Why Texas Universities’ Drag Bans Backfired

The first time River Perrill saw a drag performance in person was inside the lobby of Jester Center, a lively 24-floor dormitory complex at the University of Texas, Austin. “It was a surprise,” said Perrill, who was in the auditorium playing a trivia game when drag queens rushed in, handing out flyers about a show happening right outside the doors. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is exciting.’”

Perrill, a student from Houston, had an interest in drag from an early age. “Really, it was seeing RuPaul’s Drag Race—that seems like a lot of our generation’s first introduction. I just fell in love,” they said, adding that seeing the art form onscreen was particularly formative as they were first coming out in sixth grade. “I always did [drag] in my bedroom,” Perrill said. In 2020, Perrill began to experiment with makeup and, by the end of that year, got their first wig for Christmas.

But it wasn’t until they came to Austin in 2022 that they felt emboldened to express it more publicly. “Seeing it live was like, ‘Oh I could go on stage or I could perform in front of people.’” And in April of last year, Perrill made her performance debut as Rio Grande at “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams,” an open-mic night at a local gay club, Cheer Up Charlies, hosted by Brigitte Bandit, a beloved Austin drag queen known for her organizing around political education and the Texas legislature.

But Perrill says they exist in a sort of bubble. Inside, it’s beautiful; there’s the city’s drag scene, as well as their friends and supportive professors. Outside, Perrill feels a “pressure of hatred,” they said. “It’s the walk from my dorm to the classroom that I’m like, ‘OK anything could happen in this time span.’” And that pressure—thanks to university policies that adhere to the ultra-conservative Texas and federal governments—continues to encroach on safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students on campus.

As I talked with Perrill, they were sitting in the same residence hall in which, almost three years ago, they saw their very first drag performance in person, sponsored by the university. Today, such a performance in that very same hall is prohibited. In March, the University of Texas system prohibited its campuses from sponsoring or hosting drag performances—just a few weeks after the Texas A&M system issued a similar ban.

The Texas A&M ban was direct, banning all drag performances across its 11 public campuses, claiming that the art form did not align with the school’s “mission and core values” and could create a “hostile environment for women.” The ban also cited President Trump’s and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s transphobic executive orders, which claim that only two genders exist.

The UT system’s ban is more ambiguous, prohibiting drag performances on campuses only if sponsored or hosted by the universities. In a statement, Kevin Eltife, the UT system’s now-former Board of Regents Chair, cited it as a means of complying with “all applicable federal, state and local laws and executive orders, including any restriction on the use of public funds,” but did not note the specific laws. He went on to say that “if the board needs to take further action to make this clearer, we will do so.”

In College Station, the ban posed an immediate threat to Draggieland, an annual competition put on by the student-led Queer Empowerment Council at an on-campus theatre. In response, the council organized a Day of Drag demonstration on March 6 and sued the school’s board of regents, arguing that the governing body was not allowed to censor students based on personal prejudices.

As a result, federal judge Lee H. Rosenthal temporarily blocked the ban and granted an injunction allowing Draggieland to proceed as scheduled on March 27 while the case continued through the courts. In her ruling, Rosenthal said that “the law requires the recognition and application of speech rights and guardrails that preserve and protect all our treasured First Amendment rights.” The Queer Empowerment Council said the ruling signaled “another display of the resilience of queer joy” as “an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed.”

At UT Austin, a coalition of drag performers, LGBTQ+ advocates, and students organized a Day of Drag demonstration on campus for April 28, which included a line-dancing workshop, drag makeup stations, and a lip-synching battle. Isabella Thomas, a government and Spanish student and the lead organizer of the event, said she hopes Day of Drag serves as a “catalyst,” pushing the board of regents to expand or further clarify the ban so that it’s “challengeable in court”—like the lawsuit at Texas A&M.

Thomas described the lead-up to the event as “absolutely horrible,” full of meetings with administration staff and persistent follow-up e-mails and phone calls—all to ensure that the event followed what she described as “tedious” university policies. “I feel like I’m working a full-time job trying to get this together,” they said ahead of the evening.

“It is really disheartening [and] reminds me of the attacks on [diversity, equity, and inclusion],” Thomas said. “As the Multicultural Engagement Center shut down, students took on these roles to continue to provide community.” Thomas said they entered UT with access to the MEC, the Gender and Sexuality Center, and other on-campus resources—all of which have since “been stripped away from us,” they said.

Instead, students like Thomas have to fill the gaps, organizing on campus and putting programs together that would have otherwise been the job of MEC or GSC staff members. “UT doesn’t care about its students or free speech, because drag is free speech,” Thomas said, adding that placing the burden on students to foster safe, welcoming environments doesn’t allow them much time to focus on their studies.

All of Thomas’s efforts paid off, though, as Day of Drag ran smoothly, she said—save for UT administrators watching them from across the plaza. “We got more turnout than I expected, which is reaffirmation that queer people are here, enjoying the event, hopefully feeling represented, appreciated, loved, and just happy to be in this space together,” Thomas told me at the event, during which she wore a blond wig and pink makeup, waving a small transgender pride flag that read “Protect Trans Kids.”

Brigitte Bandit, a local drag performer who Thomas credited for the idea of sending students to class in drag, hosts “LegiSLAYtion and Liberation” every Tuesday. The event takes place at Oilcan Harry’s, a gay entertainment venue, in which she reviews current events and the Texas Legislature—all while in drag. To Bandit, these shows speak to the importance of finding community more than ever. “We can’t lose hope,” she said. “It’s really easy right now to feel hopeless and sad, and to fall into, ‘What can I do as a single person?’ But remember that there’s people who love you and support you, and there’s resources available no matter what happens.”

According to Irina Griffin, a studio art student at UT Austin, the ban is not rooted in reality. “For the UT system in particular, if you’re moving to Austin, you are going to see queer people. You are going to see queer art,” Griffin said. “You might as well get familiar with it.”

In this way, the ban “feels like a disservice,” Griffin said, especially to students like her, who “find comfort, power, and self-expression” in it and other forms of queer artistry. “The saddest thing about it all is that there are still people here who want drag to be here on campus, but it just feels like their voices are being silenced or diminished,” she said. Drag is, instead, made into a “problem” that is “dangerous” and “scary,” despite there being “nothing dangerous or scary about it,” Griffin said. “It’s just people expressing themselves.”

“[Drag] builds this new identity that you create out of yourself, but it’s also an extension of your personality,” Perrill said, adding that they are able to better express their true self in drag while also discovering new facets of their identity. “Why not be a new person?” Perrill said. “We’re stuck in this body for however long, why not try out different avatars?”

Almost three years ago, Griffin attended the same performance that Perrill saw, in which more than a hundred freshmen gathered together in the lobby of Jester Center. “Seeing drag queens at the school felt like, ‘OK, I can be who I want to be here.’ There’s no expectation and there’s also no limit,” Griffin said.

Griffin recalls at one moment in the performance, the crowd made a tunnel with the drag queens positioned at the very end. “You could run and dance through it, and I just remember doing that, and my face hurt from smiling so much,” she said. “College is scary and can be really intimidating, but there was something so strangely comforting about that experience that just made it feel like, ‘OK, everything’s going to be fine.’”

At the Day of Drag event, Bandit—who wore a denim ensemble, ruffled chaps in the color of the transgender pride flag, and a keffiyeh draped around her shoulders—led the crowd in chants for Black trans lives, bodily autonomy, and a free Palestine. What’s really important amid feelings of hopelessness, Bandit told me, is to “keep people connected with each other.”

“Go to your local drag shows [and] support your local drag queens now more than ever,” Griffin said, later adding that “if everyone went to a drag show once in their life, they would have a completely different perception of what drag is and what it can be.”

Aaron Boehmer
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