These anti-LGBTQ+ Georgia Republicans did drag themselves, unearthed photos show

Ariel Messman-Rucker
Wed, April 8, 2026 

THE ADVOCATE

​Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins.

Two anti-LGBTQ+ politicians who have been critical of transgender people and “woke” ideology have themselves played with their gender presentation, The Advocate has learned.

Newly unearthed photos show U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins dressed in drag while they were in high school. Both politicians are staunchly anti-trans and support President Donald Trump’s aggressive policies that strip LGBTQ+ people of their rights. The existence of the images has not been reported previously.

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Carter and Collins are two of three Georgia Republicans running against each other in the primaries in the hopes of unseating Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff, a vocal LGBTQ+ ally. Voters will go to the polls in the state on May 19 to decide who will run against him.


The Advocate reviewed archival high school yearbooks from the 1970s and 1980s that include photos of both men in drag, and corroborated identifying details such as names, schools, and graduation years.

In Collins’ yearbook from his senior year at Piedmont Academy in Monticello, Georgia, in 1985, there are photos showing the congressman wearing a floral sleeveless dress and long wig while standing next to a young woman and another man also dressed in drag, with the caption “Senior class ‘beauties,’ Mike Collins and Andy Brady.” In another photo, Collins is still in drag, standing with other members of his graduating class.



\u200bRep. Mike Collins in drag in his high school yearbook.
Piedmont Academy yearbook in 1985.



Carter, whose real name is Earl LeRoy Carter, is seen wearing a long dress and sash in the Robert W. Groves High School yearbook for 1975, the year he graduated from the school in a suburb of Savannah. There is no caption attached to the drag photo, but there is a strong resemblance to Carter’s senior photo in the same yearbook when the two are compared. The congressman was also the subject of a Reddit thread in 2025, where a user posted another photo of Carter in drag from a different yearbook, captioned “Miss ‘Cantelope’ Carter.” The Advocate was unable to independently verify the additional photo.

\u200bA photo collage of Rep. Buddy Carter allegedly in drag and his senior yearbook photo.
Robert W. Groves High School yearbook for 1975

Critics point to the men’s hypocrisy of being scandalized by drag when LGBTQ+ people do it, but embracing gender play as harmless fun when they do it.

“Rep. Collins and Rep. Carter are running to represent every Georgian, but they’ve made it clear that they don’t believe LGBTQ+ Georgians are worthy of equal rights,” David Stacy, vice president of government affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, told The Advocate.

Carter, a self-proclaimed “MAGA warrior,” introduced the “Truth in Gender Act” in June 2025, which sought to codify Trump’s executive order that mandated that the U.S. government only recognize two biological sexes, voted in favor of the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” which proposed making it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to minors, and ran campaign ads last summer that showed his disdain for transgender women competing in sports.

“Rep. Buddy Carter introduced a bill to codify President Trump’s heinous anti-trans executive orders, he has voted to force trans youth to be outed, and he voted to allow doctors and parents to be charged with a federal felony with a ten-year penalty for best practice medical care,” Stacey said.

Collins also supported the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” calling gender-affirming care “radical woke ideology,” and has echoed the conservative talking point that transgender women should not compete in women’s sports. He has also blamed a train derailment on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Related: Why were Republicans freaking out over a drag performance at the Olympics?

As recently as March 31, Collins posted a photo of the Trans Am car bearing a Confederate flag license plate from the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit, captioned “Happy Trans Visibility Day to all who celebrate.”

“Rep. Mike Collins has repeatedly voted to yank books out of libraries, tell parents of trans youth what kind of health care their kids may or may not receive, and said Rev. Marianne Budde — the Episcopal bishop who pleaded with President Trump for ‘mercy’ for LGBTQ+ people [at a Washington, D.C. service the day after his January 2025 inauguration] — should be added to a deportation list,” Stacy said.

In a statement to The Advocate, a spokesperson for the Ossoff campaign said that the three Republicans running in the primary are more concerned with attacking the trans community than with what voters actually care about. "Instead of working to find bipartisan solutions on issues impacting Georgians’ lives, like lowering costs at the grocery store or making health care more affordable, Mike Collins, Derek Dooley, and Buddy Carter are shamelessly using trans individuals as a prop for political division. It's gross and wrong,” the statement said.

In response to viewing the yearbook photos in question, Collins’ communications director Emma Gibson told The Advocate that “Only people whose brains have been rotted by ill-prescribed hormones and the continual over-sexualization of life around them would view a yearbook photo of Rep. Collins and his wife 40 years ago switching clothes for a Homecoming tradition as anything more than lighthearted humor.”

Chris Crawford, a spokesperson for Carter’s office, refused to confirm or deny whether the congressman is in the photos during multiple interactions with The Advocate. Instead, in a text message, Crawford wrote, “You’re playing with fire to run a story without verification.” When asked directly whether Carter denies that the image is of him, Crawford texted, “You’d like us to do your job?”

Related: Texas Republican Who Wrote Anti-Drag Bill Has Dressed in Drag

Drag performer Taylor Alxndr, who is also the co-founder and executive director of the community organization Southern Fried Queer Pride in Georgia, is tired of hypocritical politicians who blame the LGBTQ+ community for all of the ills of society.

“There’s this big bogeyman of trans people, even though statistically, historically, and factually, trans people pose no harm to the American economy, pose no harm to cisgender people, especially cisgender women,” Alxndr told The Advocate. “This idea that trans women are following or trying to attack or harm cisgender women in restrooms, it's all just a big distraction from the actual evil that plagues a lot of the country, and it's these politicians and people who support them.”

Carter and Collins are far from the first “family values” Republican politicians to dress in drag while spewing hateful rhetoric about queer people and fighting for anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Vice President JD Vance, former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, disgraced gay former New York Rep. George Santos, and disbarred Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani have all had their pasts dressing in drag come to light.

Related: 7 anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans caught dressing in drag

”Drag is a centuries-old art form that is not limited to LGBTQ people, but which has an undisputed history of pride and visibility in the LGBTQ community that should be uplifted,” a GLAAD spokesperson told The Advocate. “It's a no-brainer that anyone who participates in this part of LGBTQ culture should support basic protections for LGBTQ people. Anything less is hypocrisy.”

The GLAAD spokesperson added, “Recent attacks on family-friendly drag shows and performers are a baseless distraction from real action that will help families, like affordability and health care. Rep. Collins and Rep. Carter should shift their focus from any anti-LGBTQ animus to family-forward policies that uplift and protect all families."

Alxndr said that these men may have originally enjoyed dressing in drag, but because of “familial pressure, religious pressure, or political pressure,” the “very simple, fun, nonsensical experience of them performing or dressing up in drag gets changed into something that's evil or harmful,” and that’s when they tend to start targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

Proposed Ohio indecency law draws free speech, clothing concerns

Christina Lengyel
Wed, April 8, 2026 
The Center Square


The Ohio Statehouse stands in Columbus, Ohio. Photo: Ɱ / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Key takeaway

Ohio Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill called the “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act” that aims to update existing obscenity laws, sparking controversy among free speech and LGBT advocates.

(The Center Square) – A controversial bill Ohio Republican lawmakers say is aimed at protecting children is rankling free speech and LGBT advocates as it awaits consideration in the Senate.

Its authors say the “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act,” which passed the House 63-32, is a commonsense update to existing obscenity laws.

“Ohio has clear gaps in its indecent exposure and obscenity laws,” said Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Township, one of the bill’s sponsors. “The legislature has said time and time again that kids should not be exposed to obscene material. Now we are taking the step to ensure that the same type of obscene performances that they cannot watch online, they can’t watch in person.”

Others contend it addresses a problem that doesn’t exist, with obscenity laws already on the books to protect children.

“This bill does nothing to address the over 500,000 children in this state who are food insecure,” said Minority Whip Rep. Beryl Piccalantonio, D-Gahanna. “While we are not addressing those issues, I am embarrassed to say we are spending any time at all on a culture war bill that doesn’t make our communities safer but does have the potential to cost taxpayer dollars, to threaten economic activity, and to frighten into hiding some of our already vulnerable community members.”

The new law would limit shows that could be “harmful to juveniles or obscene” to “adult cabarets.”

The legislation goes on to name shows including “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer's or entertainer's biological sex using clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers.”

Co-sponsor Rep. Angie King, R-Celina, said, “This bill closes loopholes in our law, strengthens protections for minors, and ensures that private spaces remain just that – private.”

Opponents say the bill bans drag shows and poses criminal threats for transgender Ohioans. They’ve asked who determines whether something meets the standards of harm or obscenity and how they would do so.

The Ohio ACLU testified against the law, warning against the “chilling effect” obscenity laws have on free speech.

“Those of us concerned about the First Amendment implications of HB 249 know these types of laws have been purposely used to target unpopular speech and art for many decades,” said the organization. “Indeed, over the years, movies, TV shows, books, comic books, video games, websites, and more have been subjected to these fuzzy restrictions.”

Police would be responsible for interpreting the law on a case-by-case basis as they encounter potential violations.

“Regardless of how activist adult entertainers and the media chooses to spin House Bill 249, this legislation does not ban strip clubs or drag shows, and it certainly doesn’t ban live performances such as Mrs. Doubtfire or Tootsie,” King said.

King referred to an incident in which a transgender woman changing in a gym locker room in Xenia was found not guilty of public indecency charges. The judge ruled on the basis of the transgender woman’s body weight, which obscured male genitalia from view.

The YMCA where the incident occurred allows people to use locker rooms according to their gender identity.

HB 249 would change the language of the law to cover “private areas,” not just “private parts,” ensuring that a similar defense could not be used in the future. The law also creates protections for women to breastfeed in public.

Still, some worry that the restrictions can easily spill into other types of dress, like sports bras and athletic wear.

“This bill takes regular, everyday activities and turns them into potential crimes, based on whether somebody else might be offended by what other people are wearing,” said Dwayne Steward, executive director and CEO of Equality Ohio and Equality Ohio Education Fund, in a statement. “This bill gives government the unacceptable power to police what people wear.”