It’s Brigitte, bitch
It was another hot August night at Cheer Up Charlies' outdoor stage, but the air was moving and there was a good crowd. Gender Destruction wrapped up their routine, the people cheered, and Arinna Dior Heys, the host of the Cyber Queen drag showcase, called up the next artist.
. She's known as the Dolly of Austin. “I have these big fake titties and I do outrageous stuff – just campy, goofy, big, colorful shit.” “We'll be in court Monday morning to stop SB 12 because drag is expression, y'all, just like any other kind of art. And we are going to get this bill blocked.
Bandit has been part of Alexander's weekly show at Oilcan Harry's for the last year and a half. She has appeared for more than two years at Coco Cxnts, the Coconut Club's drag brunch. She is a regular with Neon Rainbows, the queer country showcase at Cheer Ups. And she has hosted a half-dozen drag storytimes, performances where drag queens dress as princesses and read books to kids, at various venues.
SB 12 reads like it was written in the 1970s. It bans any performance in a public space, or where minors are present, that displays a “prurient interest in sex.” It prohibits the “exhibition or representation” of “actual or simulated” male and female genitals “in a lewd state.” It forbids “sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics.” Anyone convicted of violating SB 12 can be jailed for up to a year. Venues can be fined $10,000 for each violation.
Bandit then dropped a fact that she knew would confound the Republicans – that the law would not apply to her because she was born a woman. “I let them know that I'm AFAB,” she said, “that I'm somebody who does drag as a feminine persona. I feel like that kind of blew everybody's mind. Like, ‘Whoa, we didn't realize that female people could do drag!'
Two groups, in particular, have gone after Bandit. Protect Texas Kids, led by 23-year-old Kelly Neidert, a self-described “Christian fascist,” has put Bandit's personal information online. And, after SB 12 cleared the Senate and moved on to the House, members of Defend Our Kids, a spinoff of Texas Family Project, posted a manipulated video of one of Bandit's drag storytimes.
Bandit decided to make the obvious point: that Republicans only care about kids when it suits their agenda. “I called my mom up, because I don't know how to sew, and she sewed a dress for me,” Bandit said. “The top of it was the Texas flag and underneath the Texas flag we wrote all the names of the kids from Uvalde. And also the kids that died in the Allen shooting the weekend before.
And so it was that on August 28, Bandit found herself testifying against SB 12 for the third time, this time before a federal judge, 84-year-old David Hittner. “He was very sharp,” Bandit said. “He was very interested in what we had to say and he really pushed back on a lot of what the state attorneys said.
Hittner said he'll issue his complete decision on the suit by the end of September. Brian Klosterboer, one of the ACLU attorneys who argued the suit, told us that whatever that decision is, it will almost certainly be appealed. Meanwhile, similar suits challenging similar laws in other states are moving through the courts. One of them – SB 14, blocking hormone treatment for trans minors – will almost certainly be heard by the Supreme Court.
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