A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed Tennessee’s right to prohibit sexually-charged performances from venues accessible to minors, enabling the state to crack down on LGBT activists exposing children to drag shows as part of their efforts to break down gender distinctions.
Enacted in March 2023 and originally slated to take effect that July, Tennessee’s Adult Entertainment Act (SB 3) prohibits “adult cabaret entertainment,” including “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers,” or “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” from taking place “on public property or in a location where the adult cabaret performance could be viewed by a person who is not an adult.” Initial violations are misdemeanors, repeat offenses can become felonies punishable by up to six years in prison.
Various groups including Blount County Pride (BCP), so-called “Christian” drag performer Flamy Grant, and the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took legal action, declaring the letter a “naked attempt to chill free speech,” securing multiple temporary injunctions. Blount County District Attorney Ryan Desmond had previously warned BCP that it could be prosecuted for any explicit performances at an LGBT “Pride” event it had been planning at the time.
On July 18, a 6th Circuit panel ruled that drag theater organization Friends of George’s (FOG), another of the plaintiffs, “did not meet its burden to show standing” to sue in the case, because it failed to establish that it actually intended to “exhibit adult cabaret entertainment—performances lacking value for even reasonable 17-year-olds—to an audience containing minors.”
Nor, the judges found, did FOG show that its “alleged intention to breach the AEA” was “arguably affected with a constitutional interest,” when “the law in this area is clear—there is no constitutional interest in exhibiting indecent material to minors.” The panel further reminded that the AEA “doesn’t even ban these performances, merely restricting them to adult-only zones.”
“Tennessee’s Adult Entertainment Act has been consistently misrepresented since its adoption,” celebrated Tennessee Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. “As a state overflowing with world-class artists and musicians, Tennessee respects the right to free expression. But as the Court noted, Tennessee’s ‘harmful to minors’ standard is constitutionally sound and Tennessee can absolutely prohibit the exhibition of obscene material to children. The Court of Appeals focused on what the law actually says and ordered the case dismissed.”
FOG responded that it was “shocked and disappointed” by the decision, which it said “has left us and thousands of others in the LGBTQ+ community dangerously in limbo, with no clear answers as to how this ban will be enforced and by whom.” Calling the law “firmly rooted in hate,” the theater organization added that it is “consulting with our attorney on next steps.”
Democrat state Rep. Aftyn Behn called the court’s ruling a “misguided attack on the LGBTQ+ community,” the Associated Press reports.
Drag in particular has emerged as one of LGBT activists’ favored tools for exposing and acclimating children to the concepts of gender fluidity and sexual experimentation, via so-called “family-friendly” drag shows at schools and community events, or Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) events in which crossdressers read books to children, often at public libraries.
DQSH organizers admit that the concept is intended to give children “unabashedly queer role models,” capture the “gender fluidity of childhood,” teach children to “defy rigid gender restrictions,” and mold them into “bright lights of change in their communities.”
Many of these events have exposed children to sexually perverted performances and drag queens who range from X-rated performers in their day jobs to convicted pedophiles and prostitutes, as well as materials promoting sexual promiscuity, including distributing condoms.