--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- [Discussion continues]
--:-- Noelle King: Hey, look over there. A classic distraction technique. You mean Tennessee's new law that limits adult cabaret? A distraction from what, though? From the real issues that they were voted into office to focus on. Jobs, health care, keeping our children safe from harm at their own school.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Tennessee lawmakers say this law is about keeping kids safe.
--:-- Noelle King: The trouble is, they're targeting a thing that does not seem to be happening. I keep hearing this narrative that, you know, we're doing this to protect the children, to protect the children. And I have asked the governor many times to produce any evidence that would suggest that children are in danger at these performances. And he has thus far provided me none.
--:-- Noelle King: Coming up on Today Explained, what this law says and what it's really about. Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp. Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not. Why don't you try BetterHelp.com slash Explained? Absolute truth. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash explain. That's BetterHelp.com slash explain.
--:-- Noelle King: AI agents are getting pretty impressive. You might not even realize you're listening to one right now. We work 24-7 to resolve customer inquiries. No hold music. No canned answers. No frustration. Visit Sierra.ai to learn more.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. And to explain this vaguely worded state law restricting what is being called adult cabaret, we called Melissa Brown. Melissa is a state political reporter with the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Obviously, there's a wider national trend of legislation targeting LGBTQ communities, communities, allegations, often from conservative circles, that drag performances sexualize or quote, groom children, though drag is a centuries-old sort of performance art form, right?
--:-- Noelle King: The Senate sponsor, Jack Johnson, has repeatedly said the bill is not intended to target drag performances. We're not banning drag shows. We're not banning allowing someone to dress up, you know, a man to dress up like Dolly Parton and sing songs or a woman to dress up like Elvis and sing songs.
--:-- Melissa Brown: However, it really seems that the Tennessee law can be connected to a legal battle last year in a Tennessee city called Jackson. It's LGBTQ pride season in Jackson. Hundreds came out to Capital City Prides coming home for Pride Festival on Saturday. House Representative Chris Todd, who is a Republican, was among a group of civic leaders in Jackson who challenged a plan to hold a family-friendly drag show in a local pride celebration.
--:-- Noelle King: This was last fall. Todd at the time referred to drag as, quote, child abuse and said drag events were, quote, clearly meant to groom and recruit children to this lifestyle. That's exactly what these kind of entertainment shows are directed toward, and that is to groom and recruit children to a lifestyle that they're not old enough to even understand.
--:-- Melissa Brown: The two groups eventually came to an agreement. The Pride organizers agreed to hold the show and age restrict it to adults. And that seemed to sort of nullify the court battle going on there. But Todd eventually came to co-sponsor the drag bill in this Tennessee General Assembly.
--:-- Noelle King: The other lawmaker in Tennessee who obviously and understandably is getting a lot of attention is the governor, Bill Lee. What has he said when pushed on why this law is necessary? Lee hasn't spoken extensively about this bill. You know, he did sign it last week without a lot of fanfare. He didn't hold, you know, a press conference or send out a statement.
--:-- Melissa Brown: A couple of days before he signed, he was at a press availability and was asked about the bill. And he said children should not be, quote, exposed to sexualized entertainment to obscenity. Sexualized entertainment in front of children and obscenity for children is something that shouldn't happen in this state.
--:-- Noelle King: And that's been sort of the breadth of what he has said on the bill. Most of the debate has gone on in the General Assembly. What does this very controversial law actually say, Melissa?
--:-- Melissa Brown: I think it's important at the beginning of this to sort of correct the record on Tennessee's drag bill. It's not an outright ban on public drag performances. And it certainly does not, for example, criminalize or make illegal a family-friendly event involving drag queens or similar events.
--:-- Noelle King: That has been circulated a lot, and I understand why legislation can be incredibly confusing. It's not 100% an outright drag ban, though there are a lot of valid concerns that the law could have a chilling effect on drag.
--:-- Melissa Brown: So the law states, we want to kind of get into the meat of it, that it's an offense for a person to, quote, engage in adult cabaret entertainment on public property or in a location where the adult cabaret entertainment could be viewed by a person who is not an adult.
--:-- Noelle King: And the new law uses some existing statute wording to include, quote, male and female impersonators in adult cabaret entertainment. However, and this is the key part, adult cabaret entertainment is also defined as, quote, adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Now, harmful to minors sounds like a vague term, but it's actually a legal term that's defined elsewhere in state obscenity law. And so to legally qualify as harmful to minors as defined in Tennessee code, a performance would have to meet a pretty strong three-prong test, which basically says the average person would have to find it obscene and patently offensive to prevailing community standards.
--:-- Noelle King: And the other key here is that it must also lack serious literary artistic political and or scientific value for minors to be found harmful under the obscenity code. And as we know obscenity standards particularly when involving a form of speech or artistic expression can be a really high legal standard to meet.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Interesting. I wonder if Tennessee already has obscenity laws on the books and you've just described them, why do the lawmakers who introduced this say an additional law is needed?
--:-- Noelle King: If you look back over committee debates and floor debates, several of the Democratic opponents to this law made that point a lot, that anything that would reasonably be found obscene under this new law is already found obscene under existing law.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Obscene behavior is already covered under federal law. I'm sure that most of us also saw the self-proclaimed Nazis who were protesting drag shows. Is that who we want to align ourselves with?
--:-- Noelle King: And there haven't been a lot of explanations about what this does in addition to an existing obscenity law. But the Republicans backing this bill, you know, say that it's important to protect children from sexualized entertainment.
--:-- Melissa Brown: I don't find that appropriate in any shape, form or fashion and in a public venue especially. What really remains to be seen is how this will be enforced going forward.
--:-- Noelle King: A constant debate within committees is about how this could be construed in other contexts. context. There were Republicans and Democrats and committees who were concerned about how it might affect major pop concerts, right? Tennessee's own Miley Cyrus at Bridgestone Arena.
--:-- Melissa Brown: I've seen her there in the past myself. Would that cross the line? Could she be subject to a pair of handcuffs based upon the vagueness? We have a huge entertainment community here in Nashville. Right. The Senate sponsor, Senator Jack Johnson, has been fairly careful in how he describes this bill and saying that it's just overtly sexualized, such as like stripping, those kinds of performances that will be banned here.
--:-- Noelle King: But there are also Republicans who have gone on record saying that they think any drag performance is inherently inappropriate. Whether or not the law is actually used in that way, we just don't know yet and how it will be enforced.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Okay, so some of the we don't know yet gets to enforcement and wording of the law. We just don't know. Is the vagueness intentional? You know, I've talked to a national defense attorney, and he did call the language in the law quite broad. Part of the law that says entertainment that, quote, could be viewed by a child. That's very vague.
--:-- Noelle King: Does that mean when someone walks by a restaurant that's age-restricted and sees something through a window? You know, could someone get in trouble for that? The attorney pointed to that specifically and said that is very vague. And again, there are a lot of questions about how that could ever be enforceable.
--:-- Melissa Brown: I think we're in a holding pattern in Tennessee. Obviously, the law goes into effect on April 1st, and then it's just a waiting game to see where, if, and when, really, this statute could be enforced.
--:-- Noelle King: What's the response been to the drag law in Tennessee? I think there's been a lot of confusion on both sides of the political aisle about what the law actually says.
--:-- Melissa Brown: And there's also a lot of fear, I think, in LGBTQ communities and drag performance communities that there could be sort of piecemeal or haphazard enforcement of the law.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm a trans person. Depending on who is reading that law, they may determine that I am a female impersonator.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Obviously, we've seen a lot of national pushback. The White House slammed both bills for, quote, vilifying Americans. These ridiculous policies aren't just unnecessary. They are dangerous. They vilify our fellow Americans.
--:-- Noelle King: I think many people support the law in Tennessee as well, but we're also hearing a lot of people speaking out against it. How does this law fit with other legislation that affects LGBTQ communities in your state?
--:-- Melissa Brown: The General Assembly session started in January, and bills affecting the LGBTQ community were really among the first handful filed and really among the first prioritized in committees.
--:-- Noelle King: The day that Governor Lee signed the drag bill, he also signed Senate Bill 1, which bans all form of gender-affirming health treatments for minors in the state.
--:-- Melissa Brown: Well, it helps the minor children who otherwise might be subjected to surgical procedures that remove body parts or being prescribed medications that make permanent changes to a child's body.
--:-- Noelle King: And really, you know, unlike the broad language and questionable potential application of the drag bill, SB1 is very specific and will require any transgender or non-binary children currently undergoing treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapies to end all of their medical treatments by next March.
--:-- Melissa Brown: There aren't necessarily criminal penalties attached to the bill, but health providers could lose their licenses for prescribing the treatments moving forward.
--:-- Noelle King: They've been legislating all kinds of things that are relevant to the field of medicine without being doctors themselves. And a lot of times without speaking to experts in the field that they're legislating. And that's dangerous.
--:-- Melissa Brown: And Democrats have decried this legislation and really sort of this whole slate of bills, but have little power to stop the legislation from advancing under the Republican supermajority here in Tennessee.
--:-- Noelle King: You cover Tennessee state politics, but I wonder what you've seen nationally. Is there an expectation that this drag law in Tennessee could be a precedent for other states?
--:-- Melissa Brown: I think we are seeing that. I know states like, I think, Kentucky, Idaho, North Dakota, maybe a few others are considering similar bills. Across the country, similar laws are in the works, with conservative lawmakers in at least 13 other states advancing bills to restrict drag.
--:-- Noelle King: Coming up next, a Tennessee drag performer who is fired up. Support for today's show comes from Adio. What is Adio? Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. And to explain this vaguely worded state law restricting what is being called adult cabaret, we called Melissa Brown. Melissa is a state political reporter with the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. And to explain this vaguely worded state law restricting what is being called adult cabaret, we called Melissa Brown. Melissa is a state political reporter with the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Hi, I'm Slade Kyle, and my onstage name is Bella DeBall, and I am a full-time drag entertainer and show host.
--:-- Noelle King: Bella hosts and performs in drag shows, some for adults, some for both adults and kids during the daytime, at the Atomic Rose in Memphis.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Bella is a sweet, classy Southern lady. She is the intersection of Miss Piggy, Mr. Rogers, and Dolly Parton.
--:-- Noelle King: Hey, y'all, I'm your little show hostess, the Bluff City bombshell, Miss Bella DeBall. With wigs and heels, I'm about seven feet tall.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Oh! Yeah. Did somebody order a giant woman? Because here I am. Hey there, Atomic Rose, look at you on this beautiful rainbow sundae!
--:-- Noelle King: Most of my aesthetic is very classic drag, very Southern drag. So you're going to get big hair, lots of sparkle, big long gowns.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Has anyone here on this packed house Sunday never been to a drag show before? How did you get into performing in drag?
--:-- Noelle King: So I am a founding company member of the Tennessee Shakespeare Company. And while I was with them, I got to play a couple of female roles on stage, including the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And so it actually started through Shakespeare. That was also during the time when Drag Race was really taking off. It was so liberating and so delightful, I had to keep doing it.
--:-- Noelle King: Now, I have assembled an amazing cast. I have entertainers from all of the ranks of our local drag competition, War of the Roses.
--:-- Slade Kyle: So I pride myself on giving people a glimpse into the crayon box of drag. So I want you to see all the colors. I really book a diverse show.
--:-- Noelle King: So you're going to get some old school, like a little Dolly and Whitney. You're probably going to get some comedy, you're going to get some camp, you're going to get at least one girl who does all the dances and stunts that people are used to seeing on Drag Race.
--:-- Slade Kyle: But mostly you're going to get a really diverse representation so that if you are new to the art of drag, you'll walk away with a much broader understanding of how many people fall under that umbrella.
--:-- Noelle King: Is it a good time? I mean, the audience leaves happy. No one breaks into tears. There are no children running out the back door.
--:-- Slade Kyle: But be honest with me. Is it fun for the audience? If anybody ever breaks into tears, it's because I'm doing a ballad in sign language and they were moved.
--:-- Noelle King: But no, our families that come to our Sunday brunches are returners. They keep bringing their kids back. Their kids beg to come back because it is a really fun time.
--:-- Slade Kyle: You get to go in, sit down, eat a really great meal, be entertained for a little while. We kind of call it gay church. Gay church.
--:-- Noelle King: And presumably, nobody's being dragged in. Nobody's being forced to watch the show. You know, amazingly enough, you have to choose to come into the building and watch the show.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Yeah. We have yet to find a way to compel people or force them to attend.
--:-- Noelle King: Now, I do have to speak about something important this morning. As you may know, drag is under attack here in the state of Tennessee.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Bella, what do you think this new drag law means for your job, the way you make a living, your performances? What are the effects you think you might see soon?
--:-- Noelle King: I was really, really worried about the effects of this bill because, you know, as you're aware, it's very vague in its terminology, very overreaching.
--:-- Slade Kyle: But in just the past couple of days since the governor signed it, I've seen the statements from the district attorneys. I think the bill is ill-advised. I think it's a solution in search of a problem.
--:-- Noelle King: I think there's been a lot of confusion on both sides of the political aisle about what the law actually says.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And I've also seen the White House press secretary's comments about the law, and that has greatly heartened and emboldened me. That lets me know that they're going to continue fighting for us and supporting our community.
--:-- Noelle King: If they were to attempt to misuse this law, the effects that it could have there are to tell me that I can't march in the pride parade that we have every year because that would be public.
--:-- Slade Kyle: I am an ordained minister and I have couples that have asked me to marry them in public and drag. I would be concerned if someone would attempt to use this law to infringe upon my freedom of religion.
--:-- Noelle King: The law makes no distinctions about what drag is or is not. You know, I'm sure you saw the viral photo of Governor Bill Lee from his 1977 yearbook.
--:-- Slade Kyle: I did. This is the photo. Somebody on Reddit posted it from a 1977 high school yearbook purporting to show the governor apparently in a skirt, a wig and a necklace. Again, allegedly the governor.
--:-- Noelle King: It's most likely part of a powderpuff football game where kids dress as the opposite gender.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And he, in those statements said you know that ridiculous You can conflate something like that with sexual entertainment in front of kids And I agree That not the same thing But he does not agree with me that he signed a law that makes no such distinctions It gives you a clear picture between that and any other kind of dress up any of the arts nothing about ballet or opera or theater, nothing about people in costumes or fundraisers or anything like that.
--:-- Noelle King: And especially it doesn't give you any exemptions for trans people, gender non-conforming people, non-binary people in their everyday presentation.
--:-- Slade Kyle: As a non-binary person, I frequently wear clothing that is not ascribed to my gender. And I would worry that somebody would see me in public and attempt to use this law to chill my constitutionally protected expression.
--:-- Noelle King: This is our right to appear in public as well. And we've had public drag performances in Tennessee for over 50 years. Okay, so a long history.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And so I wonder what you're hearing from people you work with, your employers, the owners of the Atomic Rose. Have you gotten any warnings? Have they said anything specific, like we're going to protect you in this way or that way?
--:-- Noelle King: Yeah, absolutely. When I started getting vocal and speaking out, the owner of the Atomic Rose, who is a cishet white man, sat me down and told me. He was like, look, I agree with everything that you've said. I've looked into it. We've talked with our lawyers. We've talked to the ACLU. Everybody says we should go forward. That we're not in any violation. We need to keep going.
--:-- Slade Kyle: So he's like, I will let you be the voice and the mouthpiece for the club. You say what needs to be said, and we will back you. We have doubled up our security. We've now got an officer with a metal detector wand and everything checking folks before they come in.
--:-- Noelle King: Because of course, when you speak out like this, it does have a tendency to make you a little bit more of a target.
--:-- Slade Kyle: Now, my performers, much more hopeful now, now that we've seen a lot of other folks coming to the rescue and the cavalry arriving. But before that, several of my girls are full-time entertainers, just like I am. For instance, one of them is a non-binary person who's raising a child and they worry about how will I feed my kid if I lose this job?
--:-- Noelle King: I have a black trans girl on my cast that's been with me for we've started doing drag together a decade ago. And in case you don't know, it's really hard to get employed as a black trans person in the cell.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And so she's worried about her livelihood. Hey, it's hard out here. A lot of these entertainers, this is what we do for a living. You are literally sustaining us and keeping us alive, y'all.
--:-- Noelle King: Do you think that drag is inherently political or do you think it has been politicized in the times we live in?
--:-- Slade Kyle: No, drag is absolutely political. Walking out of the house in something that doesn't conform to your gender is a radical act. And drag queens have always been at the forefront. If you look all the way back to Stonewall, it was drag entertainers and trans people of color that led the rebellion that gave us the gay rights movement.
--:-- Noelle King: So to me, yeah, drag is inherently always political. So then why does this bill pass now in 2023? To me, it's part of an overreaching attack on the queer community.
--:-- Slade Kyle: That doesn't necessarily mean that I think that the majority of Tennesseans are on board with legislation like this. Even people that don't necessarily care about drag or trans people are far more interested in the economy, inflation, health care, education, crime, and all these actual real issues than they are about trying to chill free speech.
--:-- Noelle King: Do you think that people might leave Tennessee over the passage of a law like this? Have you considered leaving Tennessee for a state that might be friendlier?
--:-- Slade Kyle: I've heard a lot of my friends and family over the past several years who have made their way out of the state. Oh. Yeah, many people moving to blue states. It's not uncommon. You know, many of us find the struggle and the burden to be too hard.
--:-- Noelle King: For me, I feel like somebody has to stay and fight. I grew up queer in Tennessee in a little bitty farm community, and I barely survived it. And I feel the need to stay and try and make this state more accepting for all the queer youth that are going to follow after me.
--:-- Slade Kyle: And so what is the plan going forward? Where do you go from here? What are you going to do tonight?
--:-- Noelle King: We continue. We keep doing the same thing that we've been doing. We are in no violation of any laws, and so we're continuing our shows just like we have been.
--:-- Slade Kyle: I'm continuing to present authentically in public just like I have been. I made a very open statement at this past Sunday's brunch that if someone attempts to use this law to tell me that I cannot march in the pride parade and festival, I will not comply.
--:-- Noelle King: If they try and tell me or use the law to prevent me from going to Kroger and address. As my authentic non-binary self out in public, I will not comply. If they attempt to use the legislation to say I can no longer welcome children into our all ages performance in this safe space. I will not comply.
--:-- Slade Kyle: I mean, if somebody has to be arrested in order for the ACLU to move the case forward, I've made it 43 years without a charge and I'm happy to catch one for a cause. Respect my existence or expect my resistance.
--:-- Noelle King: Slade Kyle, Bella Duvall, thank you so much for taking the time for us today. This was really wonderful. You are so welcome.
--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced by Avishai Artsy and edited by Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard and engineered by Paul Robert Mouncey. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
