The drag ban is back
Nate Schatzline A bill to curtail drag performances has been pre-filed DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff WriterTaffet@DallasVoice.com A bill to ban or at least curtail drag performances has been pre-filed for the 2025 Texas Legislature by Fort Worth state Rep.
Nate Schatzline, who is also a Christian pastor. After he filed a similar bill in 2023, a video of him in drag as a teen surfaced.
HB 1075 would penalize performers and promoters who present a drag show in front of a minor — and that idea of “performance” goes way beyond something presented in The Rose Room. “‘Drag performance’ means a performance in which a performer exhibits a gender that is different than the performer’s gender recorded at birth using clothing, makeup or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances or otherwise performs in a lascivious manner before an audience,” according to the wording in the bill.
So you may lip sync in your car, but, if you have passengers, does that qualify as an audience? Well, only if they’re minors and the performance is “lascivious.” But how would you define lascivious?
