DENVER – After posting farewell notes to her Instagram and Facebook pages, Kayleigh Scott, a popular United Airlines flight attendant was discovered deceased in her Denver apartment by responding police units alerted by her followers alarmed by her posts.

A spokesperson for the Denver Police Department said that an investigation is ongoing and that the final determination of cause of death will be made by the Denver Medical Examiner’s office.

Scott who had been prominently featured in a video diversity campaign on Trans Day of Visibility in 2020 by United, wrote in her posts:

“As I take my final breaths and exit this living earth, I would like to apologize to everyone I let down. I am so sorry I could not be better. To those that I love, I am sorry I could not be stronger. To those that gave me their everything, I am sorry my effort was not reciprocated. Please understand that me leaving is not a reflection of you, but the result of my own inability to turn myself for the better. To Ashley, Cynthia, Regine & Sophia. I am so sorry. Please remember me for the good memories we have shared, and never for my downfall. I will see you all again on the other side. Brianna, I’m coming.”

In previous posts Scott acknowledged battling depression and this past December, she posted: “2022 has been a year packed with upset and difficulty. I saw too much death & loss in my life, I came to realize I work a meaningless job for a company that doesn’t value me as an employee, I had my heart destroyed, I lost my nice little home and had to downsize significantly and start over. I’m really struggling to find happiness and hope. I’m begging 2023 to be better to me. Please.”

In a Facebook post her mother, Arizona resident Andrea Sylvestro wrote:

Kayleigh Scott…I am so unbelievably proud to have you as my daughter, proud and amazed by everything that you have done in your life, your smile was absolutely beautiful, your laughter was unbelievably contagious, your heart was bigger than any of us could have ever understood.

“We are all prone to think that there is something wrong with the mental thought processes of those who disagree with us. It is up to us to rough hew them as you will” . “ I am who I am and I’ll always be who I am, someday the world will catch up to me “ .

I miss you so much already, everything that you have been through, every morning you woke up and looked in that mirror, I hope you saw what we all saw.. a beautiful, eloquent, compassionate, courageous beautiful soul!

I love you so so much!!!

Fly high my beautiful daughter, I will not let a day go by that I don’t honor your name and everything you stood for.

Go climb those mountains, live free and let the wind take you away…all my love my beautiful girl!

Love your Mumma

United — Kayleigh’s story:

By Paulo Murillo | WEST HOLLYWOOD – When disaster strikes, will you know what to do? The City of West Hollywood is getting the word out that the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team (“CERT”) is presenting disaster preparedness CERT Training.

There will be three free full-day workshops on Saturdays, April 15, 22, and 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center in the San Vicente / La Cienega Room located at 8750 El Tovar Place.

Space is limited and expected to fill quickly. Participants must register in advance and attend all three sessions to receive a certificate of completion. To register for CERT Training, please visit the LA County Fire Department CERT training website.

Following a disaster, police, fire, and medical professionals may not be able to meet the immediate demand for emergency medical attention. Residents and neighbors may need to rely upon one another to help with immediate life-saving needs. CERT Training was developed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide basic fire safety and life-saving skills.

CERT Training participants will learn valuable survival skills, including disaster preparedness, terrorism, disaster fire suppression, disaster psychology, disaster medical operations, light search and rescue, team organization, and drill simulation, which can be vital in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster.

CERT program is a nationally supported, locally implemented initiative that teaches people how to better prepare themselves for hazards that may affect their communities. Since 1993, CERT trains the public in basic disaster response skills such as team organization, disaster medical operations, fire safety, and light search and rescue. The ability for CERT volunteers to perform these activities frees up professional responders to focus their efforts on more complex, essential, and critical tasks.

For more information, please contact Jessica Anukam, the City of West Hollywood’s Public Safety Specialist, at (323) 848-6436 or at [email protected]

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Paulo Murillo is Editor in Chief and Publisher of WEHO TIMES. He brings over 20 years of experience as a columnist, reporter, and photo journalist.

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The preceding article was previously published by WeHo Times and is republished with permission. 

LITTLE ROCK – Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law Tuesday a measure that prohibits trans Arkansans from using a bathroom matching their gender identity in the state’s K-12 public school facilities.

The language of the law requires schools to provide reasonable accommodations for trans students and others, that includes single-person restrooms and changing areas. Schools that violate the law can face fines of at least $1,000, and parents can also file lawsuits to enforce the measure.

“The governor has said she will sign laws that focus on protecting and educating our kids, not indoctrinating them and believes our schools are no place for the radical left’s woke agenda. Arkansas isn’t going to rewrite the rules of biology just to please a handful of far-left advocates,” Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Sanders told multiple media outlets.

Arkansas governor signs school bathroom bill into law https://t.co/vXGbgOGocP

— 4029news (@4029news) March 22, 2023

MELBOURNE, Australia – In response to this past weekend’s Neo-Nazi demonstration attacking trans Australians in a show of support for British Gender Critical (Terf) Kellie-Jay Keen also known as Posie Parker, who is currently touring the country, the Victorian government raised the trans flag over its offices.

In social media posts, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that his government was raising the flag, designed and created in 1999 by American U.S. Navy veteran Monica Helms, in a show of support of transgender citizens.

“There’s a new flag flying outside the offices of the Victorian Government. Because we’ll always respect you. And we’ll always have your back,” the Victorian Premier tweeted.

There’s a new flag flying outside the offices of the Victorian Government.

Because we’ll always respect you.

And we’ll always have your back. pic.twitter.com/Mw6hOuq10b

— Dan Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) March 21, 2023

During Saturday’s demonstration, the Neo-Nazi protestors kept throwing up the stiff-arm Nazi salute shouting Nazi slogans. Last year the Victorian government had banned the Nazi swastika, with those who defied the ban facing jail terms and hefty fines, the salute however, is not covered under the law. The group also shouted homophobic and transphobic epithets and other terms denigrating the pro-trans activists as well as carried signs that read “Destroy Paedo Freaks.”

A spokesperson for the government told the Blade that officials are now calling for a ban of the salute, also quoting a Federal Labour MP, Josh Burns who said: “It makes no sense that it’s now illegal to display a Nazi symbol in Victoria, which is fundamentally a good thing, but you are allowed to do what happened yesterday which is and saluting neo-Nazi ideology.” 

In a phone call with the Blade, Victoria Police said that the counter demonstration by trans supporters out numbered the Neo-Nazis in a 2 to 1 ratio. The spokesperson also told the Blade that while Keen-Parker was present, she was apparently not connected to the Neo-Nazis and instead was arguing with trans supporters in the opposition crowd.

At a later gathering in Hobart, capital of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, Keen-Parker was chased off by trans supporters as a planned gender critical Let Women Speak Australia rally she held was met with angry counter protest.

“Let Women Speak Australia” in Hobart:

WASHINGTON — The State Department’s annual human rights report that was released on Monday details the prevalence of so-called conversion therapy and the treatment of intersex people around the world.

The report notes LGBTQ+ and intersex rights groups in Kenya have “reported an increase in so-called conversion therapy and ‘corrective rape’ practices, including forced marriages, exorcisms, physical violence, psychological violence, or detainment.” The report cites the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights that said “infants and children born with physical sex characteristics that did not align with either a typical male or female body were subjected to harmful medical practices for years in attempt to ‘normalize’ them.” 

A landmark law that extended legal protections to intersex Kenyans took effect last July.

The report notes “many reports of conversion attempts conducted or recommended by evangelical and Catholic churches” in Brazil, even though the country has banned conversion therapy. It also cites the case of Magomed Askhabov, a man from the Russian republic of Dagestan who “demanded a criminal case be opened” against a rehabilitation center in the city of Khasavyurt in which he and other residents “were physically abused and subjected to forced prayer as part of their ‘treatment’ for homosexuality.”

“There were reports police conducted involuntary physical exams of transgender or intersex persons,” notes the report. “The Association of Russian-speaking Intersex reported that medical specialists often pressured intersex persons (or their parents if they were underage) into having so-called normalization surgery without providing accurate information about the procedure or what being intersex meant.”

The report notes Afghan culture “insists on compulsory heterosexuality, which forced LGBTQI+ individuals to acquiesce to life-altering decisions made by family members or society.” The report also refers to LGBTQ+ and intersex activists in the Philippines who criticized former President Rodrigo Duterte after he “mockingly” endorsed conversion therapy and joked he had “cured” himself of homosexuality.

The report indicates “social, cultural and religious intolerance” in Kiribati “led to recurrent attempts to ‘convert’ LGBTQI+ individuals informally through family, religious, medical, educational, or other community pressures.”

Hungarian law “prohibits Transgender or intersex individuals from changing their assigned sex/gender at birth on legal and identification documents and there is therefore no mechanism for legal gender recognition.” The report also cites statistics from the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ+ and intersex rights group, that indicate one out of 10 LGBTQ+ and intersex Hungarians have “gone through some form of ‘conversion therapy.'”

The report notes then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government in April 2022 announced plans to ban conversion therapy based on sexual orientation in England and Wales. Activists sharply criticized the exclusion of Transgender people from the proposal, and the British government later cancelled an LGBTQ+ and intersex rights conference after advocacy groups announced a boycott.

‘Human rights are universal’

Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year. 

President Joe Biden last June signed a sweeping LGBTQ+ and intersex rights executive order. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the beginning of this year’s report notes the mandate directed the State Department to “specifically include enhanced reporting on so-called conversion ‘therapy’ practices, which are forced or involuntary efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, as well as additional reporting on the performance of unnecessary surgeries on intersex persons.” 

“Human rights are universal,” Blinken told reporters on Monday as he discussed the report. “They aren’t defined by any one country, philosophy, or region. They apply to everyone, everywhere.”

The Biden-Harris administration in 2021 released a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad.

The State Department released the report hours before U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield hosted a meeting at the United Nations that focused on the integration of LGBTQ+ and intersex rights into the U.N. Security Council’s work.

Lawmakers in Uganda on Tuesday approved a bill that would further criminalize LGBTQ+ and intersex people in the country. Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in dozens of other countries around the world.

Activists in Ukraine with whom the Washington Blade has spoken since Russia launched its war against the country in February 2022 have said LGBTQ+ and intersex people who lived in Russia-controlled areas feared Russian soldiers would target them because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The report’s release also coincides with Republican efforts to curtail LGBTQ+ rights in states across the U.S.

The report notes LGBTQ+ and intersex rights advances around the world in 2022.

Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis and Singapore decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations last year. 

The report notes Chile’s marriage equality law took effect on March 10, 2022, but lists violence against LGBTQ+ and intersex people as one of the “significant human rights issues” in the country. Switzerland, Slovenia and Cuba also extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in 2022.

The report cites the case of Brenda Díaz, a Trans Cuban woman with HIV who is serving a 14-year prison sentence because she participated in an anti-government protest in July 2021. The report also notes several LGBTQ+ and intersex journalists — including Nelson Álvarez Mairata and Jancel Moreno — left the country because of government harassment and threats. 

The Cuban government also blocked the websites of Tremenda Nota, the Blade’s media partner on the island, and other independent news outlets. 

The full report can be found here:

JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced Monday that he has ordered implementation of a set of emergency rules that severely places restrictions on how healthcare providers in the state render gender-affirming care to minors.

In a statement released by his office Bailey wrote: “[my] office is issuing an emergency regulation clarifying that, because gender transition interventions are experimental, they are covered by existing Missouri law governing unfair, deceptive, and unconscionable business practices, including in administering healthcare services. The regulation is necessary due to the skyrocketing number of gender transition interventions, despite rising concerns in the medical community that these procedures are experimental and lack clinical evidence of safety or success.

“As Attorney General, I will protect children and enforce the laws as written, which includes upholding state law on experimental gender transition interventions. Even Europe recognizes that mutilating children for the sake of a woke, leftist agenda has irreversible consequences, and countries like Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom have all sharply curtailed these procedures. I am dedicated to using every legal tool at my disposal to stand in the gap and protect children from being subject to inhumane science experiments.”

PROMO Missouri, an LGBTQ public policy and advocacy group, said in a statement that the attorney general “does not have the right to politicize healthcare nor use transgender bodies as political pawns.”

PROMO also noted that gender-affirming care is not experimental, as the Attorney General suggested, but is a life-saving form of healthcare for trans youth.

The bodies of trans Missourians are not political pawns. @AGAndrewBailey is playing with the lives of trans kids and putting their very existence in danger with his actions. @PROMOMissouri will continue to defend trans youth and their access to vital, lifesaving healthcare. pic.twitter.com/aSSb5Zn92Q

— Robert Fischer (@_imPRessive_) March 20, 2023

St. Louis CBS News affiliate KMOV 4 reported that Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Chief Medical Officer with Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said in a statement:

“Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s transphobia is an embarrassment to the Show-Me State. The politically driven claims made in the announcement are medically false and harmful. Scientific evidence shows — and the medical community agrees — that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, and life-saving.

“Bailey’s lack of medical expertise shows. His personal moral panic is inappropriately and unlawfully setting harmful policies that will hurt young transgender Missourians and their families. We denounce this government interference in the practice of medicine, and we demand politicians leave health care between providers and their patients. Shame on any politician who uses trans youth for political theatrics.”

Attorney General Bailey’s emergency regulation (see list below) will last 30 legislative days or 180 days, whichever is longer.

Because gender transition interventions are experimental, the regulation clarifies that state law already prohibits performing experimental procedures in the absence of specific guardrails. For gender transition interventions, those guardrails must include at least:

• Specific informed-consent disclosures informing patients that, among other things,
  • The use of puberty blocker drugs or cross-sex hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria is experimental and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • The FDA has issued a warning that puberty blockers can lead to brain swelling and blindness
  • Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (“NBHW”) recently declared that, at least for minors, “the risks of puberty suppressing treatment with GnRH-analogues and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits”
  • One scientific study notes that an individual whose friend identifies as transgender is “more than 70 times” as likely to similarly identify as transgender, suggesting that many individuals “incorrectly believe themselves to be transgender and in need of transition” because of social factors
  • The Endocrine Society found that “the large majority (about 85%) of prepubertal children with a childhood diagnosis did not remain GD/gender incongruent in adolescence”
• Prohibiting gender transition interventions when the provider fails to,
  • ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions over the course of not fewer than 18 months to determine, among other things, whether the person has any mental health comorbidities
  • ensure that any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved
  • adopt and follow a procedure to track all adverse effects that arise from any course of covered gender transition intervention for all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years
  • obtain and keep on file informed written consent
  • ensure that the patient has received a comprehensive screening to determine whether the patient has autism
  • ensure (at least annually) that the patient is not experiencing social contagion with respect to the patient’s gender identity

MONTCLAIR, Calif. – 42-year-old Antonio Ibanez was on life support after Montclair police allegedly used batons striking him multiple times and then tased him on March 5. Ibanez, who was listed in critical condition after the beating, has died at Montclair Hospital Medical Center according to an attorney hired by Ibanez’s family.

According to a Montclair Police Department spokesperson, officers had responded to a 911 call at a mobile home park on the 4100 block of Mission Boulevard. Arriving officers were confronted by Ibanez who was allegedly threatening “the female victim caller who lived at the same location armed with an object.”

KTLA 5 reported that Ibanez’s family said that the CalTrans worker has struggled with drug addiction. He was renting a room and it was the homeowner who called the police with the intention of getting him some help after he didn’t open the door, they say.

“She called for assistance. There was no one in danger or domestic disturbance, simply a call for assistance,” said Christian Contreras, the attorney representing Ibanez’s family. “That begs the question as to, ‘Are police equipped to help people?’ They’re not; they’re equipped to brutalize people and use force.” 

“You know he’s fighting for his life,” Rosendo Rojo Jr., Tony Ibanez’s brother told KTLA. “Eight officers using a baton, a taser – it wasn’t a disturbance. It wasn’t a violent call.”

Ibanez family members and Christian Contreras, their attorney, held a news conference on March 13, 2023, to call for justice and the release of police body camera footage.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is handling the investigation into Ibanez’s arrest and resulting death.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill that would further criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations and LGBTQ+ and intersex people in the country.

The Associated Press reported nearly all Ugandan MPs voted for the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would punish the “promotion, recruitment and funding” of LGBTQ-specific activities in the country with up to 10 years in prison. 

Human Rights Watch notes “any person who ‘holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer, or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female'” would face up to 10 years in prison.

President Yoweri Museveni has said he supports the bill.

“We shall continue to fight this injustice,” tweeted Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesara, a Ugandan LGBTQ+ and intersex activist, after the bill’s passage. “This lesbian woman is Ugandan, even (though) this piece of paper will stop me from enjoying my country. (The) struggle (has) just begun.”

Anti homosexuality bill passed by @Parliament_Ug of Uganda. Organized crime in e house of our country is very unfortunate. We shall continue to fight this injustice. This lesbian woman is Ugandan even this piece of paper will stop me from enjoying my country. Struggle just begun pic.twitter.com/v3Pf0p9FPX

— Bombastic Kasha (@KashaJacqueline) March 21, 2023

Uganda is among the dozens of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

Museveni in 2014 signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The law was known as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it previously contained a death penalty provision.

The U.S. subsequently cut aid to Uganda and imposed a travel ban against officials who carried out human rights abuses. Uganda’s Constitutional Court later struck down the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act on a technicality.

“One of the most extreme features of this new bill is that it criminalizes people simply for being who they are as well as further infringing on the rights to privacy, and freedoms of expression and association that are already compromised in Uganda,” said Oryem Nyeko of Human Rights Watch in a press release that condemned the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. “Ugandan politicians should focus on passing laws that protect vulnerable minorities and affirm fundamental rights and stop targeting LGBT people for political capital.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel on Wednesday both criticized the bill.

“The Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Ugandan Parliament yesterday would undermine fundamental human rights of all Ugandans and could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” tweeted Blinken. “We urge the Ugandan government to strongly reconsider the implementation of this legislation.”

“We note with deep concern the Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Ugandan Parliament,” echoed Patel. “This bill could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS, discourage foreign investment, threaten tourism, and decrease visits of technical experts helping to advance Ugandan prosperity.”

We note with deep concern the Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Ugandan Parliament. This bill could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS, discourage foreign investment, threaten tourism, and decrease visits of technical experts helping to advance Ugandan prosperity. https://t.co/ASLHpqrcSF

— Vedant Patel (@StateDeputySpox) March 22, 2023

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in a statement described the bill’s passage as “devastating and deeply disturbing.”

“The passing of this discriminatory bill — probably among the worst of its kind in the world — is a deeply troubling development,” said Türk. “If signed into law by the president, it will render lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are. It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other.”

ATLANTA – The Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund published a statement Tuesday condemning the Republican controlled Georgia legislature’s passage of S.B. 140, a bill that will criminalize gender-affirming health care for minors.

The statement, issued by Beth Littrell, senior supervising attorney of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s LGBTQ and Special Litigation Practice Group, urges Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to veto S.B. 140, calling on him to not “give into pressure from his party” when “the health and wellbeing of young people are at risk” through the denial of “safe, effective medical treatment to transgender youth — based only on prejudice and political pandering.”

Kemp should “leave personal healthcare decisions in the capable hands of parents, children, and their doctors,” Littrell’s statement continues. “We hope the Governor will elevate himself and the State of Georgia above this cynical partisan attack on transgender youth, medical autonomy, and parental rights.”

S.B. 140 specifically prohibits “sex reassignment surgeries, or any other surgical procedures, that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics” when they are “performed on a minor for the treatment of gender dysphoria.”

“Limited exceptions” are made for the treatment of conditions other than gender dysphoria, if deemed medically necessary by the physician or healthcare practitioner, and for the treatment of patients with “a medically verifiable disorder of sex development.”

The mainstream medical societies with relevant clinical expertise have repeatedly spoken out against legislation that limits access to or criminalizes, as in the case of Georgia’s bill, guideline directed interventions for the treatment of trans and gender nonconforming youth.

On March 16, far-right GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, called for the state legislature to make the bill more restrictive.

Specifically, in a tweet she urged the lawmakers to amended S.B. 140 such that treatment of gender dysphoria minor patients with puberty blockers would be criminalized alongside the other interventions covered in the bill and also to remove the covered exceptions.

By Kate McGee | CANYON, Tx. – West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler is drawing ire for canceling a student drag show, arguing that such performances degrade women and are “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny.”

Students and First Amendment lawyers reject those assertions, calling his comments a mischaracterization of the art form. They also argue that the cancellation violates student’s constitutional rights and a state law that broadly protects free speech on college campuses, potentially setting the university up for a lawsuit.

“Not only is this a gross and abhorrent comparison of two completely different topics, but it is also an extremely distorted and incorrect definition of drag as a culture and form of performance art,” students wrote in an online petition condemning Wendler’s letter and urging him to reinstate the show.

Students plan to protest every day this week on the campus in the small West Texas city of Canyon, according to a social media post by the Open and Affirming Congregations of the Texas Panhandle.

“Drag is not dangerous or discriminatory, it is a celebration and expression of individuals,” student Signe Elder said in a statement. “Amidst the current climate of growing anti-trans and anti-drag rhetoric, we believe that it is important now more than ever to stand together and be heard.”

Elder is part of a group of students who have organized under the name Buffs for Drag to protest Wendler’s actions.

Drag shows frequently feature men dressing as women in exaggerated styles and have been a mainstay in the LGBTQ community for decades. Drag performers say their work is an expression of queer joy — and a form of constitutionally protected speech about societal gender norms.

But Wendler said drag shows “stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood” in a Monday letter that was first obtained by Amarillo news site MyHighPlains.com. Wendler said the drag show was organized to raise money for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that works to reduce suicides in the LGBTQ community. Wendler noted that it is a “noble cause” but argued the shows would be considered an act of workplace prejudice because they make fun of women.

“Forward-thinking women and men have worked together for nearly two centuries to eliminate sexism,” Wendler wrote. “Women have fought valiantly, seeking equality in the voting booth, marketplace and court of public opinion. No one should claim a right to contribute to women’s suffering via a slapstick sideshow that erodes the worth of women.”

His comments and decision to cancel the campus drag show come amid surging uproar over the lively entertainment as far-right extremist groups have recruited conservatives to protest the events, claiming that drag performances are sexualizing kids.

Republican Texas lawmakers have also homed in on the performances with a handful of bills that would regulate or restrict drag shows, including some legislation that would classify any venue that hosts a drag show as a sexually oriented business, regardless of the show’s content. On Thursday, a Senate committee will debate a scaled-back bill that would impose a $10,000 fine on business owners who host drag shows in front of children — if those performances are sexually oriented. The bill defines a sexually oriented performance as one in which someone is naked or in drag and “appeals to the prurient interest in sex.”

Rachel Hill, government affairs director for LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said drag doesn’t mock women. Instead, she said, it’s an art form that allows performers to explore their gender expression and take back power from what she said can be stifling gender norms.

“Drag has always been a way for people who don’t easily fit into the gender binary to embrace different facets of themselves,” Hill said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “Womanhood comes in all shapes and sizes and is what we make of it. That’s what makes drag so powerful.”

West Texas A&M student groups were organizing the drag show, called “A Fool’s Drag Race,” for months. The LGBTQ student group Spectrum advertised the show on its Instagram page, encouraging people to sign up to perform.

Wendler argued in his letter that the West Texas A&M drag show goes against the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s purpose, saying it’s inappropriate even if drag shows are not illegal.

A lawyer for the national campus free speech group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression rejected that argument as “nonsense.”

“The only prejudice in play here is his,” said lawyer Alex Morey, arguing that Wendler has violated state and federal law by canceling the show.

In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Morey said that performances on campus such as drag shows are protected by the First Amendment.

“By unilaterally canceling the event because he personally disapproves of the views it might express, WTAMU’s president appears to have violated both his constitutional obligations and state law,” Morey said. “It’s really surprising how open he is about knowingly violating the law, especially because government officials who violate clearly established First Amendment law will not retain qualified immunity and can be held personally liable for monetary damages.”

The students who started the petition also accused Wendler of violating university policy, which states the school can’t deny student groups any benefits “on the basis of a political, religious, philosophical, ideological, or academic viewpoint expressed by the organization or any expressive activities of the organization.”

In 2019, Texas lawmakers passed a law that required universities to allow any person to engage in free-speech activities on campuses. The law passed with broad bipartisan support.

A West Texas A&M spokesperson said Tuesday morning that Wendler did not have any further comments. The Texas A&M University System, which oversees West Texas A&M, also declined to comment.

Last year, Texas A&M University in College Station drew criticism from students when the office of student affairs announced it would no longer sponsor Draggieland, the annual drag show competition that started in 2020. Students held the performance last year after raising money through private donations. This year’s event is scheduled for April 6.

Alex Nguyen contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Equality Texas, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System and West Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Kate McGee covers higher education for The Texas Tribune. She joined the Tribune in October 2020 after nearly a decade as a reporter at public radio stations across the country, including in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Austin; Reno, Nevada; and New York. Kate was born in New York City and raised primarily in New Jersey. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University. Her work has appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Here and Now,” and “The Takeaway.”

The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished by permission.

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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. 

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