District attorney’s threat to drag performers doubles attendance of Pride event

The attendance at Blount Pride Fest doubled from last year after a Tennessee attorney general threatened to prosecute the event’s drag performers.

Blount County District Attorney Ryan Desmond issued a letter last Tuesday notifying Pride organizers and local law enforcement that his office planned to “ethically and justly prosecute” anyone violating Tennessee’s drag ban, also known as the Adult Entertainment Act.

Related:

How Tennessee’s drag performers are planning on beating the state’s draconian drag ban

While celebrities have spoken out against the ban, local queens and kings are playing the long game.

The law forbids “male or female impersonators” to participate in any “adult cabaret performance” “on public property” that can be viewed by a minor. The definition of “adult cabaret performance” includes any onstage act that “appeals to a prurient interest.”

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A federal judge found the definition so “vague and substantially overbroad” that he declared the law unconstitutional in June. However, Desmond and other local attorneys general argued that the judge’s ruling only applied to Shelby County, where the lawsuit was filed, rather than other counties.

In response to Desmond’s threat, Pride organizers and the event’s headlining performer Matthew Lovegood (who performs as chart-topping Christian drag queen Flamy Grant) filed a lawsuit against Desmond last Wednesday. The lawsuit called his threat “a blatant attend to chill Plaintiff’s speech and expression under the First Amendment.”

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer agreed with the lawsuit and issued a temporary restraining order to prevent Desmond from interfering in any way with the Saturday Pride event or its related third-party celebrations.

The Saturday Pride event took place at Maryville College’s Clayton Center for the Arts. It included drag performances by Lovegood and other queens as well as a drag queen story hour and other art events. Though anti-LGBTQ+ protesters waved anti-queer signs and a large wooden cross outside the center, the event’s attendance was double that of the event’s 2022 attendance, organizers told WATE-TV.

One of the attendees, transgender Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, said she decided to attend after reading about Desmond’s threat.

“When you come to an event like this, you don’t see people who are going back in the closet and hiding. You don’t see people who are scared to be themselves,” Zephyr told the aforementioned news station. “You come to these events and you say, ‘You can do many things in the law, but you will not make me deny who I am and you will not make me afraid. I will stand here tall and I will celebrate my existence with my community,’ and that’s what we’re seeing here today and what I’ve been blessed to see around the country.”

In a press release celebrating Greer’s order, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee issued a statement saying, “We are relieved that the court has taken action… This ruling allows us to fully realize Blount Pride’s goal of creating a safe space for LGBTQ people to connect, celebrate, and share resources.”

Grant responded, writing, “This ruling confirms that despite continued attempts to remove LGBTQ people from public life, our First Amendment rights matter just as much as anyone else’s.”

Judges in Montana and Texas have blocked those states’ drag bans as unconstitutional violations of free speech that do nothing to protect children.