"Protect the kids" exposed as a lie after Tennessee's drag ban gets knocked down by a Trump judge

For a couple of years now, Republicans have been ramping up their increasingly unhinged attacks on LGBTQ people, usually with the same cover story: They don't hate queer people! It's just about protecting the children! This excuse has always been paper-thin, of course, and based on the risible premise that queer people, merely by existing, are "sexual" in some undefinable way that straight people are not. It's how, for instance, Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis can pass laws that presume that depicting a same-sex wedding in a book is "pornographic," but an opposite-sex wedding is just fine for kids.

The "for the children" excuse is so flimsy, in fact, that even a Donald Trump-appointed judge in Tennessee was forced to dismiss it, late Friday night. Republican Gov. Bill Lee had signed a law banning drag wherever minors could see it, on the specious grounds that drag performances are "sexualized entertainment." The law put "male or female impersonators" in the same bucket as "topless dancers," falsely implying, for instance, that a dance performance at a Pride parade or a drag queen story hour is the same thing as a lap dance at an adults-only strip club.

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U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker saw right through that false equivalence. While agreeing that "Tennessee has a compelling government interest in protecting its minor population," Parker wrote that this law is "both unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad." This law isn't about protecting minors, he wrote, so much as about "the impermissible purpose of chilling constitutionally-protected speech" and encouraging "discriminatory enforcement."

Translated into plain English: Tennessee Republicans don't care about kids. They just want an excuse to shut down Pride events, harass trans people, and arrest LGBTQ people for expressing themselves. That's why Lee shrugged it off when photos of him dressed in drag for a high school performance surfaced. To Republicans, a straight man in a dress is just a laugh, but a gay man in a dress is "pornography." It's an excuse to classify LGBTQ people as inherently predatory and dangerous. It's why the vicious slur "groomer" has become ubiquitous on the right, aimed at any queer person who is out of the closet.

Tennessee Republicans don't care about kids. They just want an excuse to shut down Pride events, harass trans people, and arrest LGBTQ people for expressing themselves.

The decision is well-timed, and not just to save the various Pride events that many feared would have to be canceled in Tennessee this month. Increasingly, conservatives are abandoning the pretense that the escalating attacks on LGBTQ people are about "the children." Instead, they've become more open about their true intent: restoring a social order where only cis straight people are "normal" and everyone else is deemed a pervert who is not fit to move about freely in society.

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That much was evident in the most recent right-wing tantrum over Target stocking Pride merchandise. Sure, there was a half-baked effort to find some kid angle, by spreading lies about the company marketing "tuck-friendly" bathing suits to children. But revealingly the right-wing outrage persisted despite many debunkings of this lie, showing the conspiracy theory was a mere pretext. Target's management certainly understood this, as the company took down all manner of Pride merchandise, which they wouldn't need to do if it was all a misunderstanding about a product that doesn't exist.

To Republicans, a straight man in a dress is just a laugh, but a gay man in a dress is "pornography."

This follows an even more shameless right-wing hysteria over Bud Light offering a minor endorsement deal to online trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It's basically impossible to pretend there's something about "sexualizing" minors in a fully-dressed woman talking up a product that minors are legally banned from purchasing. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tried, of course, with a ridiculous letter screeching about "underage" beer drinkers, even though Mulvaney is 26 years old. But mostly it was people like right-wing trash musician Kid Rock and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw unabashedly acting like Bud Light has cooties now because they saw a photo of a trans woman touching a Bud Light can.

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The Proud Boys were instrumental in ratcheting up anti-LGBTQ harassment under the guise of "protecting" children, mostly by targeting family-friendly drag shows and Pride events, with false claims that they were sexually explicit. As Business Insider reports, however, that thin pretext has dissolved. On Telegram channels, Proud Boys have been planning attacks on Pride events by joking that "'LGBTQ' stands for 'Let's Go Bully The Queers,'" and how they want to get a rise out of the "Fag community." One member said he wants to "challenge this perversion of the Nuclear Family and Gender." Repeatedly, Proud Boys discussed "taking back June," tying their anger over Pride to anger over Juneteenth, a new federal holiday to celebrate the end of slavery.

In Montana, the harassment of state legislator Zooey Zephyr also illustrates how little Republicans believe their own lies about "protecting children." As soon as Zephyr, who is trans, was elected, the GOP state house speaker Matt Regier started hounding her. As Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times wrote, he made clear "a lock would be installed on the main door to the multistall women's bathroom to avoid the possibility of anyone having to share it with Zephyr." He then seized on a speech Zephyr gave, with faux outrage over her supposed tone. Regier ultimately had Zephyr banned from the House floor. Soon a group of Republican women started to show up early to sit on the single bench Zephyr had access to, in order to bully her some more.

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What's noteworthy is that Republicans didn't even bother with tortured arguments trying to make all this childish harassment of Zephyr about "the children." As with the Bud Light tantrum, it's now unapologetic, naked hatred.

Also in Montana, a ban on drag was used to shut down an academic talk by a woman who is absolutely not a drag performer. Adria Jawort, a trans and Indigenous activist, had been scheduled to offer a history lecture.

No one believes that there are children lining up for a boring academic talk at a public library. It just shows how silly — and hateful — all this "groomer" talk really is. All the behavior they deem as "sexualizing" when queer people do it is seen as perfectly fine for straight people: using the bathroom, dancing at a party, teaching history and getting married. Or even, in the case of Tennesse's Gov. Lee, cross-dressing. It's all "innocent" when straight people do it, and "grooming" with LGBTQ people do it, a double standard that's so obvious that it feels stupefying to even point it out.

Still, it matters to have a judge point out the obvious, especially in an era where conservative judges are often all too eager to flagrantly endorse bad faith arguments. Absolutely no one believes the "protecting kids" lie — not even a Trump judge. It's a wonder why Republicans bother to pretend to care about kids at all.

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