In the wake of a federal appeals court ruling reviving Texass drag ban, nonbinary drag activist Brigitte Bandit took to Instagram on Monday to encourage folks to support the events that remain legal. Please be aware that this drag ban only applies to certain types of performances where minors can be present. drag storytimes are still legal. drag shows are still legal. book and support your local drag. we need it now more than ever, they wrote. Related GOP official rages at demonic Christmas drag show because kids might be near the building its in In the comments, many thanked the performer and activist for speaking up. Prohibiting performances in any capacity is such a slippery slope to banning anything vaguely uncomfortable for ppl, one person wrote. It goes hand in hand with the book bans, and the mandate to put the 10 commandments in classrooms. The rules just dont apply for these politicians and it needs to stop. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Appreciate the clarity, wrote another. Art is art is art. This is still an attack/control on artistic expression and rooted in misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. Such a fascist f**king state.A third simply wrote, Thank you for using your voice. Earlier this week, a U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a rulingmade by a District Court judge in 2023, overturning his permanent injunction againstTexas wide-reaching and vaguely worded drag ban, which the judge claimed infringed on First Amendment rights.Texas S.B. 12 was signed into law in June 2023 byGov. Greg Abbott (R)and was set to go into effect on September 1 of the same year. While the bill ostensibly made it a crime to provide sexually oriented performances in a commercial space, on public property, or in the presence of minors, the language of the bill and the rhetoric around it made it clear that it was intended to target drag shows in particular. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Brigitte Bandit (@brigittebandit)While the intent is clear from the comments of those involved, the bills original text demonstrates the motivations that underpinned it. Anearlier version of the billhas a line under the definitions of features in sexual conduct that includes a male performer exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience. That definition would include everything fromTom HollandsLip Sync Battleappearance to cosplayers.TheHouse Committee report from May 26, 2023, shows the line removed. Instead, the definition of sexually oriented performances is edited to include exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics, which clearly targets breast forms and packers common in drag shows.This explains Bandits message that much of what drag queens do is still allowed, despite the fact that the law will no doubt cause hatred and stigma and create a slippery slope for what the law considers sexually oriented. Bandit spoke to lawmakers multiple times while the state legislature was debating the bill in 2023. In one testimony, they appeared before the committee in a dress bearing the names of the victims of the Uvalde and Allen mass shootings to argue that the real danger facing the states children is gun violence, not drag queens.After reportedly speaking 15 seconds over her allotted time, Bandit was escorted out of the hearing by security. @brigittebandit my full testimony against SB12, the Texas anti-drag bill, in solidarity with the families of Uvalde who have shown up every day this legislation session only to be actively ignored by our lawmakers. Texans deserve better. original sound brigitte bandit Before that, their testimony before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs, in which she argued the legislation discriminated on the basis of sex, had gone viral. Why should I be able to continue the same kind of events with similar content and costumes but not my male counterparts? she asked.Noting that there are already laws preventing children from attending adult-oriented shows at venues like gay bars, she argued that the bill wrongly focused on the sex and gender of performers rather than the content of their performances.Drag is simply a form of art, and like any form of art, it can be produced by many different kinds of people and be modified for different kinds of audiences, she said. Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.