Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is considering using Child Protective Services to investigate parents who bring their children to watch drag performances.
During Wednesday’s press conference, DeSantis said he would consider conducting a parental investigation, as proposed by Florida Representative Anthony Sabatini (R), to “terminate parental rights” of an adult. And if they bring their own children, they are subjected to a serious charge. Watch the drag show.
As NBC News reports, the remarks from the governor, who signed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, led to a video posted on Twitter that showed children attending a drag show in Texas.
“We have child protective statutes on the books,” DeSantis said.
“We have laws against child endangerment. It used to be that kids would be off-limits. Before that everyone agreed. Now it seems like a concerted effort is being made to expose kids to as much of those things as possible.” Which are not age friendly,” he said.
DeSantis said a video of the show in Dallas was “completely inappropriate” and “not something that should be shown to kids.”
Other Republicans and conservatives followed suit in calls to stop children from performing drag, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) and Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Drag shows and culture have been celebrated as a form of expression in the LGBTQ community for years.
Drag has also been popular on television as shows such as “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a program that won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Program four times in a row from 2018 to 2021.
According to an article on the art form by Master Class, drag show artists “have a history of struggling with a legal system that punishes non-standard gender expression”.
This includes several cross-dressing laws passed between the 19th and 20th centuries, the site added. The LGBTQ community was targeted by police with a technically non-existent “three-article rule”, many of which began between the 1940s and 1960s.
