Lee’s press secretary, Jade Cooper Byers, told NBC News in an email to say that “any attempt to conflate this serious issue with lighthearted school traditions is dishonest and disrespectful to Tennessee families.”
The “serious issue” Byers is talking about is the state’s bill, HB 9, which would ban “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” from performing in public spaces or in front of minors.
Lee has a little over a week to sign the bill and has said he plans to. But even if he vetoes it, the Republican-controlled legislature can, and likely would, override his actions to enact the bill into law as soon as April 1. Those who violate the law would first be charged with a misdemeanor, and subsequent violations could land individuals with up to six years in prison for felony charges.
While Lee’s teenage cheerleader drag would not necessarily be defined as “prurient” or be criminalized under the drag ban, advocates say that language of the bill is intentionally fuzzy.
“Some people and legislators in our state, some of them think that any drag or anyone dressed up in what they feel is not an appropriate gender role is obscene and is harmful to minors,” Kathy Sinback, the executive director of the ACLU in Tennessee, told BuzzFeed News last week. “Even just your run-of-the-mill, joyful drag, even just glamorous drag performance.”
The original photo was shared on Reddit less than a week after Tennessee’s legislature passed two bills targeting the trans community. In addition to the ban on drag, lawmakers approved a bill to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for minors, which would make Tennessee the fourth state to enact such a ban this year, after Utah, South Dakota, and, as of Tuesday morning, Mississippi.
This is not the first time images of Lee’s past have resurfaced and made national headlines. Four years ago, a photo of the governor dressed in a Confederate uniform from his 1980 Auburn University yearbook circulated.
Lee apologized for his participation in an “Old South”–themed party. “While I never intentionally acted in an insensitive way, with 40 years of hindsight, I have come to realize that was insensitive and have come to regret that,” he told NBC News at the time.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lilkalish/tennessee-dresses-in-drag-photo-drag-ban
