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Aug 25, 2023

UPDATED Report: Drag Events Faced More than 160 Protests and Significant Threats Since Early 2022

GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer

GLAAD, the world's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, is updating findings to the first comprehensive count and analysis of increased threats, protests and violent action against drag events nationwide. An additional 20 incidents were documented in 2023 as of March 31st, according to data gathered by GLAAD in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.

Findings

GLAAD found 161 incidents of anti-LGBTQ protests and threats targeting drag events since early 2022, with a sharp uptick beginning in Pride season 2022 and continuing through the midterm election cycle. False rhetoric was deployed against performers in campaign ads for the 2022 midterm elections, and rhetoric escalated to violence including the firebombing of a Tulsa donut shop that had hosted a drag event in October 2022. Equality Texas documented additional targeted events throughout the year, including an armed demonstration and confrontation in San Antonio.

Participation in anti-drag incidents in 2023 has included the Proud Boys, white supremacists, and religious extremists. ADL has tracked at least seven events where members of known extremist groups showed up.

2023 Incidents

Anti-Drag Legislation 2023

GLAAD is tracking legislative proposals in 14 states (as of April 2023) that aim to restrict or ban drag, including Tennessee's SB0003 which has been signed into law (it's currently under a temporary restraining order by a U.S. federal judge). In many cases, extremist politicians pointed to local drag events as the motivation for new legislation that would ban public drag performances such as those that take place at Pride festivals, ban minors from observing drag performers, including library events such as Drag Story Hour, or reclassify venues that host drag performances as "adult" or "adult cabaret" venues.

The 2022 analysis found here included states with the highest number of drag events targeted by protests and threats:

While many of the incidents were reported in smaller cities and towns in the South and Midwest, a number also took place in areas with higher LGBTQ populations and LGBTQ-inclusive communities.

A number of the drag events targeted by threats and protests in person were first targeted by right-wing media outlets like Fox News and the Daily Wire, and social media accounts like LibsOfTikTok. The outlets and accounts often misrepresented what would occur at upcoming drag events, spinning them as harmful to children, and protests or threats would follow. A Media Matters report from June 2022 found that Fox News had devoted more hours to targeting drag queens and transgender people than to coverage of the January 6 insurrection hearings.

A Media Matters analysis in November found that disturbing misinformation about drag had ramped up on Fox News and the Daily Wire in the weeks before the Tulsa firebombing, with Tucker Carlson falsely claiming that drag queens "want to sexualize children," and the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh calling on police to "break down the doors" of LGBTQ clubs and arrest drag queens. Sometimes the targeting came full-circle, with right-wing media hyping up negative attention ahead of an event and continuing afterward. In June 2022, LibsOfTikTok targeted the Couer D’Alene, Idaho "Pride In The Park" (where 31 anti-LGBTQ protesters were arrested, see tweet below) ahead of the event, saying that a "family friendly drag dance party" was being promoted by the Idaho Satanic Temple. Afterward, the account shared a doctored video of a drag performer that spread misinformation and falsely alleged indecent exposure during the performance, which led the drag performer to file a lawsuit in September. The LibsOfTikTok account was briefly suspended by Twitter in September after news reports connected its posts to bomb threats made against children's hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth, but the account was reinstated.

A number of 2022 incidents involved violence or weapons. Extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and local white supremacist chapters were involved in several incidents.

Proud Boys

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Methodology: GLAAD reviewed news reports in all 50 states, plus U.S. military bases, for protests that explicitly targeted drag events and for drag events that had faced cancellation or rescheduling due to threats or severe criticism. Because news reports were used as the sole source of tracking incidents, it is likely that even more incidents occurred that did not receive media coverage. The mass shooting that occurred in Colorado Springs, CO on November 19th was not included at the time of publishing as the attacker's motive had not yet been formally declared. The full list of events is available to journalists on request.