The Tennessee drag show that tore a college community apart

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The “Can’t Drag Us Down” drag show and story hour — arranged by East Tennessee State’s Young Democratic Socialists of America student group — was designed to be a family-friendly event for all ages that would celebrate LGBTQ culture and demonstrate peacefully against the passage of the law. “They used Marianne Williamson … as a way of saying ‘Well, we need to beef things up now, and things have changed,’” said Noah Nordstrom, another student organizer who performed as a drag parody of Tennessee’s Republican US Senator Marsha Blackburn. This frustrates Didi Blue Heart, who feels that the state of Tennessee is overreaching and violating parental rights: “If I want to put on a wig and read a story to my grandkids and my boys – my children – and their mothers are okay with that, why are we taking their rights away?” Some people, she added, have changed their minds once they’ve seen the Gypsy Queens perform. “I know so many people that come to our shows that are Republican and they’re like ‘Oh, we love your show!’ Then, at the end, when we say ‘Vote,’ they’re like ‘Oh my God, we didn’t realize that this was what we were voting against’.” open image in gallery On the day after the protest, a federal judge put a last-minute injunction on the law’s enforcement until the court can hear appeals from the Friends of George’s, a Memphis-based theater company suing the state for alleged First Amendment violations.