The Quickie: Anti-LGBTQ+ Lawmakers Target Drag Performances

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers target drag performances, PP Texas Votes announces new senior leadership, and the difficulty of collecting abortion data and why it matters.

DRAG EM OUT OF OFFICE: ANTI LGBTQ+ LAWMAKERS TARGET DRAG PERFORMANCES: Last week, the Tennessee legislature sent a bill that will ban public drag performances to the governor’s desk. If signed, SB 3/HB 9 would be the first ban of its kind in the country, criminalizing and fining people who perform “adult cabaret performances,” including “male or female impersonators,” anywhere that minors could see it.  

Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, told the Washington Post, “Drag performances, like all sorts of other performances, run the gamut in terms of who they’re designed for. There are certainly some drag performances that are intended for adult audiences only, just like there are R-rated movies. And then there are other performances that are for all ages, like G-rated movies.“ 

Tennessee may be the first state to target drag in this way, but it certainly won’t be the last. According to research conducted by the Washington Post, there are bills targeting drag in at least 14 states.

Read more at Them, The Hill, and the Washington Post. 

WENDY DAVIS JOINS PLANNED PARENTHOOD TEXAS VOTES: Today, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes (PPTV)  announced new leadership in former State Senator Wendy Davis, who joins as Senior Advisor to the statewide political and advocacy organization, and Shellie Hayes-McMahon and Drucilla Tigner as the new Co-Executive Directors. A longtime advocate and icon of the movement for reproductive rights in Texas, Davis is best known for her historic 13-hour filibuster to block a 2013 state abortion bill, which spurred a generation of activists to join the movement. Previously Hayes-McMahon and Tigner served as PPTV’s Deputy Executive Directors, leading operations and programs respectively. 

“With experienced leaders like Hayes-McMahon, Tigner, and Davis leading the team, PPTV is in a strong position to advocate, organize and fight back against those who would seek to deny Texas families reproductive rights or access to health care,” said Lisa Turner, Board Chair of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. 

“Texas has long been ground zero for the attacks on reproductive rights,” said Wendy Davis, Senior Advisor, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. “Ending abortion care in Texas wasn’t enough for Abbott, Paxton, Patrick and their allies – now they’re doing everything they can through bogus legal actions to shut down Planned Parenthood once and for all. I’ve dedicated much of my life to pushing back against extremist attacks on our most fundamental rights, and I couldn’t sit on the sidelines while those same actors attempt to eradicate the crucial health care Planned Parenthood provides to patients across this state and this country each and every day. The opportunity to join Planned Parenthood and build on the great work of PPTV is an exciting privilege and responsibility, and I’m ready to get to work.”

Read more in the Texas Tribune. 

DATA DILEMMA: WHY ABORTION DATA SO HARD TO COLLECT AND WHY IT MATTERS: Yesterday, the 19th* investigated why it is so difficult to get accurate abortion data and why what  data we have matters so much. Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion data was difficult to collect: there is no national database, and there is chronic underreporting of the procedure by state entities. And with a highly restrictive legal landscape in which more people seek abortion outside of the medical system, abortion will continue to be under reported. “The problem of how difficult it is to measure abortion in surveys I would only expect to get worse post-Dobbs,” said Guttmacher researcher Isaac Maddow-Zimet. 

Researchers agree that seeking any abortion data is necessary for creating change and restoring rights. Professor Abigail Aiken at the University of Texas at Austin told the 19th, 

“In terms of holding policy makers accountable, I think it’s very important that these data are collected, and that the numbers are disseminated to the public and to those with the power to affect laws and policies. Because I think oftentimes, people get so politically entrenched, and certainly politicians do, that they sort of enact a policy or they celebrate the overturn of Roe, and then sort of forget about the fact that then people are gonna have to live with the consequences of this.”

Read more at the 19th*.