Texas Republicans Push ‘Bounty Hunting Bill’ Targeting Drag Queens

A Republican state lawmaker in Texas has gone to extreme lengths to stop children from seeing drag performers, and his new legislation would allow people to sue if a child sees a drag performer ANYWHERE in the state. This could apply to almost anyone with a non-uniform gender identity in public, depending on the situation, and would virtually outlaw any Pride events. Republicans are desperate to make drag performers illegal, and they are getting closer and closer to doing that altogether, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A Republican state legislator in Texas has introduced legislation kind of modeled after Texas's abortion Bounty Hunter Bill, and this one would effectively create bounty hunters for drag performances. This is from Republican State representative Steve Toth. The bill is House Bill 43 78, and it says, quote, an individual who attends a drag performance as a minor may bring an action against a person who knowingly promotes, conducts or participates as a performer in the drag performance that occurs before an audience that includes the minor. So if you average everyday citizen, go to see a drag show in Texas, and you look over and you see a kid, you who, that's not even your kid, you can now sue the venue. You can sue the performer, you can sue the people who printed up the posters. You can sue the marketing department that put out Facebook ads telling people to go to this drag performance.

You can sue everyone involved because there was a kid that didn't even belong to you in that audience. And not just you, the person standing next to you in front of you, behind you, you can all sue and um, you can, uh, uh, there's a statute of limitations of 10 years in this bill. So it doesn't even have to be something today. You could go today, then you could sue nine years later and probably still win. Uh, a winning plaintiff can expect to be paid actual damages, attorney's fees, and statutory damages of $5,000. So here's what this does. This essentially criminalizes drag in almost every way, shape or form. If a person in drag gets up and sings karaoke and a child happens to see it, everybody can now sue that drag performer. If a drag performer is walking in the street as part of, let's say a pride parade, well there's gonna be kids that see that they can now, everybody watching that parade can now sue this, will effectively shut down any and all pride events folks, and that, of course, is what Texas wants. There's also, as far as I can tell, nothing in the bill that by the way, the parents of the child cannot be penalized. So what's to stop an angry idiot Rightwinger from taking their kid to a drag performance and then suing like, oh no, there's a kid here. Oh my God, I'm gonna sue everybody and get my $5,000. I'm gonna bring all my redneck friends into. They're gonna be like, oh

No a kid. We're all gonna get $5,000. We'll be rich by the end of the year. There's nothing to stop that in this legislation as far as I can tell. This is insanity. They are pushing this and pushing this and pushing this to the point where pretty soon dressing in drag in general is going to be a capital offense here in the United States. The escalation that we are seeing with the attacks on drag performers with the attacks on the L G B T Q community, this escalation is absolutely terrifying. And if you're not terrified by this, then you're not paying attention. Republicans wanna make this lifestyle illegal and they will stop at nothing until they get their way.