022. She grew up as a conservative Christian.
“What I do is weird. And my subject is weird,” she said. “But I have the right to do it because I’m not harming anyone. And it brings a lot of joy to people. I’m a 6’4” Black man that is dressing up as a woman-alien-thing who is bringing joy to people.”
Drag has become more visible in recent years as it has gained popularity in mainstream culture and as LGBTQ+ people have secured more rights, and backlash is inevitable whenever progress is made, Cake Pop! said.
“History shows, when people are fighting for change, it’s not something that is linear,” she said. “It’s not something where we have protections put in place without them then being challenged. When slavery was repealed, there was a whole war about it. Then we also dealt with segregation and everything after that. When we’re fighting for the rights of people in general, the opposition is never going to be happy.”
Trump’s reelection, she said, is “another step of that.”
Drag artists have long been at the forefront of this ongoing fight.
“We end up being the loudest voices in the queer community because we’re afforded larger platforms as entertainers for people who don’t necessarily feel like they are or can be the loudest voices in the room,” she said. “Surely, the big woman with the big wig is gonna be louder than somebody else.”
Evry Pleasure, an award-winning drag queen, said Trump’s reelection campaign was largely based on attacking “most of the things that I am as a human being.”
“I’m a Latino person. I am someone who has benefited from diversity programs in college,” she said. “I’m a queer person and a drag artist — all things that are ‘not normal’ or don’t agree with what they seem to think the United States is.”
Evry Pleasure, who holds a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and has been recognized as one of D.C.’s best drag performers by The Washington Blade, was born in Puerto Rico. She was active in social and entrepreneurial programs, but for a long time could not support the LGBTQ+ community in the way she wanted.
Drag blew those doors open.
“Drag was the main way I could do it all: I could have additional revenue for my daily life, I could drive politics through fundraisers or through doing press interviews,” she said. “I can get on stage to perform for your tips but I also get a mic on that stage to talk about any issues affecting our community. Drag allows me to be creative, to be political and to create revenue.”
It should be the American dream, she added, noting that drag is a form of community-building.
“When a drag queen is part of another community, like being Latino or an immigrant of Asian descent, all of those intersectionalities come together and drag becomes really political,” she said.
The case for drag artists to retain their free speech has so far been strong, even in “unfriendly courts,” said Sykes.
“Today there is and continues to be a broad base of support for basic First Amendment principles across the judicial and doctrinal spectrum,” he said. “We have a strong case no matter the lineup of judges.”
Many attempts at banning drag have framed the issue as protecting minors from “obscene” performances, but courts have found this argument to be generally redundant in light of existing laws.
Last year, for example, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker tossed out a Tennessee law known as the Adult Entertainment Act. It criminalized adult cabaret entertainment in public, particularly where minors might be able to see it in Shelby County, and classified “male or female impersonators” as a form of “adult cabaret.” State laws were already in place to protect minors from obscenity by defining obscene or harmful materials as those that lack “serious artistic value.”
A local LGBTQ+ theater company called Friends of George’s sued, arguing the ban harmed their livelihood and infringed on their constitutional rights. Ultimately, Parker determined the law posed an “unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.”
Still, Sykes said, he is “wary of the political headwinds” and what a Republican takeover of the federal government could mean, especially given how many states have shown an interest in cracking down on drag artists.
Future attacks on drag may hinge on issues such as the enforcement of certain building codes or restrictions based on city ordinances that bar entertainers from hosting events at certain venues, Sykes said.
An ongoing case in Texas offers a glimpse at one argument that opponents to drag may try elsewhere.
Spectrum WT, a student group at Texas A&M, last year wanted to host a drag show with an emphasis on educating LGBTQ+ youth about suicide prevention. They ended up holding the event off-campus after the university’s president, Walter Wendler, declared that drag shows were “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny” and barred shows from campus.
“A harmless drag show? Not possible,” Wendler said at the time, according to The New York Times.
The students sued and later asked Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk for an injunction on the ban, which would let them perform on campus.
Kacsmaryk refused, ruling that not all drag shows are “inherently expressive.”
He found that drag is “conduct” — which the Supreme Court has recognized is subject to regulation — rather than “pure speech.” The students sought to challenge Kacsmaryk’s ruling on appeal, and Supreme Court justices in March opted not to intervene pending appeal.
A decision is forthcoming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
“If some of the broader laws and policies prohibiting drag are allowed to stand on similar theories, all sorts of gender expression might be at risk, far beyond drag.”
- Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney for speech, privacy and technology at the ACLU
If Kascmaryk’s opinion holds, Sykes said, the implication is clear.
“Drag performances will be subject to strict regulations and prohibitions as they were at West Texas A&M. … If some of the broader laws and policies prohibiting drag are allowed to stand on similar theories, all sorts of gender expression might be at risk, far beyond drag,” Sykes said.
An ongoing case in Texas is also grappling with whether drag should be considered conduct or speech.
Texas Senate Bill 12 is aimed at restricting “sexually oriented performances” on public property or in the presence of minors. It does not mention drag specifically, but its terms, if enforced, would have the same effect as if it did.
Last year, a federal judge struck down the law, but the state appealed. During oral arguments in October, The Texan reported that Texas Deputy Solicitor General William Cole leaned into the distinction between conduct and speech. The arguments were taken under advisement, and a decision from the 5th Circuit is looming.
Drag has long been considered visual performance rather than conduct. And in the U.S., even controversial performances are protected by the Constitution, said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
And arguments that drag should be banned because it qualifies as obscenity have typically clashed with those First Amendment protections, Volokh explained — most crucially because the obscenity has to be pornographic, not merely suggestive.
“It has to be fundamentally sexual and it has to be highly sexual,” he said. “It has to appeal to something shameful or have a morbid interest in sex, it has to be something sexual that is in some way erotically arousing, maybe not for everybody, but it has to be at least erotically arousing for its audiences.”
This generally doesn’t describe drag.
“In a typical situation, a drag show is not going to be viewed as erotic by someone,” he said. “It may be seen as amusing or political entertainment, but most people don’t go to drag shows because they think they will be sexually aroused.”
“The more common drag show is somebody wearing drag, not depicting or engaging in sex, not even simulating sexual behavior — at most, they are shaking their body or something like that,” said Volokh, who has filed friend of the court briefs in lawsuits where drag is being challenged.
This is a point of view that Judge David Nuffer in Utah seems to share.
Last year, he nixed a ban on an all-ages drag show in a public park. Unlike Kacsmaryk in Texas, Nuffer found that drag “is an art form, a source of entertainment and a form of activism.”
“Given current political events and discussions, drag shows of a nature like the planned Allies Drag Show are indisputably protected speech and are a medium of expression containing political and social messages regarding (among other messages) self-expression, gender stereotypes and roles and LGBTQIA+ identity,” Nuff wrote.
Cake Pop! said she’s feeling incensed after the election but inspired to use drag as a way to keep fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
“That’s what we have to do. That’s the only way change can happen,” she said.
Evry Pleasure said she was worried about what attacks may still be coming for drag and drag artists. People “have a lot of fear ingrained in them that drag is this absolute atrocious thing that has no place in the world,” she said.
But there are reasons to be hopeful, she said.
“Artists in general can come together to defend ourselves from the actions of this administration. We as drag performers have a way of leading because of the proximity we have to individuals every day,” she said. “If we can put aside all of our differences within our own community, we can build a movement that can protect us.”