As the town gears up for summer, the lineup of entertainment on offer includes a lively array of drag shows — a time-honored Provincetown tradition. But the atmosphere surrounding drag this season includes a newly ominous undertone.
Our correspondent James Judd reported on the “Public Drag Show” at the Crown & Anchor on March 25, a fundraiser for the fight against laws introduced in at least 15 states to restrict drag performances in the guise of protecting children. Those states include Tennessee, Florida, and Arizona — but the misinformation, fear, and hate that is propelling the growing anti-drag movement has appeared much closer to home.
The Boston Globe’s Christopher Muther wrote last week about the social-media ugliness, including calls for a boycott, that emerged when the Barking Crab, the seafood joint on Fort Point Channel, put on a “Little Mermaid”-themed drag show. And the select board in North Brookfield, in Worcester County, tried to outlaw drag performances in the town’s Pride celebration, calling them “adult entertainment” and “an exaggerated view of human sexuality.”
“The attempt to characterize all drag queens as lascivious is less about protecting children and more about restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals,” wrote Muther. Historians and human rights groups, he noted, “say the hue and cry surrounding drag queens was brought forth by complaints over drag queen story hours in public libraries, but its roots can be found in ongoing debates over transgender rights.”
Critics of those story hours are trafficking in a blatant lie: that drag queens are “grooming” children to be gay or trans “by reading them books while dressed in frocks, wigs, and makeup,” as Muther put it.
“This is happening because exposure to drag is being seen as a gateway to trans,” said drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys. “A child who isn’t trans won’t suddenly become trans if they see someone reading a book in drag,” Jeffreys told Muther. “I was groomed to be heterosexual. It didn’t work.”
The media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a detailed expose in March of how the term “grooming” has become “a favorite of anti-LGBTQ politicians and right-wing media.”
“These far-right tropes aren’t new,” wrote FAIR’s Olivia Riggio. “Baselessly accusing a group of people of one of the worst crimes imaginable is a pretty surefire way to dehumanize them.”
Vince Everett Ellison, an author and documentary filmmaker, told viewers in an appearance on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight in January that Democrats are sexual deviants and pedophiles.
“This is a party that believes in this transgender grooming thing to a point where … they want you to castrate little boys and cut off the breasts of little girls,” said Ellison, “and they’re telling people they’re not going to be held responsible for this.”
It would be easy to give in to complacency in our comfortable, drag-loving Provincetown bubble. By all means, go out and have a good time at your favorite queen’s show — but send some money to the ACLU drag defense fund before you go.
