A federal judge in Texas has struck down the state’s drag show ban for a second time, siding with a Dolly Parton-esque drag performer and repeatedly citing Parton herself in his ruling on the day the country diva passed away.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner’s main issue with the 2023 law, championed by Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton — the Trump-backed GOP nominee for U.S. Senate this fall and the defendant in the lawsuit — was what he called its vagueness.
The law targeted “sexually oriented” nudity in performances, which the plaintiffs, including Austin-based drag queen Brigitte Bandit, contended meant “that celebrity singers like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, or Dolly Parton could be accused of being ‘nude’ for wearing low-cut tops that show cleavage,” the judge wrote in Tuesday’s 34-page order, which includes a footnote studiously confirming that “‘Brigitte Bandit’ is a pseudonym.”
Hittner, a Reagan appointee, later invoked Parton’s name again, this time alongside her goddaughter Miley Cyrus: “Just as many people criticized Elvis’s signature hip gyrations and were offended by his display of male sexuality, chastised Dolly Parton as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure, and shamed Miley Cyrus for ‘twerking’ on stage during a live performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, there are ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties” under the law.
Finally, Hittner wrote that impersonators as a whole, not just drag performers, would be subject to the law. “A Dolly Parton impersonator who uses a breast plate while dancing and making gestures or an Elvis impersonator who uses a packer while shaking and shimmying their hips” could trigger liability under the law “while still being constitutionally protected performances,” Hittner wrote.
Bandit, who frequently performs in her own drag persona with wigs that rival Parton’s famous blonde bouffants, is known for using drag as a form of political protest — including wearing a dress featuring the names of the Uvalde school shooting victims when she testified before a Texas Senate committee.
After Bandit went to the Texas Legislature in full drag and read Parton’s children’s book, the singer sent the drag queen a signed, personalized sequined guitar, saying she had been moved.
“I wanted Brigitte to know that she is not screaming into the void and that we see her work,” Parton said through her Parton Productions.
The other two plaintiffs were Extragrams LLC and 360 Queen Entertainment LLC, which produce drag shows and performances. They both celebrated the win and called out Paxton specifically.
“It’s no secret that Ken Paxton is having a horrible year, and we just made it worse,” said 360 Queen Entertainment, with Extragrams simply telling him to “get a damn life.”
A message that MS NOW left with Paxton’s office Wednesday seeking comment was not immediately returned.
The attorney general’s office could appeal Hittner’s ruling, as it did when he previously issued a permanent injunction barring the state from enforcing it. In February, two judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted that injunction and ordered Hittner to reconsider some of the case’s central arguments.
In this week’s order, just before declaring the law “an unconstitutional restriction on free speech,” Hittner offered some advice to the law’s proponents: “For those who find such activities as described in this case offensive, the solution is relatively simple … just don’t go.”
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