At Pride Fest in Knoxville on Oct. 7, a man wearing only ladies’ underwear, gloves, and high heels sprawled on a stage, legs apart, toward the audience, which included children.
The crowd of a few hundred people watching him in World’s Fair Park cheered.
“If this were happening in front of a school, I would have him in cuffs in the back of my cruiser,” a nearby police officer told The Epoch Times.
But for now, local and state authorities aren’t enforcing Tennessee’s law prohibiting children at drag performances, the officer said.
Although a court order suspends the law in at least some parts of Tennessee, some district attorneys and the state’s attorney general argue the law still applies.
“The Tennessee General Assembly can certainly use its mandate to pass laws that their communities demand, but that mandate as to speech is limited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which commands that laws infringing on the Freedom of Speech must be narrow and well-defined,” the judge ruled.
Legal Controversy
Some Tennessee attorneys said the judge’s ruling doesn’t apply outside the 30th District, which covers Shelby County in the southwestern corner of the state.That’s the opinion of state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
And Ryan Desmond, the district attorney for Tennessee’s Fifth Judicial District, wrote a memo saying he also believes that the overturning of the law applies only to drag performances in the 30th District.
Other drag performances in other parts of the state are still illegal, he wrote.
That would include drag performances in Knoxville, which is in Knox County, part of the Sixth Judicial Circuit.
“The Attorney General for the State of Tennessee maintains that the AEA passes constitutional muster, has appealed this holding, and further opined that the ruling is binding only on the 30th Judicial District,” Mr. Desmond wrote in a public statement.
Any drag show for children in his district, which covers Blount County, will face prosecution, he warned.
In response to that statement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued Mr. Desmond. The lawsuit has triggered a temporary block of enforcement of the law in Blount County.
Even clear violations of laws don’t always result in charges being brought against lawbreakers. In many counties across America, prosecutors who identify politically as “progressive” choose not to enforce some laws.
‘Stand Up for Pride’
“Let’s stand up for Pride at this festival,” Knoxville’s mayor, Indya Kincannon, urged the audience. “But let’s make our power felt at the ballot box every single opportunity.”Tennessee state Sen. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat, also spoke.
“The attacks on the LGBTQ community are heinous,” Ms. Johnson said. “And they are many. And we know that we will see more this year. But we will stand up and push back, and we will fight.”
The mayor and the senator emphasized the importance of winning elections to advance LGBT causes.
The Epoch Times contacted the offices of the Knoxville mayor and the Tennessee Attorney General about the lawfulness of the drag shows at the Knoxville Pride Fest. The mayor didn’t respond, and the attorney general declined to comment.
The Knoxville mayor’s LGBT liaison, Chip Barry, told The Epoch Times by email that he couldn’t comment on the drag show’s content because he wasn’t there to witness it firsthand. When The Epoch Times sent him a video of the Pride Fest drag show that had children present, Mr. Barry didn’t respond.
At the event, a Tennessee Equality Project booth announced that the AEA was part of a “Slate of Hate” enacted by Tennessee Republicans.
They called out laws that ban child sex-change surgeries, prohibit children from attending cabaret-style shows, define the term “sex” as biological sex, ban men from participating in women’s sports, and provide protections for teachers who object to referring to a child by pronouns that don’t correspond to his or her biological sex.
“Tennessee ranks #1 for anti-LGBT laws,” the group said.
The Pride Fest’s offerings included a plethora of sexual material, with ample corporate support. Many booths at the event seemed designed to welcome children and draw them in.
Boxes of condoms were placed on tables, free for the taking, and other sex materials stood only inches away from a display labeled “kids table.”
Parents pulling wagons wheeled their prepubescent children past a tent that displayed signs with explicit sexual language and crude references to genitalia.
Nearby, event sponsors such as Amazon, the cell phone company Boost Mobile, U.S. Bank, and First Horizon Bank had tents announcing their support for the LGBT community.
“First Horizon’s a very big supporter of the community,” said employee Jeffrey Blair.
Mr. Blair said that if a child wanted sex-change surgery, First Horizon would likely have “some sort of policy” a family could use to pay for it.
Roaming the grounds were several “Furries,” people who 0ften identify as animals and may wear animal costumes while engaging in sexual behavior.
Too Young for Sex Change?
Some Pride attendees told The Epoch Times they objected to curtailing a child’s right to watch drag shows or get sex-change surgery.“I think it’s up to their parents, and their parents need to make good decisions,” said John Buss, who said he was gay.
He pointed to “top institutions” such as Vanderbilt University, which has actively promoted child sex-change procedures in its offerings.
So when it comes to deciding when it’s appropriate to allow children to decide on whether to undergo sex-change procedures, “It’s a tough question, but I don’t think there is an age” that’s too young to have gender surgery, said Mr. Buss.
Julia Porto, a man wearing a dress, said hatred motivated those who have worked to deny sex-change surgery to children.
“It feels like half a political maneuver and half just blind hatred,” he said.
A woman at Pride Fest who said she works as a school counselor told The Epoch Times she encourages children in their non-heterosexual gender identities without their parents’ knowledge or permission. She declined to give her name because she said she feared her school would punish her.
“It’s kind of difficult because I don’t want the kids to be put into a situation where they’re not safe, and by outing them to their parents, if they’re not out, that could put them into a potentially dangerous situation,” the counselor said. The term “outing” refers to revealing publicly a nonheterosexual identity.
The counselor said she discusses LGBT issues with students in her rural community. However, parents often disagree with their children’s new gender identity.
It’s wrong to tell a child he or she is too young to know if they’re transgender, the counselor said.
Standing just outside Pride Fest was a lone protester.
Ander Bowers, a Christian, told The Epoch Times he believes that showing strip acts to children is child abuse.
