No, it's not because I can make a direct line of thought from classrooms full of dead children and the guns which made them dead as opposed to being opposed to whatever group I dislike and using kids as a means to create an attack. The people who dislike drag shows don't dislike them because they think they hurt children necessarily, that's not their motivation. The motivation is that they dislike the people in drag. Now, to help you out, if you want an issue from the left where The Kids! argument is actually bullshit, look at climate change. The Kids! is used there all the time, too, but, really, most people are just concerned with climate change itself and aren't primarily motivated by children. I happen to agree with them on the climate change issue, but using "What will happen to future generations" is an appeal to emotions not connected with their main concerns.
It’s not that I want it to be legal, I simply am not convinced a law is necessary, because it very likely will get other things banned that don’t need to be. I know some people are saying that’s their goal, I haven’t read up on all this and don’t have an opinion on that part. I was at a concert recently at an amphitheater. All standing, no seats, very casual deal. But it’s a fairly well known band, their following is fairly eclectic but it’s folk music and a lot of their fans are pot smokers so people are openly smoking. It’s a concert so almost everyone is drinking. And it was shocking to me the number of hippies who had really young kids right at the front in front of these loud ass speakers. Not sure it was traumatizing to these kids or anything, but they damn sure weren’t having fun. Mind you, it is a family friendly atmosphere generally, but if I brought my kids I’d sit in lawn chairs away from the front, and plenty of normal people with kids did exactly that. Should there be a rule preventing young kids being right at the front? What would be the appropriate age limit? You can play this game with every corner of our society. Those parents are gonna do dumb shit that is going to be traumatic for their kids no matter how many laws you write.
In some cases, there is truth to that. Homophobes exist. But that's not my motivation. I can't do anything about bigoted people except join in with most the rest of modern society and laugh at those types of people. Damn huge assumption there lumping everyone who happens to be against adult sanctioned drag strip shows for an audience of children under the homophobia tent. Homophobia certainly isn't my motivation. Just like I don't have a phobia of female strippers working for Deja Vu because I think existing laws barring children under 18 from access to these performances makes perfect sense.
Why do we not allow children under 18 enjoy a Friday night at Deja Vu? Why is it illegal for adults to supply minors with alcohol? I sort of understand where you are coming from, however you can also play this game with every corner of our society on existing measures we already have on the books with regards to the well-being of children.
This I wholeheartedly agree with. The deification of children like Gretta Thurnburg is a maddening trend of peak annoyance.
What happens when a 10 year old sees an adult female dancing in a suggestive manner, vs an adult who presents as female? What is the difference in outcome or effect?
She's old enough to attend drag shows when not in a state that eroded the 1st amendment rights of its residents.
She's 20 now. So ya, she certainly can attend any drag show in Tennessee or anywhere else in the US should she so choose to. Hell, she can even dress like a sexy male cop stripper and sexually prance around with furry handcuffs in an assless speedo if she wants as long as it's not taking place in front of a targeted audience of children. But free speech and stuff I guess...
It's a tad weird to me as well, but so what? As long as drag story characters aren't dressed like strippers and/or are reading certain books designed to overtly propagandize certain political or sexual issues I have no issue with drag queens reading Clifford The Big Red Dog books to children at library. Helping instill the joys of reading into children is pretty damn admirable. Assuming it's just someone in an innocent drag outfit reading standard children's books, it is no different really than when someone's dad dressed as "Johnny Appleseed" visited my kindergarten class to read us books. If we start seeing Drag Queens hauled away in cruisers from the library for merely reading Clifford The Big Red Dog to children then like I've already said: I'll be locking arms and marching in the streets protesting something as fundamentally unAmerican and descrimatory as that. I could be wrong, but my sincere hope and sense is that is not what this law is even about.
If you can't figure out the goal of this law being passed and in the manner it is being passed and somehow think you're the only one here concerned about the children, then you are the mark. It isn't written to target people who act inappropriately in front of children, we already have laws for this. It's a tool to harass people and vaguely written to enable this. No one is wanting 5 year olds to have grown people rubbing their asses in 5 year old kids faces, but they recognize the bullshit for what this bill is and, as I've noted numerous times, this has absolutely nothing to do with kids. It's a tool to harass people they don't like, that's the problem people have with it. You can discuss the distinction between reading children's books dressed up like a woman with dancing on a pole, but it doesn't really matter. This isn't where the interest lies for those passing the bill. The fact they suckered a few people into believing it is doesn't suddenly make it so.
I guess we will find out whose assumptions here prove closer to representing reality sooner rather than later.
Hey now, Johnny AppleSeed was a cool cat. Dedicated his whole life to planting all the apple trees in the South we have today while wearing a pot on his head. Great guy.
Understood. I don't see it all that fundamentally different but understand why some people may think it's stranger than most character readings at libraires. Definitely not something I think needs to be illegal though. Children having access to and being the target audience of adult sanctioned drag stripper events humping objects in assless underwear is what I am objecting to.
Not really. One can do it now. Anyone with half a sense could figure their intentions by their dialogue, actions, and advocacy. Whether or not they can pull off this objective doesn't stop the fact their purpose was clear and they gave such obvious indications of it. One can believe they were only going after the "bad" drag shows, but one would have to be a bit foolish to do so. I don't know how much clearer they could've been, really. Hell, they've already met half of their goal by the vitriol they've stirred up against these performers and transgender folks.
Ok, that's certainly one way of interpreting all this. Hopefully for the benefit of everyone involved my overall assumptions/guess that it's the same thing as barring under 18s from gentleman clubs proves to be more correct over time than your scary prediction here. The formulation of my overall take on this is not inspired by some weird sense of loyalty and protection to a freaking political party at the expense of a particular group of people. I merely don't think this is going to be a huge deal at the end of the day. That being said, I'm not afraid of being wrong ultimately. As I've stated numerous times here already, I'm happy to change my mind should there arise concrete evidence of people being hauled away just because they are dressed publicly in drag.
I don't know how one could not see the obviousness of how this has already affected the way people are perceived and the public discussion about these individuals, regardless of how might some of them end up in court or hit with a citation, or not. You are completely missing the point if you believe this only can be measured in arrests and convictions, although it does give you an out if that isn't the end result. Talk with someone who is a performer or trans on how these laws have impacted their lives simply by existing and the dialogue and reaction from people in contact with them. The purpose isn't to fill jail cells. It's to impact the public discourse and, again, I don't know how much more guys like Matt Walsh and others could've been in doing so.
What if the reactions and feelings are a result of people believing activists and media sources with an agenda parroting incorrect information like we’ve seen expressed in this very thread multiple times that “all drag is now banned in Tennessee”? Should Christians cower in hysteria and think the world is out to get them anytime they hear, see or read of others belittling their religious beliefs or hear advocation for policy change surrounding taxing religious institutions? Popular opinion about something doesn’t always mean the group feeling most aggrieved is right. Anecdotal examples of perception isn’t going to be the vessel that reveals the truth in the end here. Not even sure what the argument is here assuming one is actually happening here. I’ve said repeatedly I’m happy to agree with you (and everyone else here apparently) if it turns this amounts to more than barring kids from entering a strip club or parents ordering the 13 year old a Craigslist stripper to sexually dance for their son and friends at his birthday party.
After all the same who literally said stuff like Georgia was being overtaken by “Jim Crow on Steroids” for improving their electron processes, or that McMinn County merely swapping out a particular book about the Holocaust in favor of another in the curriculum meant that specific book was literally BANNED from school grounds despite still being in the library and swore it clearly represented fascists bOoK BuRnInG are now ENSURING everyone they know exactly what this law means. Waiting to see if everyone is crying wolf again before joining the outrage mob seems like a wise move at this point.
