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Drag, queer communities resolute as Pride begins after legislative attention

By Harrison Epstein - | Jun 1, 2023
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Jaliah Jackson performs during the Cougar Pride Center celebration in Memorial Park in Provo on Saturday, April 29, 2023.
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Linnox Green performs during a drag show at City Limits in Provo on Friday, June 26, 2015.
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Kory Edgewood performs during the Cougar Pride Center celebration in Memorial Park in Provo on Saturday, April 29, 2023.
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Drag queen Veronika DaVil performs as an opening act to musician Chappell Roan in Salt Lake City on March 9, 2023.
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Rose Manchester sits backstage as she gets ready to perform Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, at City Limits Tavern in Provo. Manchester won the Righteous Miss Provo Pageant, an event that pits drag queens from across the county to compete in a beauty pageant.

For decades, centuries even, drag has been used in theater and cinema by performers to best tell their stories. The first drag performer in the state of Utah took to the stage in 1871.

Drag shows appear throughout Utah history, from the performances of B. Morris Young, a son of pioneer Brigham Young who appeared under the name Madam Pattirini, to St. George in April declining a permit for an all-ages drag event in the city. While organizers of that show, and the ACLU, are suing over the denial, drag will be a focus of discussion regardless of the outcome.

In Utah County, performers and show organizers alike are working to maintain their community while uplifting art and supporting one another in the face of bans, protests and whatever the future may hold. Particularly as Pride Month begins Thursday, as companies will change their logos on social media and on the sides of buildings to include rainbows and as LGBTQ-affirming events are held in Utah and across the country, different groups are handling the year’s events in different ways.

“Messages of ‘love is love’ are always helpful, but messages of support for … extra-marginalized parts of the queer community are becoming powerful and necessary in keeping our queer siblings safe and alive,” said Rachel Billings, vice president of the RaYnbow Collective.

The prevalence of drag, and perspective of it, has changed throughout the years. Going back to 2016, biweekly performances were held at City Limits, a bar on Center Street in Provo.

“Visibility and knowledge is extremely important. It’s kind of hard right now because there’s so much negative talk about trans people on drag performers and queer people in general,” drag performer Veronika DaVil told the Daily Herald. “People knowing we exist is very important, because I did not have that. That was not a part of my life.”

For DaVil, the journey into drag started with the television competition “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” DaVil grew up in Provo and was a high school senior in the city when they first saw the show and were “completely awestruck.” Sitting feet away from the TV screen, DaVil couldn’t stop grinning, and from there it was a multiyear path to experimenting with makeup and costuming before creating their full drag persona and starting performing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of RuPaul, America’s most well-known drag queen, is felt widely. When the show started in 2009, it brought drag everywhere through TV screens, not just the occasional in-person event.

“At the time, it wasn’t in my realm of existence, being from Provo, and I really didn’t know drag existed. I mean, I didn’t know trans people existed. I didn’t know gay people existed. Like, I genuinely thought at 13, 14 that I was the only queer person anywhere,” DaVil said.

The show was also a revelation for Jenna T., a younger performer who has experienced online targeting. While not from Utah County, Jenna has performed around the Wasatch Front — including in Provo for the RaYnbow Collective’s Back to School Pride Night at Brigham Young University in September 2022.

Initially, Jenna wasn’t aware of the specifics of the performance. They told the Daily Herald that, from their understanding, it was a college show. Before the show, a poster promoting the event circulated online and gained traction over outrage at their full performance name — the euphemism Jenna Talia — being used.

“I also didn’t know that it was all ages. I thought it was just college gigs. So normally I would change my name,” they said. One video that attracted attention online “was mainly about the show, but it quickly became direct attacks on me for my name.”

During the daylong event and as the drag performers began preparing, around 100 protestors arrived, yelling slurs at attendees. Footage of the show was then put online and circulated by right-wing media personalities including Steven Crowder and the Twitter page @LibsofTikTok.

“I was just getting attacked left and right. I would get hate messages and, you know, people telling me to kill myself, and it was really awful. And I was scared to scared to talk about it,” Jenna said. “It was really hard to go through those few weeks.”

Even though the day ended without incident, it left emotional scars on Jenna and others who performed and attended. It took weeks, Jenna said, to break out of the mental funk created by the social media attacks, but they found solace and safety in the queer community.

“Other local drag queens and just local queer people and allies, they posted about me in the show and they really helped me a lot when I couldn’t be a voice for myself because I was too scared,” Jenna said.

The RaYnbow Collective is still operating and still working to provide resources and information for queer people at BYU and in Provo. In addition to the Back to School Pride Night, the group participated in the Pride March march through Provo from the county courthouse to Memorial Park held April 29. That show also included several local drag performers.

“It’s always been our goal to make queer joy accessible,” Billings said. “So we did a drag show and there was some community pushback, but we felt like it was important and in line with our values. So we did the show.”

The response and protests, though, have not dissuaded the RaYnbow Collective from organizing community events and including drag performers. Billings told the Daily Herald the group will include drag performances during this fall’s Back to School Pride Night.

“Drag has definitely become more divisive, as it’s gotten a bigger media and political spotlight on it. People who (went) to drag shows two and three years ago don’t go now because it’s they feel divisive. But I also see a huge community of support. I think there will always be a community of support for drag performers,” Billings said. “I do hope that people can be sensible enough to know that drag queens and drag performers are not a threat.”

Around the country, members of conservative state legislatures have frequently targeted drag shows in hyper-specific and more generalized ways. In Montana, a single law signed into effect in May banned businesses from allowing minors into performances deemed “sexually oriented” while more narrowly prohibiting public libraries from hosting drag queen story hours.

In Utah, Rep. Colin Jack of St. George introduced a bill requiring public notices to be placed if an event on public property contained adult content. Introduced in the aftermath of the city’s controversy surrounding a public drag performance filmed by HBO, which also led to several members of the City Council resigning, the bill passed the House but was unable to reach the Senate floor.

In March, while the legislative session was ongoing, DaVil and Jenna T. — along with the Lehi-named Sally Cone Slopes — responded to a casting call, of sorts, by musician Chappell Roan. On her tour, Roan sought out local drag queens as opening acts, rather than traveling with an opener. In addition to providing a platform, Roan set out a tip jar specifically for the queens that included Venmo handles and other ways to pay and recognize the local queer community.

“Queer people have been dealing with this forever and we’ve always prevailed. We will make it through this and we have each other’s backs,” Roan said. “As an artist, as someone who benefits from the queer community, I think it is absolutely my responsibility to give back to that community.”

A Missouri native, Roan watched during the tour as her home state considered laws banning drag shows and other restrictions on public property. That’s why, she said, portions of ticket sales for her tour went directly to charities focused on helping Black transgender people. It also informed her decision to highlight drag as an artistic vehicle and support queer artists, particularly in conservative states considering such laws.

“I don’t think anything I say to (people opposed to drag) is gonna do anything, to be honest. I think that is an internal thing; they need to look inside and think about, like, ‘Why do I feel this way? Why am I acting this way? Really, why?’ There’s nothing I could say that’s right to them, because I understand them,” Roan said. “I’m from the church, I am from the Christian community, the white community, the small-town community, conservative, Republican — I understand them. … The only thing I can encourage is to look inside you and ask yourself, ‘Why do you feel this way and how would you feel if it was done to you?”

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