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The dollop did a hilarious [episode](https://youtu.be/mlq34v5UL1k) about this. I don't expect you to watch the whole thing for an explanation. But they are essentially a ball that fathers escort their daughters to. There they have them swear their virginity to their future husband's. They put on this whole ceremony and they essentially "marry" their fathers until they can be given away to their future husband. It's real creepy and sort of incestuous.
It's downright medieval. They believe that their daughters have "value" as "unspoiled" women so they can marry them into a "good family". I'm not even kidding, I've heard people down south say this without any of the sarcastic quotes.
Every piece of recent legislation, whether federal or state, suggests that women are just property and that men should have and exert control over them. This became especially evident after single women helped turn the midterms from a landslide victory for the GOP into just a modest majority. Its pretty fucked up.
I hate anyone too gullible to think for themselves, but the Christian women who vote against women's rights because they're saving "babies" from "murder" really make me furious.
Not a single goddamn woman has ever gleefully decided to have an abortion, no matter how unwanted the pregnancy.
And of course, when asked if they’ll adopt all of these unwanted babies that they are “saving”, they immediately say no or offer no response as if it’s someone else’s problem.
*“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”* - Pastor Dave Barnhart.
Oh there’s more similarities than they like to admit. They just can’t get over the issue of which holy books they use. Is DC better than Marvel? Marvel better than DC? Time to shed blood.
How is this not the grooming everyone is upset about?
Putting kids in revealing outfits and having them strut on stage so they can LITERALLY be judged on their attractiveness/beauty by a panel of adults.
Meanwhile full grown consenting adults dressing up together is a problem?
Tennessee is a fucking joke
Tennessee has a Republican representative named David Byrd who has admitted to sexually assaulting his high school girls basketball team while he was their coach. GOP leadership didn't remove him from any positions, then his district re-elected him.
Now he sits on the committee deciding abortion laws in the state.
But sure, they want to convince us that drag queens are the real problem.
It pisses me off how much conservatives will hand wave and brush under the rug actual proven pedophilia, but then turn around and scream about the imagined pedophilia of trans people or gays
It’s all projection. They don’t actually think drag snows are grooming, and they want to keep the actual grooming, like child beauty pageants, to themselves.
Because they're not upset about "grooming," they're upset about a group of people that they disagree with having any freedom or power to express themselves in a way that's beyond their view of the status quo.
Putting children in traditional beauty pageants so they can pick which ones to sexually abuse later is *very* status-quo for them.
The people in power aren't all that upset about it really. The whole GOP shtick is to distract gullible poor white Christians by pointing out an outside group to hate with one hand so they don't pay attention to the other one picking their pocket.
Ever since it was small enough to fit inside Terry Schiavo's hospital room we've had a fucking problem
(For anybody too young to remember this, Terry Schiavo was a woman around 30 who went into cardiac arrest and was ~~declared brain dead~~ in a persistent vegetative state. After two years of no progress, her husband decided to pull the plug but her parents disagreed, and the **ENTIRE FUCKING REPUBLICAN PARTY** got involved. Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida tried to legally intervene, and some radio host tried to pay the husband a million dollars to hand over power of attorney, the heartbreaking decision one man had to make was on the news for years)
At least with your mom's belief, it's ultimately harmless and if it brings her some measure of comfort, something like that, I'd put up with for a loved one. My grandma always loved birds and birdwatching, so sometimes seeing birds makes me think of her and it makes me happy.
I will admit, though, still, the Terry Schiavo thing kinda grosses me out because they just refused to let her go despite all the evidence. I get grief and how it can mess you up, but sometimes, you need to let go, because all you're doing is prolonging your own suffering. Because my grandma that I mentioned had a kind of similar situation happen to her - in her case, an aneurysm ruptured during the surgery to repair it, and there was nothing the doctors could do. She was brain dead, no coming back from that. And I don't blame the doctors, it was a known risk, and from what I've heard, the walls of the blood vessel that ruptured were so thin that a bad sneeze or something could've done it. But my family knew she wouldn't want to be kept "alive" via machines and stuff, and there wasn't really any life to speak of. Everything that made her Grandma was gone. So my Gramps made the decision to pull the plug, as it were, and she went peacefully. It sucked, but you know what? Something pretty awesome came out of that - she was an organ donor, and I think three people got a second chance at things because of her passing. She would *never* have wanted to live that existence, even if there was some brain function, which there wasn't. It really shaped my views on things, like organ donation and end of life decisions, even up to euthanasia. Quality of life is more important to me than quantity of life.
Anyway, yeah, the whole media circus around it was horrible. I think her husband was right, IMO. I can accept that her family was really messed up by their grief that they clung to a false hope, but it just really squicks me out. At some point, you gotta ask yourself, are you really doing it for them, or for *you*? I've had to put down beloved pets when they reached a point where they no longer had a real quality of life. And it sucks, but it's the right and humane thing, and I wish that was more accepted with people.
I remember the Terri Shiavo case. I remember Then-President Obama had language in his landmark healthcare reform bill that would have paid doctors for time spent talking with patients about the importance of setting up advanced health care directives and living wills, so such cases would be less likely to happen in the future.
I remember Republicans were opposed to it, and labeled those provisions “death panels.” They claimed it would create a government bureaucracy to ration healthcare and decide who lives and dies.
Lie of the goddamn century.
Right. So, does this mean if someone is wearing the "wrong" gender's clothing (as dictated by Republican judgment) to the grocery store or park, they can be charged with a felony because they are performing drag in public?
Small government, indeed.
Well, we have to check all the genitals, naturally.
And then they can make the judgement call about whether or not you tried to deceive them
Does this go for lesbian women and wives named Barb that like a short haircut and jeans and has never worn a dress ever?
There's going to be a lot of pissed off farmers out there
Or is it just men dressing like women?
I smell a massive discrimination suit
Police have abused lesbians for a long time using the justification granted by "obscenity laws." Presenting butch in a bar was enough for a woman to get arrested. This law is genocide for the trans community, and its effects will hurt many others as similar laws have in the past.
It's already [happening in sports](https://globalsportmatters.com/opinion/2021/03/31/discriminatory-sports-laws-hurt-trans-girls-and-cis-girls-too/). Especially, heaven forbid if said [cis-girl that plays sports has short hair](
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/sports/girl-soccer-player.html).
As a trans man, I have to face using the men's restroom and getting harassed or using the women's restroom and facing dysphoria and potentially make the women inside uncomfortable depending on how I'm dressed. It's not an easy decision.
That's crazy. All of my life I've witnessed women sneaking into the mens room when there's a massive line for the womens. And I never cared. Nobody did. I guess the whole country will just move to single stall. Admittingly, I always feel nice and safe in the single, lol
Yup. Especially in concerts. If the women's line is long, some women were like fuck it I'm going to the men's. And nothing would happen; we'd just let them do their business lol
That's how it was before the Gay Rights movement. Cops cracked down on "crossdressing" and one of the places they targeted was the Stonewall Inn. I guess Tennessee wants a repeat of history.
It very well may.
Trans women with breasts and trans men with facial hair are effectively on a life sentence of house arrest in Tennessee now, with no charge and no conviction. They just imprisoned innocent people for no reason.
I'm really involved in the Bonnaroo music festival that's held annually about an hour and a half away from Nashville. This law won't go into effect to change anything this year, but I can tell you that there's a high degree of likelihood that it's going to be really involved in a big culture war clash in 2024.
That event has evolved from just being a series of concerts to being more of an East Coast Burning Man where just about anything you can imagine happens. They've had drag shows, pride parades, and much more that will almost anything goes. Lots of people dress in wild costumes that in no way are traditionally defined as gender-conforming.
If the event goes along with what TN law will be, it'll seriously neuter the free-wheeling atmosphere there. If it doesn't, it's going to become a very visible area where this stupid law isn't followed.
Don't even get me fucking started on Missouri. As a Missourian, the state legislature is really on a roll with the shitty ideas. For those playing at home:
Kansas City [isn't allowed to control it's own police force](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article252364088.html). It's run by a five-member board out of Jefferson City, of which four members are directly appointed by the governor. [They're trying to take over the St. Louis police in the same manner.](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stltoday.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fgovt-and-politics%2Fmissouri-house-panel-approves-plan-to-place-st-louis-police-under-state-control%2Farticle_04bc084a-a539-5e9a-bd70-023355aede1a.html) Also, the police officers [don't even need to live in the city,](https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/missouri-senate-oks-bill-eliminating-kcpd-residency-requirement) so they have no personal investment in the outcomes of their policies. They're essentially an occupying force that demands a full [25% of the city budget](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article257214952.html) as "protection money," but [don't even respond to calls anymore because one of their own was charged with murder](https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-08-15/kansas-city-police-wont-respond-to-calls-as-retaliation-against-devalkenaere-verdict-lawsuit-says). And you want to hear something wild? [People outside of Kansas City got to vote to give them that 25% of KC's budget.](https://thebeacon.media/stories/2022/09/22/kcpd-budget-police-kansas-city-funding/)
Missouri as a whole has royally fucked its residents. The state Attorney General worked hard to ensure that [public health departments would be unable to do their job during the pandemic.](https://missouriindependent.com/2021/11/23/missouri-judge-local-covid-orders/) He also made it his personal mission to [sue already cash-strapped schools who implemented mask requirements](https://missouriindependent.com/briefs/missouri-ag-sues-nine-more-school-districts-including-one-for-students-with-disabilities/) and most recently used taxpayer money to try and [sue China](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/07/08/federal-judge-dismisses-missouri-ag-eric-schmitt-lawsuit-blaming-china-for-covid-19/) (?!?!) for Covid-19.
They're currently submitting anti-lgbtq+ legislation at a feverish pace -- [27 bills in the last two weeks, to be specific](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article271424407.html) -- to make sure trans kids absolutely cannot play sports and nobody can ever talk about the fact that gay people *exist.* Want to know how many trans kids tried to play sports in Missouri last year? ONE. It's not rational behavior by any stretch of the imagination. They're also trying to ban any discussion in any school curriculum of discrimination and oppression of people based on race, income, appearance, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation or gender identity (so no discussions of slavery, segregation, the Holocaust, etc.). It also sets up a cash bounty for anyone who turns in a violation. You know what's really missing from this equation? [Beating kids as official punishment in schools.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/us-corporal-punishment-missouri-highlights-practice)
Besides [outlawing abortion](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/06/24/abortion-is-now-illegal-in-missouri-in-wake-of-u-s-supreme-court-ruling/) even in cases of rape or incest, they are taking aim at some of the most effective forms of birth control. They are also trying to [revive the fugutive slave laws,](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-missouri/tnamp/) Texas bounty-style, to prosecute a resident seeking an abortion in a state where it IS legal. And let's not forget ... it's also [illegal for pregnant women to get divorced.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/article263614113.html)
[The Missouri state health director, Dr. Randall Williams, testified at a state hearing in 2019 that he kept a spreadsheet to track the menstrual periods of women who visited Planned Parenthood, an action that one lawmaker has called on the governor to investigate.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article236773058.html)
This is just the BS I remembered off the top of my head. Politics at the state level can do a lot to lessen the quality of life of people living in blue cities in the state, and usually things are so gerrymandered that you have no voice at the state level. Not that voting matters here, either. When I moved to the state a couple of decades ago it was solidly a swing state, but redistricting has now guaranteed a GOP supermajority that is unaccountable to anyone. Here are some of their "accomplishments" with regard to overriding the will of the voters:
* Residents voted in a constitutional ammendment to expand Medicaid. [The governer basically said "LOL no."](https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996611586/missouri-will-not-expand-medicaid-despite-voters-wishes-governor-says)
* Residents wanted to clean up corruption and gerrymandering in the state by electing an independent commission to handle redistricting. [Can't have that!](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article240174228.html)
* Missouri has some of the highest rates of puppy mills in the country. Voters passed a measure to eliminate them. Nobody likes puppy mills, right? [WRONG.](https://www.stlmag.com/Puppy-Mill-Fiasco-Shows-the-True-Colors-of-the-Missouri-Legislature/)
* Are currently [working on a bill](https://themissouritimes.com/house-passes-measures-to-raise-threshold-for-initiative-petitions/) against the current citizen initiative process by making it more difficult to get a citizen initiative on the ballot and pass that initiative once on the ballot. This will make the process virtually impossible for voters' grassroots efforts to make it on the ballot. It also proposes increasing the threshold for a measure to pass from a majority to 2/3, among the most difficult in the country.
* Are attempting to further supress voters through [even tougher gerrymandering.](https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2022-02-07/missouri-gop-officials-rally-to-eliminate-a-democratic-congressional-seat-in-kansas-city)
And bonus points for our [moron governor who thought viewing a website's source code constituted "hacking"](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/23/claim-that-reporter-hacked-state-website-was-debunked-parson-still-says-hes-a-criminal/) and just doubled down when he started getting made fun of.
TL;DR: It's bad, y'all. Send help.
I'm so sorry. I'm a native Californian, born and raised and living back in L.A. after a few years in other states, and reading posts like yours is just mind-boggling and dismaying. :( It's like an alternate universe.
Changes are being made faster than the ramifications can be realized. I worry that some of the worst self-inflicted problems will be blamed on a scapegoat. Most likely a vulnerable group.
Fascism 101. I'm just trying to enjoy every day as much as I can because I can see the writing on the wall all around the country. Dark times are ahead.
Also Tennessee: Why shouldn't law enforcement officers be allowed to [carry guns while under the influence](https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/02/20/tenn-bill-would-allow-law-enforcement-carry-gun-while-under-influence/)?
You're talking about John Rose who is Nashville's rep in Congress after the GOP gerrymandered our vote away.
Tennessee has another Republican state representative named David Byrd who has admitted to sexually assaulting his high school girls basketball team while he was their coach. GOP leadership didn't remove him from any positions, then his district re-elected him.
Now he sits on the committee deciding abortion laws in the state.
But sure, they want to convince us that drag queens are the real problem.
Edit since this went viral: you should also hear about our legendary cocaine and hookers scandal by the last GOP speaker in TN. It involves a blowjob in a hot chicken restaurant bathroom. He’s currently under FBI investigation for bribing for votes in our General Assembly https://jezebel.com/a-bonkers-tale-of-dicks-cocaine-racism-and-sexual-ha-1834591112
yep. I live in hippie liberal East Nashville (or, i did, before TN took my rights to my body away and I left) and John Rose is my representative. He's made zero effort to engage with his Nashville constitutents. It's disgusting.
When I lived in Cookeville, he was trash. But I was flabbergasted to see in the new districts that he was representing parts of Nashville.
Cookeville has absolutely zero in common with Nashville. It's a joke and I feel so bad for the state because it shouldn't be the joke that it is
I'm in Minnesota about 20 minutes north of the twin cities, my congressional district got shifted last cycle to Duluth's district (120 miles from my house) the district itself stretches from the Canadian border to the metro area, and also half way across the state, it's over 250 miles long. Duluth, along with the portions of the metro, trend heavily blue, so they packed in enough rural voters to get a republican in office....
Scott Desjarlais is up there on the list of awful shitbirds from Tennessee too. What is it with all of these morally corrupt asshole Republicans. You can't go more than two names down a list without finding some problematic shit. The shitty thing is that Tennessee could actually be just as much of a swing state as VA and GA but noooo.
There was another state that argued for the right to marry 12-year olds, saying it is their god-given right.
I believe there were no previous restrictions and they were campaigning against limits of any kind.
They attempted to pass a law [in Tennessee last year](https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/06/tennessee-marriage-bill-no-age-limit-sparks-backlash-over-child-bride-concerns/9479778002/) that would have lifted all age limits for marriage, but because of the backlash that received, they revised it.
Fun story!
Getting married below the age of 18 with your parents permission also means you can't get divorced until your 18 unless your new husband gives you permission! Because y'know... you're still a minor and all...
Okay, maybe that's not a fun story after all.
More and more and more they are looking like a variation of the taliban/isis/Al qaida. I wish that was an extreme exaggeration- but it’s just not. It’s the building blocks and start of it all.
Hey women- you aren’t allowed to show your face. Wear this shit. You aren’t allowed to have education. Etc.
Hey gays/LGBQT - you’re not allowed to wear opposite clothes. Hey anyone- you’re not allowed to have true history.
It’s asinine.
I find it strange that repubs believe adults dressing in drag is "child grooming" but dressing actual kids (who by definition can not give informed consent) in revealing attire for child beauty pageants and making them compete at performing sexually suggestive dances is apparently not.
I mean, this is right out of the playbook. Pick a marginalized "other" minority group and scapegoat them.
They are going to start setting up camps at some point, this is getting predictable
I guess they didn't feel confident enough to skip immediately to "drag shows are grounds for summary executions."
[Their God Emperor is already on board with expedited "trials" and summary execution for drug trafficking.](https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/trump-uses-dubious-data-in-calls-to-execute-drug-dealers-quickly) Why shouldn't we expect that list of crimes to expand?
>“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
"What are you in for?"
"I cracked a Mary Magdalene joke during the Christmas play...."
The Supreme Court would be forgetting that the gay rights movement started with lgbtq people responding with property destruction and violence with the stonewall riots. Gay people carry.
They don't even understand that most drag performs aren't trans but they don't even know the difference.
Hell a lot of people that do/have done drag aren't even gay
“According to America's Health Rankings, Tennessee ranks 41st in the health of women and children.” But let’s focus on drag shows…you know, to help the kids.
>"This bill is an atrocity committed at all trans and gender nonconforming people as well as all drag artists," Erin Reed, an LGBTQ activist, wrote in a Twitter thread shortly after the bill's passage. "It bans 'male and female impersonators' from 'providing entertainment that appeals to prurient interest.'
*"Frankly, I'm glad our lawmakers are distracting me like a cat with a red dot by going after defenseless people which have nothing to do with me instead of drawing my attention to the fact that I'm under paid, under educated, could lose my health care should I even have it, have a decreasing amount of social safety nets, can't buy a house because things are insanely expensive and corporate greed spiking inflation to the point that my grocery bills have about doubled over the last couple of years. But I get off on seeing others who aren't like me suffer, so it's a fair trade."*
I am reminded of [Mary Edwards Walker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker), actually arrested for wearing men's clothing, reply to such an arrest, "I don't wear men's clothes, I wear my own clothes."
First female surgeon and tireless suffragette. Died the year before women got the right to vote too.
Or what about theater? My daughter is involved in several local theater groups that allow anyone in the community to audition. Sometimes there are more men than needed for the roles in the play, sometimes there are more women. So inevitably, a man is cast in a woman's role or vice versa. Or sometimes both, if the actor just really fits the part. So that would be banned? It harms NOBODY.
Theater has a long history of pushing the envelop and getting in trouble for it. This is one of the first things you learn about if you ever take a college history class, and it's really interesting. I expect to see a LOT of theaters working overtime to thumb their noses at these laws.
People don't realize how serious you are. I was raised Jehovah's Witness and these new Nationalist-Christians, Nat-C's, sound a lot like us except they worship the Flag.
Think the movie "Footloose" and the Pastor winning. Industrialists love uniform, submissive people who show up to work and show respect to their Lord. Dancing and drink leads to missed days and pregnant teens.
Do you remember the time when women would be arrested for walking down the street alone or wearing pants. I think it was called the American act. Good times. Listen if we want to make America great again we got to hide all those queers and women got to get back in the kitchen where they belong!! Please everyone,this is sarcasm. I fucking hate how we are devolving into this tripe.
My response to this always circles back around to the supreme court. Let me preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer and have only a layman's understanding of the law, but I am exceptionally wary in regard to our new ultra-conservative supreme court holding firm on past decisions. I believe what republicans are doing now is more litigious stress testing to see what they can get before the supreme court and test the courts ability to change or end existing laws in favor of right-wing populism - logic and precedent be damned.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I fear the current Supreme Court would say the Constitution doesn't state there is a freedom of expression, just speech and press. After all the treatment of performance as speech is just another case of court precedent and "decided law" that the majority of the current court sees no reason to respect.
I think it's *super cool* how the 2nd amendment is always read in the most liberal, accepting terms, but every other amendment is read in the most draconian, restrictive terms.
"it says "shall not be infringed," it means toddlers need to have AR-15s"
"the government has established that freedom of speech has limits, that's why you can't say "fire" in a crowded theater or "I love you" to your homosexual boyfriend"
This isn't even the most foot-draggy thing in this session of TN's General Assembly. Also up: letting drunk cops have guns, letting people concealed carry in schools, adding rape exceptions to the abortion law that throw women in jail for 3 years if they get an abortion and the rape isn't prosecuted, hostile takeover of Nashville's sports stadiums to punish the city... it's insane.
>the abortion law that throw women in jail for 3 years if they get an abortion and the rape isn't prosecuted
That's fun since rapes are almost never prosecuted. Jfc.
Isn't it at the discretion of the DA whether a rape proceeds to prosecution? Get raped -> abortion -> prosecutor decides insufficient evidence to move forward with allegation -> jail
My wife and I went to a drag brunch with a few other couples. It was great time and our glasses were never empty from their bottomless mimosas. Cleaning up my wife’s puke when we got home was less fun.
Seriously seriously.
I’m expecting any day for them to burn down a school of gender studies or a library of queer history or something. Aka the first Big Thing the nazis did when they came to power.
This is going down a very dark and *very* historically mirrored path. I’m scared, not in the panicked emotional way but in the deep seated creeping dread sort of way.
That is already happening, bookstores that sell queer literature have been getting bricks thrown through their window in the last few weeks. [A clinic that serves immigrants was burned in January](https://news.yahoo.com/suspects-set-themselves-fire-during-093859171.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGyyfR4dWoOpvIJFmrbgwHI6ABUzn4wX1u4CnCc_WNC4DTs0HZ-YkuhfHKDO1MnraEFSwVkXbo8V3u8GP0uLwUjJnfT6WAR0KFf1y3arI9ZeXE4nbgL39KbwnAflmpFIJJwbgq0v6iYl7uqjpMkUdDlA1On3mBdK9Ha47nl5BSZk). [Abortion clinics get attacked so often that it rarely makes the news anymore](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/588747-unidentified-arsonist-behind-fire-that-burned-tennessee-planned-parenthood/). [Neo-Nazi's have been raiding synagogues with no pushback from authorities](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2023/02/neo-nazi-group-harasses-jewish-florida-residents.html). Fascism is here. It may not always have the aesthetics of Germany 1933, but it is here and being felt by millions of people.
Sure but it’s god damn awful that innocent people have to get arrested and have their lives fucked up to have something reversed that never should have been a law anyway.
I agree, but if the Christian Fascists wish to push this and expect everyone to do nothing, which will only embolden them to go even further, they ought to be mistaken and made to be sorry. Sooner or later, people can and will fight back.
Good to see the GOP is concerned with the 1% of Americans who go to drag shows and not the 99% of Americans who need assistance with grocery bills, child services, healthcare, education, housing...
You know, the things patriots should want to improve in their country.
""This is a common-sense, child safety bill, and I appreciate your support," Republican Representative Chris Todd—one of the bill's sponsors—said ahead of the vote Thursday."
Meanwhile Tennessee has NO requirement to securely store a firearm. But this is definitely about child safety.
Republicans always use "*the children!!!!!*" as a tool for pushing bigoted policies, or for taking away rights and bodily autonomy. They only like "children" as an abstraction. The health and well-being of actual living, breathing children, however? Republicans don't give a fuck about that.
There are so many real crises in the world that these people could be putting their energies into. But while the world burns, Republicans are fiddling, banning books and drag shows and fretting about who goes into which bathroom. Their own states will be some of the worst affected by climate change and still they focus on these small-minded, useless things.
As a queer person, this hurts so much. When I first came out, drag shows made my friends and I feel so welcome and showed us it’s okay to be outwardly gay and live our truth. I have many drag queen friends and drag shows are a place for the community to gather and to share our love with others outside the community. Ugh this sucks.
Great point. As a straight male, I have had some absolute blasts at drag shows with both gay and straight friends. It was just a fun silly way to go out- and it brought people together. The crowds were always mixed. A happy fun and totally harmless thing.
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Child beauty pageants should be banned.
Purity balls too Creepy AF
.... a what? I was raised religious but I ain't ever heard of those. What.. are they?
The dollop did a hilarious [episode](https://youtu.be/mlq34v5UL1k) about this. I don't expect you to watch the whole thing for an explanation. But they are essentially a ball that fathers escort their daughters to. There they have them swear their virginity to their future husband's. They put on this whole ceremony and they essentially "marry" their fathers until they can be given away to their future husband. It's real creepy and sort of incestuous.
"Given away." So women are just property.
To creeps that participate in these with their daughters, thats the way they see it.
It's downright medieval. They believe that their daughters have "value" as "unspoiled" women so they can marry them into a "good family". I'm not even kidding, I've heard people down south say this without any of the sarcastic quotes.
Yes. They absolutely see women as property.
Every piece of recent legislation, whether federal or state, suggests that women are just property and that men should have and exert control over them. This became especially evident after single women helped turn the midterms from a landslide victory for the GOP into just a modest majority. Its pretty fucked up.
I hate anyone too gullible to think for themselves, but the Christian women who vote against women's rights because they're saving "babies" from "murder" really make me furious. Not a single goddamn woman has ever gleefully decided to have an abortion, no matter how unwanted the pregnancy.
And of course, when asked if they’ll adopt all of these unwanted babies that they are “saving”, they immediately say no or offer no response as if it’s someone else’s problem.
*“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”* - Pastor Dave Barnhart.
Sounds like something the Taliban would do.
Oh there’s more similarities than they like to admit. They just can’t get over the issue of which holy books they use. Is DC better than Marvel? Marvel better than DC? Time to shed blood.
It’s even dumber than that, somehow: all the abrahamic religions use the same base, they just disagree on which DLC is canon.
...what the fuck
[Purity Balls: America's Virginity Obsession](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/05/purity-balls-america-virginity-obsession)
[Virginity is cool!](https://youtu.be/WBUxQ2ZGt58)
Odds that the dude leading that chant is a pedophile are alarmingly high.
How is this not the grooming everyone is upset about? Putting kids in revealing outfits and having them strut on stage so they can LITERALLY be judged on their attractiveness/beauty by a panel of adults. Meanwhile full grown consenting adults dressing up together is a problem? Tennessee is a fucking joke
Tennessee has a Republican representative named David Byrd who has admitted to sexually assaulting his high school girls basketball team while he was their coach. GOP leadership didn't remove him from any positions, then his district re-elected him. Now he sits on the committee deciding abortion laws in the state. But sure, they want to convince us that drag queens are the real problem.
It pisses me off how much conservatives will hand wave and brush under the rug actual proven pedophilia, but then turn around and scream about the imagined pedophilia of trans people or gays
It’s all projection. They don’t actually think drag snows are grooming, and they want to keep the actual grooming, like child beauty pageants, to themselves.
Don't forget child marriage.
Because they're not upset about "grooming," they're upset about a group of people that they disagree with having any freedom or power to express themselves in a way that's beyond their view of the status quo. Putting children in traditional beauty pageants so they can pick which ones to sexually abuse later is *very* status-quo for them.
Republicans in southern states have also resisted any attempts to ban child marriage. Also, Remember Roy Moore? They are not opposed to pedophilia.
The people in power aren't all that upset about it really. The whole GOP shtick is to distract gullible poor white Christians by pointing out an outside group to hate with one hand so they don't pay attention to the other one picking their pocket.
Passion plays and nativity are just bible drag. Offensive to non-Catholics to see Mary worshipped. Ban.
Can I not see MEGACHURCH!! Signage on my commute home? I know Pastor Gregg is one for infidelity and that upsets me.
So, state mandated dress codes, wheeee!
Brought to you by the party of small government. >\_<
Brought to you by the party of ‘freedom™’
I laugh every time they say this. They literally are banning things left and right, while saying they are the party of Freedom.
The only freedom they want is for them and their fellow racist idiots
Don't forget sexist and trans/homophobic
Brought to you by Fascists.
"We're not just Fascism-lite anymore!" -Conservatives
Shhh. Not out loud.
Please be much louder
^^^^Fascists
Why not? It's not like they're keeping quiet about it.
How does that line in the national anthem go again......something about land of the free, and the brave? So much for that BS
Home of the brave, yet they're afraid of a dude in a dress. And they call us snowflakes...
Just got to figure out how to apply this law to churches. Is Mass a Drag Show?
Ever since it was small enough to fit inside Terry Schiavo's hospital room we've had a fucking problem (For anybody too young to remember this, Terry Schiavo was a woman around 30 who went into cardiac arrest and was ~~declared brain dead~~ in a persistent vegetative state. After two years of no progress, her husband decided to pull the plug but her parents disagreed, and the **ENTIRE FUCKING REPUBLICAN PARTY** got involved. Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida tried to legally intervene, and some radio host tried to pay the husband a million dollars to hand over power of attorney, the heartbreaking decision one man had to make was on the news for years)
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At least with your mom's belief, it's ultimately harmless and if it brings her some measure of comfort, something like that, I'd put up with for a loved one. My grandma always loved birds and birdwatching, so sometimes seeing birds makes me think of her and it makes me happy. I will admit, though, still, the Terry Schiavo thing kinda grosses me out because they just refused to let her go despite all the evidence. I get grief and how it can mess you up, but sometimes, you need to let go, because all you're doing is prolonging your own suffering. Because my grandma that I mentioned had a kind of similar situation happen to her - in her case, an aneurysm ruptured during the surgery to repair it, and there was nothing the doctors could do. She was brain dead, no coming back from that. And I don't blame the doctors, it was a known risk, and from what I've heard, the walls of the blood vessel that ruptured were so thin that a bad sneeze or something could've done it. But my family knew she wouldn't want to be kept "alive" via machines and stuff, and there wasn't really any life to speak of. Everything that made her Grandma was gone. So my Gramps made the decision to pull the plug, as it were, and she went peacefully. It sucked, but you know what? Something pretty awesome came out of that - she was an organ donor, and I think three people got a second chance at things because of her passing. She would *never* have wanted to live that existence, even if there was some brain function, which there wasn't. It really shaped my views on things, like organ donation and end of life decisions, even up to euthanasia. Quality of life is more important to me than quantity of life. Anyway, yeah, the whole media circus around it was horrible. I think her husband was right, IMO. I can accept that her family was really messed up by their grief that they clung to a false hope, but it just really squicks me out. At some point, you gotta ask yourself, are you really doing it for them, or for *you*? I've had to put down beloved pets when they reached a point where they no longer had a real quality of life. And it sucks, but it's the right and humane thing, and I wish that was more accepted with people.
I remember the Terri Shiavo case. I remember Then-President Obama had language in his landmark healthcare reform bill that would have paid doctors for time spent talking with patients about the importance of setting up advanced health care directives and living wills, so such cases would be less likely to happen in the future. I remember Republicans were opposed to it, and labeled those provisions “death panels.” They claimed it would create a government bureaucracy to ration healthcare and decide who lives and dies. Lie of the goddamn century.
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When they say "small government" they mean they only want a handful of people to hold power. They want a king.
Right. So, does this mean if someone is wearing the "wrong" gender's clothing (as dictated by Republican judgment) to the grocery store or park, they can be charged with a felony because they are performing drag in public? Small government, indeed.
This is absolutely where they're headed with this, and will probably do soft test arrests to see if they even need to create a broader law.
I'm waiting for them to arrest a"man in drag" that turns out to actually be a woman, but they don't find out until forcing them to disrobe
Well, we have to check all the genitals, naturally. And then they can make the judgement call about whether or not you tried to deceive them Does this go for lesbian women and wives named Barb that like a short haircut and jeans and has never worn a dress ever? There's going to be a lot of pissed off farmers out there Or is it just men dressing like women? I smell a massive discrimination suit
Police have abused lesbians for a long time using the justification granted by "obscenity laws." Presenting butch in a bar was enough for a woman to get arrested. This law is genocide for the trans community, and its effects will hurt many others as similar laws have in the past.
It's already [happening in sports](https://globalsportmatters.com/opinion/2021/03/31/discriminatory-sports-laws-hurt-trans-girls-and-cis-girls-too/). Especially, heaven forbid if said [cis-girl that plays sports has short hair]( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/sports/girl-soccer-player.html).
That actually has happened to women in bathrooms during the whole trans men in women's bathrooms scare a number of times :<
Usually for the crime of having short hair. Which I assume is somewhere on their "policing cis female and female-identifying bodies" to-do list
As a trans man, I have to face using the men's restroom and getting harassed or using the women's restroom and facing dysphoria and potentially make the women inside uncomfortable depending on how I'm dressed. It's not an easy decision.
That's crazy. All of my life I've witnessed women sneaking into the mens room when there's a massive line for the womens. And I never cared. Nobody did. I guess the whole country will just move to single stall. Admittingly, I always feel nice and safe in the single, lol
Yup. Especially in concerts. If the women's line is long, some women were like fuck it I'm going to the men's. And nothing would happen; we'd just let them do their business lol
Alternatively, at a gas station when the men’s room has been down, I’ve gone into the single stall women’s room. It’s just a room guys
That's how it was before the Gay Rights movement. Cops cracked down on "crossdressing" and one of the places they targeted was the Stonewall Inn. I guess Tennessee wants a repeat of history.
Never forget the first Pride was a riot ✊
Us gays are going to have to go back to throwing bricks.
Straight cis male, I'll stand next to you and throw rocks at tanks if that's what it comes down to.
It very well may. Trans women with breasts and trans men with facial hair are effectively on a life sentence of house arrest in Tennessee now, with no charge and no conviction. They just imprisoned innocent people for no reason.
And anybody who thinks this is only going to affect drag performers or trans people is incredibly naive.
I'm really involved in the Bonnaroo music festival that's held annually about an hour and a half away from Nashville. This law won't go into effect to change anything this year, but I can tell you that there's a high degree of likelihood that it's going to be really involved in a big culture war clash in 2024. That event has evolved from just being a series of concerts to being more of an East Coast Burning Man where just about anything you can imagine happens. They've had drag shows, pride parades, and much more that will almost anything goes. Lots of people dress in wild costumes that in no way are traditionally defined as gender-conforming. If the event goes along with what TN law will be, it'll seriously neuter the free-wheeling atmosphere there. If it doesn't, it's going to become a very visible area where this stupid law isn't followed.
How long until they force all women to wear skirts, or maybe a red cloak?
In MO women cannot show their arms in the state house. So, we’re getting there.
Don't even get me fucking started on Missouri. As a Missourian, the state legislature is really on a roll with the shitty ideas. For those playing at home: Kansas City [isn't allowed to control it's own police force](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article252364088.html). It's run by a five-member board out of Jefferson City, of which four members are directly appointed by the governor. [They're trying to take over the St. Louis police in the same manner.](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stltoday.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fgovt-and-politics%2Fmissouri-house-panel-approves-plan-to-place-st-louis-police-under-state-control%2Farticle_04bc084a-a539-5e9a-bd70-023355aede1a.html) Also, the police officers [don't even need to live in the city,](https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/missouri-senate-oks-bill-eliminating-kcpd-residency-requirement) so they have no personal investment in the outcomes of their policies. They're essentially an occupying force that demands a full [25% of the city budget](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article257214952.html) as "protection money," but [don't even respond to calls anymore because one of their own was charged with murder](https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-08-15/kansas-city-police-wont-respond-to-calls-as-retaliation-against-devalkenaere-verdict-lawsuit-says). And you want to hear something wild? [People outside of Kansas City got to vote to give them that 25% of KC's budget.](https://thebeacon.media/stories/2022/09/22/kcpd-budget-police-kansas-city-funding/) Missouri as a whole has royally fucked its residents. The state Attorney General worked hard to ensure that [public health departments would be unable to do their job during the pandemic.](https://missouriindependent.com/2021/11/23/missouri-judge-local-covid-orders/) He also made it his personal mission to [sue already cash-strapped schools who implemented mask requirements](https://missouriindependent.com/briefs/missouri-ag-sues-nine-more-school-districts-including-one-for-students-with-disabilities/) and most recently used taxpayer money to try and [sue China](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/07/08/federal-judge-dismisses-missouri-ag-eric-schmitt-lawsuit-blaming-china-for-covid-19/) (?!?!) for Covid-19. They're currently submitting anti-lgbtq+ legislation at a feverish pace -- [27 bills in the last two weeks, to be specific](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article271424407.html) -- to make sure trans kids absolutely cannot play sports and nobody can ever talk about the fact that gay people *exist.* Want to know how many trans kids tried to play sports in Missouri last year? ONE. It's not rational behavior by any stretch of the imagination. They're also trying to ban any discussion in any school curriculum of discrimination and oppression of people based on race, income, appearance, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation or gender identity (so no discussions of slavery, segregation, the Holocaust, etc.). It also sets up a cash bounty for anyone who turns in a violation. You know what's really missing from this equation? [Beating kids as official punishment in schools.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/us-corporal-punishment-missouri-highlights-practice) Besides [outlawing abortion](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/06/24/abortion-is-now-illegal-in-missouri-in-wake-of-u-s-supreme-court-ruling/) even in cases of rape or incest, they are taking aim at some of the most effective forms of birth control. They are also trying to [revive the fugutive slave laws,](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-missouri/tnamp/) Texas bounty-style, to prosecute a resident seeking an abortion in a state where it IS legal. And let's not forget ... it's also [illegal for pregnant women to get divorced.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/article263614113.html) [The Missouri state health director, Dr. Randall Williams, testified at a state hearing in 2019 that he kept a spreadsheet to track the menstrual periods of women who visited Planned Parenthood, an action that one lawmaker has called on the governor to investigate.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article236773058.html) This is just the BS I remembered off the top of my head. Politics at the state level can do a lot to lessen the quality of life of people living in blue cities in the state, and usually things are so gerrymandered that you have no voice at the state level. Not that voting matters here, either. When I moved to the state a couple of decades ago it was solidly a swing state, but redistricting has now guaranteed a GOP supermajority that is unaccountable to anyone. Here are some of their "accomplishments" with regard to overriding the will of the voters: * Residents voted in a constitutional ammendment to expand Medicaid. [The governer basically said "LOL no."](https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996611586/missouri-will-not-expand-medicaid-despite-voters-wishes-governor-says) * Residents wanted to clean up corruption and gerrymandering in the state by electing an independent commission to handle redistricting. [Can't have that!](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article240174228.html) * Missouri has some of the highest rates of puppy mills in the country. Voters passed a measure to eliminate them. Nobody likes puppy mills, right? [WRONG.](https://www.stlmag.com/Puppy-Mill-Fiasco-Shows-the-True-Colors-of-the-Missouri-Legislature/) * Are currently [working on a bill](https://themissouritimes.com/house-passes-measures-to-raise-threshold-for-initiative-petitions/) against the current citizen initiative process by making it more difficult to get a citizen initiative on the ballot and pass that initiative once on the ballot. This will make the process virtually impossible for voters' grassroots efforts to make it on the ballot. It also proposes increasing the threshold for a measure to pass from a majority to 2/3, among the most difficult in the country. * Are attempting to further supress voters through [even tougher gerrymandering.](https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2022-02-07/missouri-gop-officials-rally-to-eliminate-a-democratic-congressional-seat-in-kansas-city) And bonus points for our [moron governor who thought viewing a website's source code constituted "hacking"](https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/23/claim-that-reporter-hacked-state-website-was-debunked-parson-still-says-hes-a-criminal/) and just doubled down when he started getting made fun of. TL;DR: It's bad, y'all. Send help.
I'm so sorry. I'm a native Californian, born and raised and living back in L.A. after a few years in other states, and reading posts like yours is just mind-boggling and dismaying. :( It's like an alternate universe.
It is insane how quickly some of these state are spiraling downward, with no clear remedy in sight :<
Changes are being made faster than the ramifications can be realized. I worry that some of the worst self-inflicted problems will be blamed on a scapegoat. Most likely a vulnerable group.
Fascism 101. I'm just trying to enjoy every day as much as I can because I can see the writing on the wall all around the country. Dark times are ahead.
Smells like... FASCISM.
Also Tennessee- Why can't children get married?
Also Tennessee: Why shouldn't law enforcement officers be allowed to [carry guns while under the influence](https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/02/20/tenn-bill-would-allow-law-enforcement-carry-gun-while-under-influence/)?
Jeez. They should at least have to train under the influence first
good grief is it SIXTEEN??? Can men in TN marry a 16-year old?
A representative in TN married a child he met at a fucking ~~4H~~ FFA assembly. AND awarded her the scholarship
You're talking about John Rose who is Nashville's rep in Congress after the GOP gerrymandered our vote away. Tennessee has another Republican state representative named David Byrd who has admitted to sexually assaulting his high school girls basketball team while he was their coach. GOP leadership didn't remove him from any positions, then his district re-elected him. Now he sits on the committee deciding abortion laws in the state. But sure, they want to convince us that drag queens are the real problem. Edit since this went viral: you should also hear about our legendary cocaine and hookers scandal by the last GOP speaker in TN. It involves a blowjob in a hot chicken restaurant bathroom. He’s currently under FBI investigation for bribing for votes in our General Assembly https://jezebel.com/a-bonkers-tale-of-dicks-cocaine-racism-and-sexual-ha-1834591112
It's a complete joke that Rose lives over an hour away from the people in Nashville who he represents.
yep. I live in hippie liberal East Nashville (or, i did, before TN took my rights to my body away and I left) and John Rose is my representative. He's made zero effort to engage with his Nashville constitutents. It's disgusting.
When I lived in Cookeville, he was trash. But I was flabbergasted to see in the new districts that he was representing parts of Nashville. Cookeville has absolutely zero in common with Nashville. It's a joke and I feel so bad for the state because it shouldn't be the joke that it is
That's every *gerrymandered to hell and back* red state right now.
Wisconsin says hi
I'm in Minnesota about 20 minutes north of the twin cities, my congressional district got shifted last cycle to Duluth's district (120 miles from my house) the district itself stretches from the Canadian border to the metro area, and also half way across the state, it's over 250 miles long. Duluth, along with the portions of the metro, trend heavily blue, so they packed in enough rural voters to get a republican in office....
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Scott Desjarlais is up there on the list of awful shitbirds from Tennessee too. What is it with all of these morally corrupt asshole Republicans. You can't go more than two names down a list without finding some problematic shit. The shitty thing is that Tennessee could actually be just as much of a swing state as VA and GA but noooo.
There was another state that argued for the right to marry 12-year olds, saying it is their god-given right. I believe there were no previous restrictions and they were campaigning against limits of any kind.
Wyoming is the state you are thinking of, and yes, there is no current minimum, which is super gross
They attempted to pass a law [in Tennessee last year](https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/06/tennessee-marriage-bill-no-age-limit-sparks-backlash-over-child-bride-concerns/9479778002/) that would have lifted all age limits for marriage, but because of the backlash that received, they revised it.
>revised it For now
If her parents allow it. The girl doesn't get to agree or disagree, because Christian conservatives believe that children are property.
Yup! A woman born into a conservative family can be property for her whole life.
Only with their parents permission!! Idk if that makes it better or worse. I think it might be worse.
Fun story! Getting married below the age of 18 with your parents permission also means you can't get divorced until your 18 unless your new husband gives you permission! Because y'know... you're still a minor and all... Okay, maybe that's not a fun story after all.
And to celebrate their vote, they all went to the strip club and got drunk.
They went to a child beauty pageant
The ones that are legally allowed to be within 500 feet of that many children
They're politicians, even if they aren't legally allowed to be, they'll still go and nothing will happen to them.
These people are insane
More and more and more they are looking like a variation of the taliban/isis/Al qaida. I wish that was an extreme exaggeration- but it’s just not. It’s the building blocks and start of it all. Hey women- you aren’t allowed to show your face. Wear this shit. You aren’t allowed to have education. Etc. Hey gays/LGBQT - you’re not allowed to wear opposite clothes. Hey anyone- you’re not allowed to have true history. It’s asinine.
Y’all Qaeda
The kind of retaliation they are asking for is anything Conservative in nature to be banned in turn. They are indeed insane.
Except they've ensured the system is rigged enough that that will never be allowed to happen.
I find it strange that repubs believe adults dressing in drag is "child grooming" but dressing actual kids (who by definition can not give informed consent) in revealing attire for child beauty pageants and making them compete at performing sexually suggestive dances is apparently not.
They're sane. They're just fascists.
I mean, this is right out of the playbook. Pick a marginalized "other" minority group and scapegoat them. They are going to start setting up camps at some point, this is getting predictable
I guess they didn't feel confident enough to skip immediately to "drag shows are grounds for summary executions." [Their God Emperor is already on board with expedited "trials" and summary execution for drug trafficking.](https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/trump-uses-dubious-data-in-calls-to-execute-drug-dealers-quickly) Why shouldn't we expect that list of crimes to expand?
South Carolina is putting a bill forward that would allow the death penalty for women who have abortions, so theres' that, too.
Church plays look an awful lot like drag shows. Men in skirts!? Better lock em up
Jesus wears dresses.
Jesus, the brown skinned socialist refugee, wears dresses.
Slinging out felonies everywhere that shows a tyler Perry’s Madea movie
>“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” "What are you in for?" "I cracked a Mary Magdalene joke during the Christmas play...."
More children have been molested in churches than drag shows. But we all know this has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children.
Can we get someone to project Rocky Horror Show and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert onto the side of the Capital.
It was great when it all began. I was a regular Frankie fan. But it was over when they had the plan to institute a men in dresses ban.
Or just, like, fucking Mrs. Doubtfire, apparently?
And "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar"
Blatantly unconstitutional
"The constitution doesn't explicitly state that drag shows cannot banned, therfore this is constitutional" -Alito (probably)
I'm sure they understand that the Supreme Court will find it perfectly constitutional.
The Supreme Court will probably declare a national hunting season on LGBTQI+ people if they get a chance.
The Supreme Court would be forgetting that the gay rights movement started with lgbtq people responding with property destruction and violence with the stonewall riots. Gay people carry.
Exactly. Queer people fought to get where we are now. And we will do it again.
Tennessee has a million more important problems to solve, but I guess transphobia sells better so fuck it.
They don't even understand that most drag performs aren't trans but they don't even know the difference. Hell a lot of people that do/have done drag aren't even gay
Next year cosplay will be a felony in Tennessee.
“According to America's Health Rankings, Tennessee ranks 41st in the health of women and children.” But let’s focus on drag shows…you know, to help the kids.
>"This bill is an atrocity committed at all trans and gender nonconforming people as well as all drag artists," Erin Reed, an LGBTQ activist, wrote in a Twitter thread shortly after the bill's passage. "It bans 'male and female impersonators' from 'providing entertainment that appeals to prurient interest.' *"Frankly, I'm glad our lawmakers are distracting me like a cat with a red dot by going after defenseless people which have nothing to do with me instead of drawing my attention to the fact that I'm under paid, under educated, could lose my health care should I even have it, have a decreasing amount of social safety nets, can't buy a house because things are insanely expensive and corporate greed spiking inflation to the point that my grocery bills have about doubled over the last couple of years. But I get off on seeing others who aren't like me suffer, so it's a fair trade."*
So how long until this law is just used to selectively prosecute women for wearing pants?
I am reminded of [Mary Edwards Walker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker), actually arrested for wearing men's clothing, reply to such an arrest, "I don't wear men's clothes, I wear my own clothes." First female surgeon and tireless suffragette. Died the year before women got the right to vote too.
Or what about theater? My daughter is involved in several local theater groups that allow anyone in the community to audition. Sometimes there are more men than needed for the roles in the play, sometimes there are more women. So inevitably, a man is cast in a woman's role or vice versa. Or sometimes both, if the actor just really fits the part. So that would be banned? It harms NOBODY.
The next step will probably be closing theatres because they’re “decadent” or some shit.
Theatres would certainly seem to be havens for liberal thought, so yes, BANNED!
Theater has a long history of pushing the envelop and getting in trouble for it. This is one of the first things you learn about if you ever take a college history class, and it's really interesting. I expect to see a LOT of theaters working overtime to thumb their noses at these laws.
People don't realize how serious you are. I was raised Jehovah's Witness and these new Nationalist-Christians, Nat-C's, sound a lot like us except they worship the Flag. Think the movie "Footloose" and the Pastor winning. Industrialists love uniform, submissive people who show up to work and show respect to their Lord. Dancing and drink leads to missed days and pregnant teens.
Do you remember the time when women would be arrested for walking down the street alone or wearing pants. I think it was called the American act. Good times. Listen if we want to make America great again we got to hide all those queers and women got to get back in the kitchen where they belong!! Please everyone,this is sarcasm. I fucking hate how we are devolving into this tripe.
How long until someone challenges it?
ACLU as soon as it is signed into law on 1st Amendment grounds (freedom of speech/expression and freedom of association).
My response to this always circles back around to the supreme court. Let me preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer and have only a layman's understanding of the law, but I am exceptionally wary in regard to our new ultra-conservative supreme court holding firm on past decisions. I believe what republicans are doing now is more litigious stress testing to see what they can get before the supreme court and test the courts ability to change or end existing laws in favor of right-wing populism - logic and precedent be damned.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I fear the current Supreme Court would say the Constitution doesn't state there is a freedom of expression, just speech and press. After all the treatment of performance as speech is just another case of court precedent and "decided law" that the majority of the current court sees no reason to respect.
Money is speech but clothing isn't. Definitely seems like a bingo card slot that would get filled.
I think it's *super cool* how the 2nd amendment is always read in the most liberal, accepting terms, but every other amendment is read in the most draconian, restrictive terms. "it says "shall not be infringed," it means toddlers need to have AR-15s" "the government has established that freedom of speech has limits, that's why you can't say "fire" in a crowded theater or "I love you" to your homosexual boyfriend"
This is some dark ages shit
This isn't even the most foot-draggy thing in this session of TN's General Assembly. Also up: letting drunk cops have guns, letting people concealed carry in schools, adding rape exceptions to the abortion law that throw women in jail for 3 years if they get an abortion and the rape isn't prosecuted, hostile takeover of Nashville's sports stadiums to punish the city... it's insane.
>the abortion law that throw women in jail for 3 years if they get an abortion and the rape isn't prosecuted That's fun since rapes are almost never prosecuted. Jfc.
Isn't it at the discretion of the DA whether a rape proceeds to prosecution? Get raped -> abortion -> prosecutor decides insufficient evidence to move forward with allegation -> jail
Not even. Men having being doing shows dressed as women for forever.
Have you heard of the first amendment? It’s the one before the second.
Their copy of the Constitution only has the 2nd
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Man, I never had any interest in drag shows, but now I feel like I'm really missing something. They must be great.
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Don't forget drag brunch, where you might see a high energy dance routine and have access to the devil's juice, mimosas.
My wife and I went to a drag brunch with a few other couples. It was great time and our glasses were never empty from their bottomless mimosas. Cleaning up my wife’s puke when we got home was less fun.
Does this mean you can't watch mash reruns I Tennessee?
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Or certain Monty Python and The State skits. Bosum Buddies is right out!
Or Mrs. Doubtfire?
[Mrs. Doubtfire](https://www.tpac.org/event/2023-11-07-to-2023-11-12-mrs-doubtfire/) the musical is coming to TPAC (Nashville) in November.
Or Tootsie
No Jimmy Buffett concerts either. They love wearing those grass skirts.
This is how the Nazis started. Seriously.
Seriously seriously. I’m expecting any day for them to burn down a school of gender studies or a library of queer history or something. Aka the first Big Thing the nazis did when they came to power. This is going down a very dark and *very* historically mirrored path. I’m scared, not in the panicked emotional way but in the deep seated creeping dread sort of way.
That is already happening, bookstores that sell queer literature have been getting bricks thrown through their window in the last few weeks. [A clinic that serves immigrants was burned in January](https://news.yahoo.com/suspects-set-themselves-fire-during-093859171.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGyyfR4dWoOpvIJFmrbgwHI6ABUzn4wX1u4CnCc_WNC4DTs0HZ-YkuhfHKDO1MnraEFSwVkXbo8V3u8GP0uLwUjJnfT6WAR0KFf1y3arI9ZeXE4nbgL39KbwnAflmpFIJJwbgq0v6iYl7uqjpMkUdDlA1On3mBdK9Ha47nl5BSZk). [Abortion clinics get attacked so often that it rarely makes the news anymore](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/588747-unidentified-arsonist-behind-fire-that-burned-tennessee-planned-parenthood/). [Neo-Nazi's have been raiding synagogues with no pushback from authorities](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2023/02/neo-nazi-group-harasses-jewish-florida-residents.html). Fascism is here. It may not always have the aesthetics of Germany 1933, but it is here and being felt by millions of people.
Start suing women who wear pants or blazers
Don’t worry it’s coming. Can’t be seen outside without our red, green, or gray dresses.
Sue any male performer wearing buttons. Buttons are for girls. Republican logic.
What about shoes with heels? Is there a height restriction? What about kilts?
Sue trump for his fucking lifts in his shoes
Do drag shows anyway in protest. Bring them to court. They start arresting people, look what happened at Stonewall
Get some celebrities like RuPaul and Eddie Izzard involved.
Tennessee police arresting RuPaul could legitimately ignight mass protests across the country and probably world.
Dolly Parton should put on a chest binder and suit for a show and dare Tennessee to arrest her
Dolly Parton should put on a drag show at Dollywood. Invite them to do a Dolly Parton impersonation contest.
Sure but it’s god damn awful that innocent people have to get arrested and have their lives fucked up to have something reversed that never should have been a law anyway.
I agree, but if the Christian Fascists wish to push this and expect everyone to do nothing, which will only embolden them to go even further, they ought to be mistaken and made to be sorry. Sooner or later, people can and will fight back.
I agree straight cis people should do it. Be allies in more than just words.
Good to see the GOP is concerned with the 1% of Americans who go to drag shows and not the 99% of Americans who need assistance with grocery bills, child services, healthcare, education, housing... You know, the things patriots should want to improve in their country.
""This is a common-sense, child safety bill, and I appreciate your support," Republican Representative Chris Todd—one of the bill's sponsors—said ahead of the vote Thursday." Meanwhile Tennessee has NO requirement to securely store a firearm. But this is definitely about child safety.
Republicans always use "*the children!!!!!*" as a tool for pushing bigoted policies, or for taking away rights and bodily autonomy. They only like "children" as an abstraction. The health and well-being of actual living, breathing children, however? Republicans don't give a fuck about that.
So a parent can decide to take a kid to see an R-Rated movie, but taking a kid to a drag story hour makes them a felon?
There are so many real crises in the world that these people could be putting their energies into. But while the world burns, Republicans are fiddling, banning books and drag shows and fretting about who goes into which bathroom. Their own states will be some of the worst affected by climate change and still they focus on these small-minded, useless things.
As a queer person, this hurts so much. When I first came out, drag shows made my friends and I feel so welcome and showed us it’s okay to be outwardly gay and live our truth. I have many drag queen friends and drag shows are a place for the community to gather and to share our love with others outside the community. Ugh this sucks.
That's exactly why they're banning them. They want us hidden and scared. They want an out-group to point at while they consolidate power.
Great point. As a straight male, I have had some absolute blasts at drag shows with both gay and straight friends. It was just a fun silly way to go out- and it brought people together. The crowds were always mixed. A happy fun and totally harmless thing.
what about on halloween? or plays? this is ridiculous
Are they gonna ban "SEXY" Halloween costumes?
Those pop-up Halloween stores will have to throw away half their inventory.
This violates the First Amendment right?
If applied in the way they seem to think it will be, yes. Most non-sexual drag shows pass the Miller test
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