The LGBTQ community has long celebrated self-expression with drag shows featuring performers in costumes and makeup, impersonating men or women. Witness the popularity of the Emmy Award-winning “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” But Republican legislators in Florida, Arizona, Texas and other states are trying to crack down, with proposals to ban minors from drag shows.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suggested he could order his state’s child protective services department to investigate parents who take their children to such performances.
“We have laws against child endangerment,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Fort Meyers Beach last week, after a video of children attending a drag bar in Dallas surfaced. “They were putting money in the underwear, and that is totally inappropriate,” he said. “That is not something that children should be exposed to.”
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