By Dorothy Hastings,
@d0r0thyh
Associate Producer, National Affairs
It’s been a year of increasing anti-LGBTQ sentiment, threats and attacks on drag events and queer spaces, including the deadly attack on Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last month.
A recent
report from the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD found at least 124 drag events across 47 states have been protested, threatened or attacked this year. Several states this year have proposed bills that aim to ban or restrict drag performances. State lawmakers also continue to introduce record levels of legislation that
restrict the rights of transgender people.
Two Club Q shooting survivors are
expected to testify before the House Oversight Committee in a hearing Wednesday about the rise in violence and threats against LGBTQ people.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis joined the PBS NewsHour last week after a holiday drag story hour in Columbus, Ohio, was canceled over protests from far-right nationalist groups. She described how anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from far-right groups, repeated and amplified on social media and elsewhere, has
real-world consequences.
Many within queer communities, like drag artist Eureka O’Hara, are working to bring acceptance. O’Hara, a co-host of the HBO series “We’re Here,” spoke with the NewsHour for an upcoming story on how drag is being targeted in the U.S.
O’Hara, who grew up in a small town in Tennessee, said she noticed more pushback against the show, which is in its third season. On “We’re Here,” O’Hara and her co-hosts seek to work with queer residents and allies to put on drag shows in small towns across the country. The show’s production has faced homophobic and transphobic attacks online, and some locals in the towns they visit
have protested the events or attempted to prevent them from taking place. While that pushback has led to safety concerns, they said it has also motivated them to keep performing.
“At the end of the day, without us becoming more visible and without us pushing past all of this negative rhetoric, we are only hurting ourselves if we don't push even harder. So all it does is give me more strength and more will to continue the work that we're doing and continue to show positive visibility for not just queer people, trans people, but of course, also drag entertainment.”
For O’Hara, drag is an art form with immense importance in their own life.
“It taught me how to be my authentic self. It gave me confidence to exist in a world where, as a 6-foot-4, overly flamboyant, young queer male at the time growing up, I didn't understand who I was or where I existed or belonged in the world,” they said. “Drag gave me a reason to belong. And it gave me a reason to exist. And it gave me a platform for myself to be that person, for other people, to learn who they can be.”
