Singer Vanessa Williams said in a recent interview at the GLAAD Awards that “drag queens are not murdering people.”
“GLAAD Awards ain’t killing anybody, drag queens are not murdering people. We are a wonderful community,” Williams told Billboard.
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Williams also explained that she was at the GLAAD Awards to serve as a judge alongside RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage for Paramount+’s drag singing contest Queens of the Universe.
“We are judging drag queens on the daily which is so much fun, but also, having a point of perspective where we are gathering for people, for humanity, when it seems like the rest of the world is falling apart,” she said.
During the GLAAD Awards ceremony, while presenting the award for Outstanding Documentary, Williams reportedly told the audience that she will not allow her LGBTQ friends to be sent “back in the closet.”
“I stand here tonight in allyship with the LGBTQ community,” Williams said. “Over the years I’ve watched my LGBTQ friends shift from silence and fear to confidence, advocacy, and non-stop pride.”
“And I am not about to let a politician, a so-called journalist or any kind of hater push my friends back in the closet,” she added.
Drag shows, particularly with children in the audience (or worse, on stage) have become a massive cultural touchstone, particularly since the creation of Drag Queen Story Hour in 2015. After a series of shocking viral videos showing men rather conspicuously imitating stripper moves at “all-ages” drag shows, lawmakers in several states moved to ban these performances in the presence of children.
One such law passed in the state of Tennessee and is currently on hold due to a legal challenge. Various Hollywood power players went apopleptic over anti-drag bills. Actor Billy Porter ranted on The View, “We’re already in a civil war, y’all. It’s a civil war of the mind! They’re messing with out minds! We’re already in it!”
Producers for RuPaul’s Drag Race decried the Tennessee law after its passage, saying that the legislators behind it “are a threat and we must take them seriously.” The show’s star, RuPaul, chimed in, “Drag queens are the Marines of the queer movement.”
Within weeks of this sustained outrage, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a queer individual who believed she was a male, stalked the halls of Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where she killed three children and three adults before she was successfully taken down by authorities. Hale was not a drag performer.
Several Democrats have posted imagery about menacing “anti-trans” Americans with guns in the aftermath of the mass shooting. A press secretary for Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs lost her job after posting a gif of a woman threatening someone with pistols, captioned, “When we see transphobes.” Days later, Wyoming House Minority Whip Karlee Provenza (D) posted a meme of a woman (named “Auntie Fa”) gleefully holding a gun, captioned, “Protect trans folks against fascists & bigots!”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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Johnathon Menjivar