The asphalt road and a steady stream of cars moving along it was the only thing separating the hundreds of people that surrounded the Aztec Theatre downtown.
Brianna Berlanga and her girlfriend, Sade Winston, dance and chant while at a counter protest to the group ‘This Is Texas Freedom Force’, a group described as an “extremist militia” by the FBI who were protesting a drag show at the Aztec Theater Tuesday evening.Far-right groups, including This Is Texas Freedom Force, have been targeting Texas drag shows in recent years, claiming that drag performers are “grooming” children.
San Antonio’s LBGTQ community organized a counter protest to the group ‘This Is Texas Freedom Force’, that planned an armed, protest of “A Drag Queen Christmas,” at the Aztec Theater.When asked how drag queens allegedly groomed children, Burkhart said having “men dressed in women’s lingerie, being scantily-clad on stage in front of children” was one way.
“This is just a reminder that we have so far to go still,” said The Queen Fantasia, a well-known local drag performer. “We hope they can understand that drag and the LGBTQ community is about love and acceptance and expressing yourself. Members of the group This Is Texas Freedom Force, a group described as an “extremist militia” by the FBI protest the drag show, “A Drag Queen Christmas,” at the Aztec Theater Tuesday night. They were met with counter protestors supporting the drag queens and other members of the LGTBQ community.Across the street, the far-right protestors yelled “pedophiles go home” and “pedophile groomers” as they waved signs accusing drag queens of sexually abusing children.
“We are doing nothing but asking folks to identify with those who are out here uplifting the community with love and creativity,” Factory said, adding that it was the San Antonio queer community who helped her find her own identity. “This is not a fight that’s over tonight because we wouldn’t be the San Antonio we are without our drag community.”
“Several of our trans comrades have expressed how they feel safer in the presence of armed self-defense,” Black Freedom Factory said in an online statement. “If our armed community support groups are between us and the reactionaries, their experience is that things are far less likely to escalate.”
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