On August 4, the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals handed Florida a win it had been chasing for three years. In an 8-5 ruling, the court threw out the injunction that had been blocking the state's 2023 "Protection of Children Act" — the law critics call a drag ban.
Judge Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee, wrote for the majority that the law is "a straight forward regulation of obscenity."
The judges who dissented called it exactly what its sponsors said it was when they passed it: a law targeting drag.
Gov. Ron DeSantis posted that the whole thing shouldn't have been controversial. Attorney General James Uthmeier called it a huge victory.
The restaurant that sued — Hamburger Mary's, an Orlando burger joint known for family drag brunches where queens performed Disney songs — says the fight isn't over.
The Republican Party's own patron saint spent part of World War II working on a show packed with men in dresses, and nobody at the time thought it was a threat to anyone's children.
"This Is the Army," 1943
In 1943, Warner Bros. released This Is the Army, made by special arrangement with the War Department to raise money for Army Emergency Relief.
The cast was hundreds of actual soldiers. The songs were Irving Berlin's. The leading man was Lt. Ronald Reagan, who was ordered back to Hollywood specifically to appear in it.
The film is a variety show, and a big chunk of that variety is drag. Soldiers in wigs and gowns. A "pony ballet" of GIs in tutus and combat boots.
Four separate drag numbers, including impressions of Broadway actresses of the day. Reagan plays the guy staging the show. He introduces it. He's the connective tissue holding the whole revue together.
This wasn't fringe. It was the highest-grossing film of 1943. The stage version played for over 2.5 million troops and civilians, and the National WWII Museum notes that a special performance was staged for President Roosevelt, who reportedly enjoyed a soldier's striptease impression of Gypsy Rose Lee.
1942 Universal Newsreel showing WW2 soldiers of Fort Slocum in a "Girlie Show" - an all singing, dancing, and cross-dressing version of “Swing Fever
Families brought kids. The movie raised roughly $10 million for soldiers and their families. Also in the cast: George Murphy, who later became a Republican U.S. senator from California.
Two future GOP officeholders, one Army-produced drag revue, zero moral panics.
One Correction, Because Accuracy Matters
You've probably seen the photo — three glamorous figures in makeup and gowns, captioned as Reagan in drag.
Snopes checked it, and it isn't him. It's a real photograph of real WWII soldiers performing in This Is the Army, sourced to the National Archives, but Reagan isn't one of them.
The actual story is better anyway, and it doesn't require a misattributed meme: the future conservative icon was the star and on-screen impresario of a drag show the United States government produced, promoted, and profited from.
The film deserves one more honest note. Alongside the drag numbers, it includes a blackface minstrel routine — a reminder that "the past was more relaxed about this" is not the same as "the past was better."
From Human Rights Watch:
Drag is a performance art that uses costumes, makeup, and other tools to present exaggerated forms of gender expression to critique gender inequalities and imagine a transformational future where people are truly free in how they express themselves.
In recent years, drag performances, including family-friendly ‘drag story hour’ events at bookstores and libraries, have faced armed protests, threats, and violent actions from right-wing hate groups. Several states have passed, or attempted to pass, legislation restricting where, when, how, and to whom drag can be performed. These attacks are part of HRC’s National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans.
Drag in 1943 was largely straight men playing femininity for laughs. What changed since isn't that drag got more dangerous. It's that it stopped being a joke about women and became an art form belonging to the LGBTQ+ community.
That's the part being legislated.
Where the Laws Stand Right Now
Florida isn’t an outlier anymore.
- Texas. SB 12, blocked since 2023, took effect March 18, 2026 after the Fifth Circuit vacated the injunction. Venues face $10,000 fines; performers face a Class A misdemeanor. The ACLU of Texas notes the court stressed all-ages drag remains legal — cold comfort when the penalty for guessing wrong is criminal.
- Tennessee. The Adult Entertainment Act survived after the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge. Lawmakers opened the 2026 session by passing another one, 73-24, targeting any business that hosts even a single drag show in a year. Rep. Justin Jones called it "a veneer of hate."
- Montana. Its drag story hour ban remains blocked after the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction in March 2026.
- Ohio. HB 249 would confine drag to adult venues and redefine public indecency to cover performers whose gender expression differs from their birth sex — language broad enough, advocates warn, to let police enforce personal taste.
The ACLU counts roughly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed nationwide in the 2026 session alone.
The Federal Front
In February 2025, Trump fired the Kennedy Center's board, installed himself as chairman, and announced that the venue's drag programming "WILL STOP."
Two things followed. First, the 2025-26 season went ahead with Mrs. Doubtfire, Chicago, and Spamalot — shows built on men in dresses, which apparently only counts when queer people do it.
Second, LGBTQ+ programming got cut, artists walked, and the nation's busiest performing arts center started emptying out.
Who Pays
The people affected by the hateful legislation are bartenders, small venue owners, and performers — many of whom found drag as the first place they were allowed to be themselves.
GLAAD has documented more than 160 incidents of protests, threats, and violence against drag events, including armed extremists at children's story hours and a Tulsa doughnut shop firebombed after hosting a drag night.
Five people were murdered at Club Q. A performer in Cleveland described having a beer bottle thrown at him from a passing car for wearing shorts and carrying a purse.
Laws written vaguely enough that nobody knows for sure what's illegal don't need to be enforced to work. Fear does the enforcing. Venues cancel. Performers stop booking. Parents stop going.
