RuPaul Speaks on Proposed Bill To Ban Children From Drag Shows: ‘Take Away Them Guns, That Will Help Your Kids’

Republican lawmakers in Florida, Arizona, and Texas, among others, are attempting to prohibit children from attending drag shows — a community with a long legacy of child-friendly events celebrating self-expression and creativity. 

In a recent appearance on The Late Late Show with James Cordon, Emmy Award-winner RuPaul had to tell legislators about themselves, concerning their proposed drag ban in the wake of the horrifying mass shootings that have torn the nation apart around the gun reform debate. 

“This is a diversion tactic to take the narrative away from the gun debate into something to scare people into thinking about something else and they’ve been successful,” said the entertainment personality. “They have changed the narrative away from the gun debate into this drag queen thing. It’s like y’all want to help your kids? Take away them guns, that will help your kids. Drag queens ain’t hurting nobody.”

He continued by quoting one of his famous lines, “You know, you’re born naked and the rest in drag. Everybody’s in drag, OK?”

On June 6, just two weeks after the Uvalde school shooting, Texas Rep. Bryan Slaton took to Twitter to announce his proposal after a video of the Drag the Kids to Pride Drag Show went viral and somehow landed on his feed.

Drag Queen dances for children in Dallas, Texas. pic.twitter.com/uqoFWZMFAT

— Isabella Riley Moody (@isabellarileyus) June 4, 2022

“Drag shows are no place for a child,” read the representative’s tweet, alongside a formal statement of the proposed legislation. “I would never take my children to a drag show and I know Speaker Dade Phelan and my Republican colleagues wouldn’t either. I will be filing legislation to address this issue in the new #txlege.”

https://twitter.com/BryanforHD2/status/1533820586048241669?s=20&t=4onuMEfGqvn08l1paeQsBw

More and more hate crime attacks have plagued the LGBTQ+ community following Slaton’s announcement amid Pride Month. 

On June 11, five members of the far-right white supremacist group Proud Boys attacked a “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the San Lorenzo Public Library in California. 

That same day, 31 members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested close by to a Pride Month celebration in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho — in what looked like a planned terror attack — resulting in death threats to police.