Boygenius performed in drag in a “F— You” to anti-LGBTQ+ Gov. Bill Lee

The members of rock supergroup boygenius traded their usual suits and ties for drag-inspired looks at their recent Nashville show in a literal “F**k You” to Tennessee’s anti-LGBTQ+ Gov. Bill Lee (R).

Currently on tour supporting boygenius’s debut album, The Record, singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus took the stage for their set at the Re:SET music festival on the Great Lawn in Nasheville’s Centennial Park Sunday wearing campy wigs, over-the-top make-up, and lots of sequins. The trio introduced themselves as their new drag alter-egos Queef Urban (Bridgers), Lucille Balls (Dacus), and Shanita Tums (Baker).

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Video from the show posted on social media captured out indie rocker Baker, who has spoken openly about growing up closeted in Tennessee, delivering a powerful message about self-acceptance to the crowd, and blasting the state’s Republican governor.

“Today, I’m so grateful for my life, not because I get to stand on stage with my best friends… but because I’m content with the person that I am,” she told the crowd. “I have a lot of anger for people who have made me feel small and made me feel erased. And I’ve found that it’s a really powerful and humiliating tool for making those people f**k off,” she continued as the crowd cheered.

“I would like you to scream so loud that Governor Bill Lee can hear you,” Baker said while saluting the governor with two raise middle fingers.

“Can we say, ‘F**k Bill Lee’ on three?” Bridgers added, before the band led the crowd in the chant.

Lee is the governor who earlier this year signed into law the nation’s first state law aimed at restricting drag performances in public spaces where they can be viewed by minors.

The law was recently struck down by a federal judge. In his June 2 ruling, judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law was both “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad,” that it would encourage “discriminatory enforcement,” and that it violated the First Amendment’s free speech protections.

But the anti-drag bill was just one of seven anti-LGBTQ+ laws Lee has signed this year, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors that would require them to detransition by next year, and another anti-trans law that legally defines “sex” as “a person’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”