Republicans “Protect” Kids From Drag Shows After Uvalde Shooting 

In light of the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, according to ABC News the shooting resulted in the death of 19 children and two teachers. Texas lawmakers have since ignored the urgency for gun control, but instead, have made efforts to ban children from going to drag shows. This effort came after a bar in Texas decided to hold a daytime, family friendly brunch that involved drag queens dancing along with their kids and parents. This has made it abundantly clear, that yes, Republicans are more concerned with preventing Pride than they are with preventing mass shootings which is extremely wrong.  

Republicans, who have always heavily integrated their traditional and religious values into their political decisions, have yet again allowed their conservative views to make them lose focus on what actual changes need to be made in this country. Right now, more than ever, we need to protect children from guns, not from queer people.  

Bryan Slaton, a State Representative from Texas, stated that the law was necessary to protect children from “perverted adults.” According to NBC News, you can see from the kind of language used by Representative Slaton: words like “perverted,” and “inappropriate,” when describing the situation. Not only do Republicans lack the respect for the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, but most of them hold a distaste for this group of people, along with any other kind of group that does not fit their agenda.  

Personally, the decision to try and ban kids from drag shows hurts deeply to me as a young queer person, and I’m sure to a lot of other queer people as well. Drag is an art form, and it is supposed to be a safe space where people can openly express their gender and sexuality in a safe environment away from people in society who abide by the heterosexual matrix. Children should not be taught that it is a harmful environment full of “perverted adults.” This is a harmful narrative that has been put on LGBTQ+ people for far too long.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a far-right Republican with a history of homophobia, wrote that, “there should be no federal funding for any school that intentionally confuses children’s gender and sexuality,” when making comments about the drag show, as shown on NBC News.

Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, also a Republican, wrote, “take your children to church, not drag bars.” Which proves my point that Republican legislators continue to use their religious values as a means to insert homophobia into laws. First, the ‘don’t say gay,’ bill, which will restrict the discussion of gender and sexuality in Florida classrooms, and now this.

The far right wants to target the education of children by trying to get topics about LGBTQ+ people out of educational intuitions instead of getting guns out of schools. They are not only trying to erase the history of queer people by presenting a false history to children in which we ceased to exist but doing this behind the pretense of “protecting children.” Republicans’ way of protecting children is trying to erase a whole group of people, instead of creating laws that ban the purchasing of assault rifles which mass shooters use to kill children in school again and again.  

Republicans have and will continue to do their best to paint a picture of queer people in a negative light by miscatorgrizing them as child abusers. The attack on the LGBTQ+ community by Republicans have gone on for far too long, and now they are prioritizing it over the lives that we’re lost in the Uvalde mass shooting.   

Texas lawmakers have been extremely quick to respond to children attending drag shows in comparison to their response to the Uvalde mass shooting. The drag show took place between the 4th and the 5^th of June. It took Bryan Slaton until that Monday, June 6, to announce he’s going to move forward with banning children from drag shows. This was his priority; this is the priority of Republicans: trying to further marginalize queer people because their existence simply doesn’t fit in with Republicans religious and traditional values.  

So far, according to the Washington Post 2022 has seen over 250 mass shootings in the United States. Texas has seen the most school shootings in the United States since 2012 US News statistics say.

It’s time that traditions change. Republicans need to offer more than ‘thoughts and prayers,’ as a response to mass shootings. Those children in Uvalde, who had their lives so cruelly taken from them, are the result of Republicans’ failure to action. If Republican legislators truly cared about the lives of children the way they claim to, there needs to be a change in this country. There needs to be gun control now that includes sensible gun laws that reduce easy access to dangerous weapons, insisting on mandatory training for gun owners, and reduce firearm access to youth and individuals who are at risk at hurting themselves and others.