A drag artist performs on the stage at Phoenix Pride Festival 2011. Photo by Devon Christopher Adams (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0
A northern Arizona city is considering whether to bar children from attending drag shows — including family friendly ones — and it could face a lawsuit for doing so.
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona sent a letter to Cottonwood City Attorney John Austin Gaylord warning him and the city council that restricting who can attend drag performances would violate multiple constitutional protections. ACLU attorney Lauren Beall said the organization is willing to take the city to court if it succeeds in passing a blanket ban on minors going to drag shows.
“Let us be clear: we are fully prepared to take emergency legal action if the Council should choose to enact such a ban,” she wrote. “While we respect opponents’ rights to be heard and to engage in public debate, we hope this letter will illuminate the breadth of the mistake the City Council is contemplating.”
What happened?
Earlier this month, city council members agreed to debate whether to limit the age of drag show attendees at a future meeting. It’s unclear when that discussion could take place; it wasn’t included on the agenda for the council’s March 18 meeting. Councilwoman Joy Mosley, who made the motion to have the discussion, suggested that only people 18 and older should be allowed to go to drag shows.
The renewed interest in regulating drag shows in the rural city comes as the Arizona Pride Tour, an annual event featuring drag artists, is set to visit Cottonwood on March 22. The ACLU of Arizona is representing Miss Nature LLC, the nonprofit that runs the Arizona Pride Tour and is headed by Tucsonan Chris Hall, who performs as drag queen Miss Nature.
Hall, who grew up in a rural area, established the tour, in part, to provide positive visibility for LGBTQ youth who might be experiencing hostility in their communities.
This isn’t the first time city officials have lashed out against the tour. In 2023, the council narrowly defeated a similar move after the ACLU threatened to launch a legal challenge, voting instead to revoke an already approved liquor license from the business hosting the show, which organizers criticized as discriminatory.
Concerns about the possibility of legal repercussions were raised at the council meeting that approved next week’s discussion. Councilwoman Debbie Wilden, who voted against having the debate, said the issue was “iffy” and that she was unsure about the council’s “legal obligations.” Chairwoman Ann Shaw responded that it would be addressed when the policy is discussed.
What are critics saying?
Some of the violations the city could be accused of include infringing on free speech rights and discriminating against a protected class of citizens, according to the ACLU. Beall wrote that the ordinance, if passed, would represent an unconstitutional “prior restraint on speech.” The Supreme Court has long held that a government restricting the exercise of free speech before it occurs, and before any purportedly unlawful acts take place, is illegal.
Beall added that the personal opinions of city councilmembers shouldn’t be used to restrict who can attend the Arizona Pride Tour.
“‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society’—or, in this case, one segment of the local community— ‘finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,’” she wrote, referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1989 Texas v. Johnson case, which concluded that flag burning is protected speech.
And while the courts have ruled that some materials or performances, especially sexually explicit ones, can be regulated in the interest of protecting children, the Arizona Pride Tour doesn’t fall into that category. Organizers have put in place several precautions, and separated shows by family-friendly and adult-rated content, which don’t allow minors.
The Cottonwood stop is family-friendly. Children who attend shows must be accompanied by an adult, IDs will be checked at the door at every show and performers are contractually prohibited from using innuendo or songs with adult lyrics during family-friendly shows.
Beall said that while opponents have sought to characterize all drag as sexually explicit, the reality is that the performances vary, and the common thread between all of them is a commentary on gender. The legal definition of “prurient” speech, which is used to keep minors away from sexually explicit material, excludes materials which have artistic, literary or political value.
“Drag is not inherently sexual or prurient,” Beall wrote. “Drag performances can be all-ages or adults-only, just like dance performances can range from ballet for all ages to nude dancing for adults.”
Preemptively restricting who can attend the Arizona Pride Tour’s event might also constitute discrimination against LGBTQ people, according to the ACLU. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 found that discriminating against Americans based on their sexual orientation or gender identity is unconstitutional.
And while Beall acknowledged that not all drag performers identify as LGBTQ, drag has long been an important part of the community and has been critical for advancing the political struggle for LGBTQ rights. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the two trans women who led the Stonewall riots that first kicked off the LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S., were drag queens.
Some LGBTQ minors also find belonging and acceptance in the events put on by the Arizona Pride Tour. Beall shared a message sent to Miss Nature LLC expressing gratitude by a young Arizonan who attended one of the drag shows.
“They said ‘thank you,’ noted that they had been bullied for their sexuality, and said: ‘seeing that you are . . . finally able to express yourself and your art is extremely inspiring . . . you’re helping a lot of us young adults in this town have a voice,” Beall wrote.
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