Twenty years after a breakthrough Texas case launched a new era of gay rights, trans people are still in the fight

William Melhado, The Texas Tribune
June 26, 2023

The rights of transgender people have become a cultural and political lightning rod in the United States

(AFP)

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"Twenty years after a breakthrough Texas case launched a new era of gay rights, trans people are still in the fight" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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Seated on a parade float winding its way through Montrose, the heart of Houston’s LGBTQ+ community, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner temporarily assumed the status of queer icons when they served as grand marshals in the city’s 2003 Pride parade. Just days earlier, the two quiet men with working-class roots fused their names to a pivotal moment in America’s gay rights movement.

“They were like celebrities,” said Brad Pritchett, who now works as the field director for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Texas.

Twenty years ago Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Texas’ ban on sodomy, ruling that states could not criminalize homosexuality. Lawrence and Garner were the plaintiffs in that watershed ruling. Pritchett remembers Houston’s Pride parade a few days later feeling different than it normally did, thanks to that 6-3 opinion.

Until then, LGBTQ+ people living in Texas and 13 other states lived under a dark cloud cast by laws that allowed law enforcement to arrest them for participating in consenting behavior among adults conducted in their private residences.

Lawrence and Garner were arrested and hauled to jail almost five years prior on the suspicion of having sex in the privacy of Lawrence’s apartment. The Supreme Court ruling voiding such laws was received by LGBTQ+ Americans as a long-awaited rainbow of recognition in the form of hard-fought constitutional protection. A ban on gay sex remains on the Texas books today.

In the 20 years since, advocates have secured major victories and cemented key rights including marriage equality, employment protections and the ability to serve in the military — victories that likely would not have been achieved without the foundation of Lawrence v. Texas.

Yet not all members of the LGBTQ+ community have equally benefited from evolving attitudes toward — and legal protections for — the queer community. Notably, transgender people still face discrimination and violence at higher rates than their lesbian, gay and bisexual peers.

In recent years, as trans people have gained visibility in the public sphere, familiar anti-LGBTQ+ tropes have emerged in efforts to alienate this community. Advocates say this attention has prompted a new wave of legislation in recent years that targets LGBTQ+ people — with particular focus on transgender Texans — largely pushed by Republicans who have campaigned on these issues.

Andrea Segovia, the senior field and policy adviser for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, said the virulence and frequency of transphobia have increased alongside this political focus. Texas lawmakers for years have targeted trans Texans with a litany of legislation, to mixed results. But earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbottsigned into law one of the Republican-dominated Legislature’s most consequential victories: a ban on hormone therapies and puberty blockers for trans minors over the outcries from parents and medical groups that say gender-affirming care saves young lives.

Segovia said hostility toward trans people reached new heights during this recent legislative session and called it a “boldness of people to feel as though they can take other people’s lives in their hands and not have repercussions … for causing harm to trans people.”

“Good, average guys”

Before the landmark Supreme Court case, Lawrence and Garner were not celebrities. They both lived on the margins of society, away from the limelight, like so many other LGBTQ+ Texans in the 20th century.

“They were just good, average guys just trying to get through life with the hand that was dealt ’em,” said Lane Lewis, a longtime gay rights activist in Houston who identified their case as an opportunity to challenge the state’s sodomy ban.

The political climate in which Lawrence and Garner were arrested for allegedly having sex was not friendly to LGBTQ+ Houstonians, Lewis recalled. He remembers instances in the ’90s in which trucks full of young men would drive around the city looking to assault queer people.


Longtime LGBTQ+ activist Lane Lewis in his home in Houston on June 21, 2023. 

Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune

In 1991, a 27-year-old Houston resident named Paul Broussard was murdered in a gay-bashing incident. In response, the Houston Police Department organized an undercover operation in Montrose to catch gay-bashers, but the effort was quickly discontinued because of safety risks to officers.

Furthermore, gay, lesbian and bisexual Texans were not free from some law enforcement officers’ disdain for their community. For decades leading up to that fateful arrest of Lawrence and Garner in 1998, the Houston Police Department sometimes raided gay bars and harassed those congregating in some of the only safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people at the time.

Although anti-sodomy laws were rarely enforced, their impact cast a shadow over the lives of LGBTQ+ Texans — both privately and publicly.

“These laws were designed to justify rampant discrimination against queer people,” said Wesley Phelps, a University of North Texas associate history professor who recently authored a book on the queer rights movement in Texas.

Phelps points to numerous examples prior to Lawrence in which LGBTQ+ Texans were denied employment, public assistance, housing and child custody because of their sexual orientation. There were simply no protections against those forms of discrimination, he said.

Lewis, the LGBTQ+ activist, said overturning Texas’ anti-sodomy law wasn’t the end goal for the gay rights movement. He was after occupational equality, which was a necessary step for queer people to live without fear of losing their jobs, their housing or custody of their children because of their sexual orientation.

“Can you imagine the Supreme Court wanting to protect the marriage rights of gay and lesbian citizens when gays and lesbians were still considered criminals in 13 states?” Phelps said.

Private lives

Accounts of what happened in Lawrence’s apartment on Sept. 17, 1998, differ drastically according to the men arrested and the officers. Two Harris County sheriff’s deputies each claimed to have seen Lawrence and Garner having sex, though their reports varied considerably as to what type of sex Lawrence and Garner were having.

Alternatively, Lawrence and Garner maintained from the beginning that they weren’t having sex (though this detail wasn’t public until after the 2003 decision for fear it would derail the case). An abundance of evidence supports their version of events, said Dale Carpenter, a constitutional law professor at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law who wrote a book on the case. But ultimately that detail wasn’t relevant to the outcome of the case at large.

What can be confirmed is that on that late Thursday night, Garner’s on-again, off-again boyfriend at the time, Robert Eubanks, called the police on Lawrence and Garner, claiming that a Black man was “going crazy with a gun” inside the apartment. Eubanks was reportedly jealous of the flirtatious relationship between Lawrence, who was white, and Garner, who was Black.

When Harris County sheriff’s officers responded shortly after, they entered Lawrence’s apartment anticipating an armed individual and instead found the two men and pornographic material in the home.

Regardless of whether Lawrence and Garner were having sex, officers arrested the men on the premise that they had violated the state’s law that considered sexual acts between people of the same sex to be “deviate sexual intercourse.”

On the night of the arrest — and in the years following — Lawrence was indignant that police had entered his private residence and arrested him and his friend. Both felt a deep sense of injustice at their arrests, and the discriminatory law’s continued existence.

“For an outdated law like that to make it all right for the police or government to walk into your house … you know, uninvited. I think that was a wrong thing on the police part,” Garner told Carpenter in a 2005 interview. “I felt like I had been taken advantage of.”

Lawrence and Garner were released from jail the day after the arrests.

When Lewis was faxed the police report from the arrest, he was stunned because for so long the gay rights movement had been waiting for a case like this one to appear. Activists wanted to challenge sodomy laws, like the one in Texas, on constitutional grounds. Lewis immediately called Lawrence, who was then a stranger to him.

“I said, ‘John, I think we have a Supreme Court case here,’” Lewis recalls telling Lawrence shortly after his arrest.


Lewis shows a copy of the original police report of John Lawrence's and Tyron Garner's arrest. 

Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune


A photo in Lane Lewis' Houston home of Lewis, John Lawrence, Tyron Garner and others central to the Lawrence v. Texas case. 

Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune

First: Lewis shows a copy of the original police report of the arrests of John Lawrence and Tyron Garner. Last: A photo in Lewis’ Houston home of himself, Lawrence, Garner and others central to the Lawrence v. Texas case. Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune


Lewis with his dogs AJ and Potter in his home. 

Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune

The case was considered a good one to challenge the constitutionality of criminalizing homosexuality because there was only one charge — based on Section 21.06 of the Texas penal code, the ban on same-sex intercourse — filed against Lawrence and Garner.

Lewis turned to a Houston attorney widely known in the LGBTQ+ community for his work with people with HIV and AIDS facing discrimination, Mitchell Katine, who enlisted the help of constitutional lawyers from Lambda Legal, a group focused on LGBTQ+ rights, who would argue the case in front of the Supreme Court.

After winding through the Texas courts and eventually rising to the attention of the nation’s highest court, on June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court handed down a decisive 6-3 victory for LGBTQ+ activists and sent a clear message about the unconstitutionality of sodomy bans.

“The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

By establishing the precedent that all of the constitutional rights that were available to other people are now available for gay people — rights previously denied under the Bowers v. Hardwick decision that enabled states to maintain sodomy bans — Lawrence v. Texas laid the groundwork for all of the benefits and protections of the Constitution to be equally applied to everybody.

“Because they were brave enough to let us do this, the whole country, and to some extent the world, changed as a result of their bravery,” Katine said of Lawrence and Garner’s participation.

Different worlds

Although Lawrence and Garner were both plaintiffs in the case, they lived in different worlds, Lewis said. Lawrence had stable employment as a medical technician at the time of this arrest. Garner wasn’t employed and didn’t have access to stable housing. Lewis recalls having difficulty reaching Garner after the arrest because the phone number listed on the police report was disconnected.

“He was a Black, feminine, gay male,” Lewis said. “There weren’t any safe spaces for Tyron.”

Three years after the decision, Garner died from complications of meningitis at age 39. Lawrence lived five years longer, until he was 68. He died from complications of a heart ailment.

The Lawrence decision kicked off decades of advances in civil rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Yet the catalyst for the gay rights movement, the 1969 Stonewall riots, were largely led by transgender people of color, a part of the LGBTQ+ community that is still fighting for equal treatment.

Segovia of TENT said Lawrence set a precedent for the right to privacy for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but the transgender community has not secured the same freedoms and protections to privately make health care decisions.

“What has been the growth for lesbian, gay, bi people versus trans people?” Segovia asked, pointing to the heightened level of discrimination and violence directed at trans people.

Trans people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than their cisgender peers, according to a 2021 study from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. This violence poses a particular threat to trans women of color. The National Center for Transgender Equality reported 70% of the trans women killed in 2022 were Black.

“It’s a lot easier as a white, gay male to walk through Montrose now than it was in the early ’90s. Simultaneously, it’s just as unsafe for a trans or cross-dressing person to walk down the street today as it was in the early ’90s,” Lewis said.

[Texas lawmakers pursued dozens of bills affecting LGBTQ people this year. Here’s what passed and what failed.]

Despite the persistent threats to the safety of transgender people, the state Legislature has made several attempts to regulate the lives of trans Texans. This year, lawmakers restricted the rights of transgender youth to access gender-affirming care and of transgender college athletes to participate on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

“We saw over 140 bills, anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with the majority of those … focused on the trans community,” said state Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas.

Jones said he and his Democratic colleagues spent a significant amount of time during the legislative session trying to educate the public about issues like gender-affirming care and dispelling myths that drag queens were sexualizing and grooming children. He characterized the Republican-led efforts as perpetuating misinformation and hate.

Issues relating to transgender people have grown more prominent over the last decade as Republicans have realized the political benefits of pushing issues that more closely regulate the lives of trans people.

Recent polling from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that almost 80% of Republicans surveyed thought athletic participation should be based on sex assigned at birth in both K-12 and university sports. Researchers also found issues related to transgender Texans are relatively unknown to voters; nearly 60% of Texans don’t personally know a transgender person.

While three prominent bills impacting the LGBTQ+ community passed this session — including one that supporters say will restrict children from seeing drag shows — a proposal to remove Texas’ unconstitutional sodomy ban didn’t make it out of the House. Jones’ bill would have removed Section 21.06 from the Texas Penal Code, which was used to arrest Lawrence and Garner almost 25 years ago.


State Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, in the open-air rotunda a few steps from his office in the state Capitol in Austin on Jan. 19, 2023. 

Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune

While unenforceable, these laws are at least a harsh reminder of the state’s oppression of LGBTQ+ people.

“At a minimum, these laws are hanging on the wall like an unused whip,” Carpenter said.

In the worst-case scenario, if the Supreme Court overturned Lawrence, consensual gay sex could again be illegal in Texas. That future seems less far-fetched in the wake of last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which revoked the constitutional protection for abortion and allowed Texas’ near-total ban on the procedure to go into effect.

In Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion of the Dobbs decision, he wrote that previous cases involving the 14th Amendment’s due-process clause should also be reconsidered and overruled. Those included Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriages legal across the country, and Lawrence v. Texas.

Some people, like Carpenter, don’t believe Lawrence or Obergefell are at risk of being overturned given how same-sex couples have come to rely on these relationships for financial stability. But others, like Phelps, point to the conservative composition of today’s Supreme Court — which tilted further to the right after former President Donald Trump appointed three justices in his four years in office — as evidence that marriage equality is not a settled issue.

April polling from the Texas Political Project found that 62% of Republicans surveyed did not think same-sex marriage should be legal in Texas — evidence that continued advocacy to protect all LGBTQ+ people is an ongoing battle in Texas, even decades after major victories like Lawrence.

“The work is not done,” Segovia said.

Disclosure: Equality Texas, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Austin and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/26/lawrence-v-texas-lgbtq-rights/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Sarah McBride announces candidacy to become first openly transgender member of Congress

McBride is a longtime friend of President Joe Biden and his late son Beau
Eric Garcia
June 26,2023

Sarah McBride attends "Out in Office" panel at Tribeca Celebrates Pride Day at 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studio on May 4, 2019 in New York City.
(Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

Delaware state Sen Sarah McBride announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Delaware’s sole congressional district, which would make her the first openly transgender member of Congress.

Ms McBride announced her candidacy in a video on Monday morning.

“My commitment is to the people in Delaware who aren’t seen, who don’t shout the loudest or fund political campaigns,” she said. “Everyone deserves a member of Congress who sees them and respects them.”

Ms McBride became the first openly transgender state senator in the United States when she won her election in 2020. Prior to that, Ms McBride worked for the Human Rights Campaign and was also the first openly transgender person to speak at a major party’s convention when she spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

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She first came out as transgender in an op-ed for the student newspaper of American University, where she had served as student body president. Ms McBride also worked for former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years before he became vice president.

“When I came out, it was support from Beau – and the rest of the Biden family – that made me feel safe in Delaware, like I belonged here,” she tweeted in 2019, to which Mr Biden’s account tweeted: “Thanks Sarah. I'm proud of you and so is Beau.”

In 2018, Ms McBride released her book Tomorrow Will be Different, which detailed her life and the loss of her husband Andy who was also transgender. Mr Biden wrote the foreword for the book.

Ms McBride’s candidacy comes shortly after Rep Lisa Blunt Rochester, the state’s incumbent congresswoman, announced she would run for Delaware’s Senate seat after Sen Tom Carper announced that he would not seek another term in the Senate.

Delaware is a solidly Democratic state, meaning that the winner of the Democratic primary will most certainly win the general election in 2024.

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride is running to become the nation's first transgender member of Congress

Madison Hall

Business Insider
Jun 26, 2023

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride is running for a seat in the US House of Representatives.
If she wins, she'll be the nation's first openly transgender member of Congress.
McBride previously interned for the Obama Administration and was the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride announced her plans to run for Congress on Monday. If she wins in November 2024, she'll become the nation's first openly-transgender member of Congress.

McBride, 32, is running to replace current Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who recently announced a Senate run to replace outgoing Sen. Tom Carper, in the state's at-large congressional district.

Elected as a state senator in 2020, McBride is the highest-ranking transgender legislator in the United States. In 2022, she ran again for her seat, but instead unopposed.

In an interview with Bloomberg Government, an adviser to McBride said her campaign would focus on "kitchen-table issues" like her work passing paid family and medical leave during her short stint in Delaware's statehouse.

McBride, who publicly came out as transgender in 2012 in a student newspaper op-ed as the outgoing student body president of American University, previously interned in the Obama Administration, becoming the first openly transgender person to work in the White House.

McBride also has ties to current President Joe Biden and his family. She worked on Beau Biden's campaigns for attorney general. The president (then vice president) also wrote a forward for her memoir in 2018.

She's also no stranger to the national political scene, having spoken at the Democratic National Convention in 2016.

Outside of politics, McBride has also served as the national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign.

When asked how she'll fare against a barrage of verbal and political attacks as she seeks to become the nation's first openly transgender federal legislator, she told the New York Times that "there will certainly be attacks, but I'm no stranger to those."

"What I've demonstrated over the last few years is that I'm able to move past those attacks and focus on what matters to the people I represent.

About half of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults have used online dating

BY RISA GELLES-WATNICK

Willie B. Thomas via Getty Images

The internet has often provided a place for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to connect with one another when in-person venues are unavailable or unwelcoming. Lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans are far more likely than those who are straight to say they have ever used a dating site or app (51% vs. 28%), according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey. That includes 13% of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who say they are currently using an online dating platform, 11% who have used one in the past year and 27% who have done so more than a year ago at the time of the survey.

How we did this

Responses for lesbian, gay and bisexual adults are combined because of small sample sizes. Additionally, since this research is focused on sexual orientation – not gender identity – and because the transgender population in the U.S. is very small, transgender respondents are not identified separately. Read the Center’s full online dating report for more details.

As Pride month ends, this analysis looks at how experiences with online dating differ by age and gender within the lesbian, gay and bisexual population.

Age and gender differences

Younger lesbian, gay and bisexual adults are more likely than their older counterparts to have tried online dating. Among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults, 54% of those ages 18 to 49 have ever used a dating site or app. That compares with 39% of those ages 50 to 64 and 30% of those 65 and older.

However, lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in the age groups under 65 are all equally as likely to say they are currently using a dating site or app. This is distinct from the pattern among straight adults, where those ages 18 to 29 are roughly three times as likely as those 30 to 49 or 50 to 64 to be currently using a dating site or app.

There are also differences by gender. Among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults, men are more likely than women to have ever used an online dating platform (57% vs. 46%) and to say they are current users (17% vs. 9%). These gender differences are also present among straight adults.

When it comes to finding a committed relationship, 24% of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who are partnered – that is, married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – say they met their significant other through online dating. Among this group, men are more likely than women to say they met their significant other through a dating site or app (37% vs. 18%).

Most commonly used dating sites and apps

Lesbian, gay and bisexual men and women who date online also use specific apps and sites at different rates. Lesbian, gay and bisexual women users are more likely than their male counterparts to have ever used HER, a dating app for queer women and gender-diverse people. However, Tinder is the most common app among lesbian, gay and bisexual women users – six-in-ten say they’ve used it.

While Tinder is also popular among lesbian, gay and bisexual men, they are most likely to have used Grindr, a dating app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. About six-in-ten lesbian, gay and bisexual men who have dated online (62%) say they have used Grindr.

About equal shares of lesbian, gay and bisexual men and women who have used an online dating platform have tried OkCupid, Match, Hinge or eharmony.

Online dating experiences and attitudes

In terms of personal experiences on online dating platforms, lesbian, gay and bisexual adults have mixed reviews. A majority of them who have used online dating platforms (61%) say their experience has been positive overall, with statistically similar shares of men (64%) and women (56%) saying this. But most lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who have used these platforms in the past year report feeling excited (85%) and report feeling disappointed (84%) about the people they encounter there.

Some lesbian, gay and bisexual online dating users also encounter negative behaviors. One-third or more say they have been sent sexually explicit messages they didn’t ask for (56%), had someone continue to contact them after they said they were not interested (42%) or had someone call them an offensive name (33%). Among lesbian, gay and bisexual users, the shares who say they have experienced each of these are not statistically different between men and women. Half of lesbian, gay and bisexual online dating users also say they’ve encountered someone they think was trying to scam them on these platforms, though this experience is significantly more common among lesbian, gay and bisexual men than women (60% vs. 41%).

Lesbian, gay and bisexual adults also have mixed feelings about online dating in general, outside of their own personal experience. They are more likely to say online dating has made finding a partner or spouse easier rather than harder (40% vs. 22%). Still, when asked what type of effect these sites have had on dating and relationships, roughly equal shares of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults say they have had a mostly positive (20%) or mostly negative (19%) effect.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

Topics

 LGBTQ Attitudes & ExperiencesRomance & DatingOnline Dating

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Risa Gelles-Watnick  is a research assistant focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center.

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Estonia legalizes same-sex marriage

A Step Toward Greater Equality in the Baltics

Andres Burgos
Coordinator, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program


Annual gay pride parade in Tallinn, Estonia, July 8, 2017. © 2017 yegorovnick/Shutterstock

In a significant step toward greater equality, Estonia’s parliament voted Tuesday in favor of new legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, making it the first Baltic country to do so.

The bill expands existing partnership recognition in Estonia by amending the 2016 Family Law Act, which allowed for same-sex civil unions and recognized same-sex marriages performed abroad. Under the new legislation, which will come into force on January 1, 2024, same-sex couples will also have the option to marry and adopt children.

The bill was approved on Tuesday, June 20 in a 55-34 decision within the 101-seat parliament.

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, leader of the center-right Reform Party, successfully created a liberal-oriented coalition to cement a parliamentary majority with the centrist Estonia 200 Party and Social Democrat Party earlier this year. The coalition has taken a strong pro-Ukraine, pro-European Union stance — and one that supports same-sex marriage rights.

In Estonia, support for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has gained traction, according to a recent poll conducted by the Estonian Human Rights Centre. The poll shows 53 percent of Estonians support marriage equality, up from only 34 percent in 2012.

Still, many LGBT persons in Estonia face harassment and discrimination. Comparatively, legislation recognizing same-sex partnerships in neighboring Latvia and Lithuania has not progressed.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to extend the option of marriage to same-sex couples. Today, Estonia joins 34 other countries that have already embraced marriage equality. Eleven additional countries allow civil unions for same-sex couples. Estonia has set an example for other Central European nations in extending marriage equality.

Estonia passes law to allow same-sex marriage

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas says she is ‘proud of Estonia’ after the bill received 55 votes in the 101-seat parliament.

Revellers take part in a Baltic gay pride parade in Riga, Latvia 

[File: Ilmars Znotins/AFP]
Published On 20 Jun 2023

Estonia’s Parliament has passed a law to legalise same-sex marriage, making it the first Central European country to do so.

The bill received 55 votes in the 101-seat parliament with 34 votes against.

“This is a decision that does not take anything away from anyone but gives something important to many,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said after the vote on Tuesday.

“Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love and want to commit to,” Kallas added, saying she was “proud of Estonia”.

Same-sex marriage is legal in much of Western Europe but not in Central European countries that were once under communist rule and members of the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact alliance but now are members of NATO and, largely, the EU.

Same-sex couples have been able to enter a civil union in Estonia since 2014. But it has taken until now for parliament to fix legal loopholes that prevented same-sex partners from enjoying the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

In the largely secular Baltic country of 1.3 million people, 53 percent of the population supported same-sex marriage in a 2023 poll by the Centre for Human Rights. A decade ago, the number was 34 percent.

However, 38 percent of Estonians still consider homosexuality to be unacceptable. Same-sex marriage is opposed by the ethnic-Russian minority, which constitutes a quarter of the country with only 40 percent of them supporting it.

‘Good opportunity’

Gay people in Estonia tend to remain discreet about their identity, and half have experienced harassment recently, according to the government.

“This was a good opportunity for the government because the public opinion on same-sex marriage has turned to positive, and after this year’s election, it has the numbers to overcome the conservative opposition,” said Tomas Jermalavicius, head of studies at the International Centre for Defence and Security.

Latvia and Lithuania, the other two Baltic countries, which were annexed by the Soviet Union, have same-sex partnership bills stuck in their parliaments.

Annely Lepamaa, a lesbian, told the Reuters news agency that it felt like the state was “finally accepting me”.

“Until now, I needed to fight for everything. I had to go to court to adopt my own children, which is like, why?” the 46-year-old said. “Now, I’m a human with rights.”

Speaking to Reuters after the vote, Lepamaa’s partner of six years, Eeva Koplimets, 36, proposed they should get married.

“Yeah, we are switching [to marriage]. We made our decision on TV!” she said.

LGBTQ+ Pride Month reaches its grand crescendo on city streets from New York to San Francisco

A person holds a fan that reads “Equality” during the 31st annual San Francisco Dyke March on Saturday, June 24, 2023. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
By ASSOCIATED PRESS |

PUBLISHED: June 25, 2023

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of effusive marchers danced to club music in New York City streets Sunday as bubbles and confetti rained down, and fellow revelers from Toronto to San Francisco cheered through Pride Month’s grand crescendo.

New York’s boisterous throng strolled and danced down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village, cheering and waving rainbow flags to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising, where a police raid on a gay bar triggered days of protests and launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.

While some people whooped it up in celebration, many were mindful of the growing conservative countermovement, including new laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender children.

“I’m trying not to be very heavily political, but when it does target my community, I get very, very annoyed and very hurt,” said Ve Cinder, a 22-year-old transgender woman who traveled from Pennsylvania to take part in the country’s largest Pride event.

“I’m just, like, scared for my future and for my trans siblings. I’m frightened of how this country has looked at human rights, basic human rights,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

Parades in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are among events that roughly 400 Pride organizations across the U.S. are holding this year, with many focused specifically on the rights of transgender people.

One of the grand marshals of New York City’s parade is nonbinary activist AC Dumlao, chief of staff for Athlete Ally, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ+ athletes.

“Uplifting the trans community has always been at the core of our events and programming,” said Dan Dimant, a spokesperson for NYC Pride.

San Francisco Pride, another of the largest and best known LGBTQ+ celebrations in the United States, drew tens of thousands of spectators to the city Sunday.

The event, kicked off by the group Dykes on Bikes, featured dozens of colorful floats, some carrying strong messages against the wave of anti-transgender legislation in statehouses across the country.

Organizers told the San Francisco Chronicle that this year’s theme emphasized activism. The parade included the nation’s first drag laureate, D’Arcy Drollinger.

“When we walk through the world more authentic and more fabulous, we inspire everyone,” Drollinger said at a breakfast before the parade.

Along Market Street, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank were spotted riding together.

In Chicago, a brief downpour at the beginning of the parade didn’t deter parade goers, who took shelter under awnings, trees and umbrellas.

“A little rain can’t stop us!” tweeted Brandon Johnson, the city’s newly elected mayor.

Chicago’s 52nd annual celebration on Sunday featured drag performers Marilyn Doll Traid and Selena Peres, as well as the Bud Billiken dancers, who drew loud praise from the crowd as they represented the celebration of Black roots in Chicago’s South Side.

“It’s very important to have a Chicago Pride parade,” Traid said. “And those that wanna go against us, you have to realize that we all stand together.”

Thousands of people also flooded the streets Saturday night in Houston to celebrate pride parades and embrace the LGBTQ+ community.

“Houston is one big diverse family. Today is about celebrating people who are themselves, their authentic selves and letting everyone know that this is a city full of love, not division, not hate,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

San Antonio also celebrated its Pride parade Saturday night, with hundreds of people lining downtown streets.

“This year’s theme is ‘Just Say Gay.’ We feel so strongly about the legislation that’s occurring, not only here in Texas, but in other states throughout the United States that are trying to put us back in the closet,” Phillip Barcena, Pride San Antonio president, told KSAT.

Also Saturday, first lady Jill Biden made an appearance at the Pride parade in Nashville, Tennessee, where she told the crowd “loud and clear that you belong, that you are beautiful, that you are loved.”

Many other cities held their marquee events earlier this month, including Boston, which hosted its first parade after a three-year hiatus that began with COVID-19 but extended through 2022 because the organization that used to run it dissolved under criticism that it excluded racial minorities and transgender people.

A key message this year has been for LGBTQ+ communities to unite against dozens, if not hundreds, of legislative bills now under consideration in statehouses across the country.

Lawmakers in 20 states have moved to ban gender-affirming care for children, and at least seven more are considering doing the same, adding increased urgency for the transgender community, its advocates say.

“We are under threat,” Pride event organizers in New York, San Francisco and San Diego said in a statement joined by about 50 other Pride organizations nationwide. “The diverse dangers we are facing as an LGBTQ community and Pride organizers, while differing in nature and intensity, share a common trait: they seek to undermine our love, our identity, our freedom, our safety, and our lives.”

Earlier Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that would make the state a “safe haven” for transgender youth and forbid law enforcement agencies from providing information that could undermine the ability for a child to get gender-affirming care.

NYC Mayor Adams made a similar move this week, issuing an executive order preventing city resources from being used to cooperate with out-of-state authorities in detaining anyone receiving gender-affirming care in the city.

The Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD, a national LGBTQ+ organization, reported 101 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in the first three weeks of this month, about twice as many as in the full month of June last year.

Sarah Moore, who analyzes extremism for the two civil rights groups, said many of the incidents coincided with Pride events.

Nevertheless, Roz Gould Keith, who has a transgender son, is heartened by the increased visibility of transgender people at marches and celebrations across the country.

“Ten years ago, when my son asked to go to Motor City Pride, there was nothing for the trans community,” said Keith, founder and executive director of Stand with Trans, a group formed to support and empower young transgender people and their families.

This year, she said, the event was “jam-packed” with transgender people.

___

AP writers Juan Lozano in Houston; Erin Hooley in Chicago; Trân Nguyễn in Sacramento, California; James Pollard in Columbia, South Carolina; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Trisha Ahmed in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

San Francisco Pride celebrates love and resilience amid surging anti-LGBTQ+ laws

2023/06/26

Queen Art Babe, of Fremont, California, during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - 

JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

SAN FRANCISCO — Logan Oretl had known he was gay for as long as he could remember. But as the 20-year-old stood by Market Street — in the thick of waving rainbow flags, dancing drag queens and a flurry of bubbles — on Sunday, he said he’d never felt more accepted.

“I’m not used to seeing so much open love, and to finally be able to walk around without feeling afraid,” said Oretl, who had flown — for the very first time — from his small town in Ohio to attend San Francisco’s 53rd pride parade. “It’s nice to be able to just be happy.”

Oretl was just one of an expected million attendees at the parade, which flooded down Market Street Sunday morning. Politicians gave out hugs to attendees soaked in glitter; people in inflatable unicorn costumes chatted with members of the city’s rainbow-clad fire department. San Francisco’s streets were bursting with people — all there despite an increasingly hostile political climate and a pandemic that has hit the city hard.

Today, there are 633 anti-LGBTQ+ bills either active or being considered across the country, according to suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project, including two introduced in California earlier this year. During the first three months of 2023, the organization said lawmakers introduced 574 such bills nationwide — more than double the number of bills introduced last year.

The ripple effects of those bills — which Republican lawmakers like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has launched a bid for the GOP presidential nomination, have championed — have been massive.

Eighty-six percent of trans and non-binary youth say anti-LGBTQ+ laws have negatively impacted their mental health, according to a poll from The Trevor Project. That’s among a population with already-high levels of mental health challenges: the organization estimates that every 45 seconds, one LGBTQ+ young person attempts suicide.

“I think you can measure society by how it treats those who are most vulnerable. For one of America’s formerly great parties to go after trans kids — among the most vulnerable populations in the country — is shameful,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the Los Angeles-area Democrat who is running to replace outgoing Sen. Dianne Feinstein, during an interview at the parade. “I think it’s more important than ever that we come together to show our support, but also to stand up against hate.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who has endorsed Schiff in the Senate race, sat beside her Democratic colleague, posing for photographs and talking to attendees.

“I’m here every year — and all the time in between — to honor our San Francisco values, which are to take pride, show respect, show love to our LGBTQ community, (and) thank them for their patriotism,” Pelosi said. “Their advocating for their freedom and justice makes America more American.”

Some attendees, like Oretl, were there for the first time. Others, like Caryn Dickman, had attended for decades, in her case nearly 40 years. Back in 1969, Dickman marched in New York City’s Stonewall uprising, a violent confrontation between police and gay rights activists that led to six days of protests.

She remembered being pelted by eggs as she walked through the streets, and how at the time, she risked losing her job or being sent to conversion therapy for joining the protests. Despite — and perhaps, because of — those risks, the riots at Stonewall elevated the gay rights movement, sparking pride parades from New York to San Francisco in the year to come.

By the following June, a small group of activists marched down Polk Street for the first pride parade in San Francisco’s history. Fifty-three years later, Dickman was no longer marching. But she was standing beside her wife, Peggy, to watch the parade for the 38th time.

“It’s still incredibly emotional to be here,” said Dickman, 74. “We won’t be quiet anymore, and no matter what happens, we won’t go back in the closet.”

There were also marchers from across the medical field, with doctors, nurses and psychologists representing their institutions and the LGBTQ+ services they provide.

Doug Haldeman, a clinical psychologist walking aside 100 from the California Psychological Association, said he’d been involved with the gay rights movement for 45 years. Early in his career, he worked with people who had been harmed by conversion therapy, the practice of using counseling to try to alter someone’s sexual orientation.

For the next three decades, Haldeman pushed California to ban conversion therapy — helping the state become the first in the country to do so in 2012. Despite that, he and the psychologists around him said it was more important than ever to have a presence at the pride parade this year, given the explosion in anti-LGBTQ+ policies over the last few years.

“It really pisses me off to think that at my age, we’re going back to this fight mode,” said Haldeman, 71. “But on the other hand, it’s very energizing. It gives us a sense of purpose, and reminds us that we’re a resilient community — and that these people are not going to win.”

Despite that, the atmosphere within and around the parade was not one of fear. Lady Gaga poured through the loudspeakers of dozens of colorful floats, and at one point, a group of over 100 corgis and their owners ran to keep up with the crowd. Three young teens — Danika, Noe and Sylvia — watched the parade with rainbow flags draped over their backs, reveling in the feeling of not being alone.

“Dogs are covered in sequins, and everyone is happy and in love with each other,” said Danielle Ricci, age 40. “It’s just a joyful explosion of absolute love, and absolute joy.”


Members of the Drag Story Hour wave to the crowd during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

A participant with colorful rainbow balloons dances during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Arianna Vance, of San Francisco, waves her butterfly wings while skating in the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Nancy Pelosi waves to the crowd during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

A parade participant with a rainbow painted on her face dances during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Participants march during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Parade participants march during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Members of Dykes on Bikes participate during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Visitors hold signs cheering on parade participants during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

A pair of rainbow unicorns blow bubbles during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

A parade participant marches during the 53rd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration in San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, 2023. - JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/Bay Area News Group/TNS

© The Mercury News

San Francisco’s new drag laureate wants you to be ‘more fabulous’

A new city-funded position aims to elevate drag performers at a time when anti-LGBTQ legislation is sweeping the US.

Playwright and Oasis club owner D'Arcy Drollinger (right) has been named San Francisco's inaugural drag laureate 

[Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

By Allison Griner
Published On 25 Jun 2023

San Francisco, US – A nimbus of golden curls, teased into a bouffant, she strolled up to the wooden podium, all eyes trained on her.

But D’Arcy Drollinger, 54, was undaunted. It was the start of San Francisco’s Pride Month festivities — the annual celebration of the city’s LGBTQ+ community — and Drollinger was the guest of honour.

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Her job? To serve as an ambassador for one of the city’s most iconic art forms: drag.

As legislation spreads across the United States targeting the LGBTQ+ community, San Francisco has taken a first-of-its-kind step by naming an official drag laureate to represent the city.

For 18 months, Drollinger will act as a spokesperson, championing LGBTQ+ rights and leading community events, all while incarnating a larger-than-life blonde bombshell.

“It is an amazing experience to be standing here with my fellow community leaders and kicking off Pride 2023 as the first drag laureate of San Francisco — and the world,” Drollinger told a crowd assembled on the mayor’s balcony in city hall.

D’Arcy Drollinger, second from left, attends a Pride flag-raising ceremony with state Senator Scott Wiener, third from left, and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, third from right 

[Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

Dancing from birth

But in an interview afterwards with Al Jazeera, Drollinger readily admitted, “I didn’t set out to get here.” Drag was not a choice so much as something that came naturally.

“I was dancing from the moment I was born. I was a show person,” Drollinger explained. Drollinger uses “she” pronouns when in character, and “he” when not.

Born in San Francisco to an anthropologist and an artist, Drollinger remembered watching the film Mary Poppins as a young child — and feeling inspired by its stern but eccentric heroine.

“I gravitated to these female characters,” Drollinger said. “I wanted to dress like Mary Poppins. And my parents, being free-spirited, went to the thrift store and bought me a little dress and umbrella and a pair of high heels. And I ran around the house as Mary Poppins.”

But work soon called Drollinger’s parents away from San Francisco. Part of Drollinger’s childhood was spent in Samoa, before the family eventually settled in the small gold-rush town of Nevada City, California.

There, junior high school was “tough”, Drollinger recalled. “I was very unpopular. I was teased constantly. And there were people telling me I was gay before I had even thought about it.”

Theatre, however, offered a sanctuary. And by high school, Drollinger was writing and staging his own plays — despite the fact that there was no drama department to rely on. Drollinger ransacked thrift stores for costumes, and sets were hand-painted on stretched canvas.

“I didn’t know how to type. I wrote the scripts all by hand and went and had them Xeroxed,” Drollinger recounted.

As drag laureate, D’Arcy Drollinger has spoken at the city arts commission and the Pink Triangle Ceremony, which honours those who have faced homophobia and other forms of hate

 [Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

Drag as microscope

But in spite of the difficulties, theatre proved to be Drollinger’s calling: “Once you try and take on something that seems impossible and you do it, it gets very addicting.”

Drollinger followed his passion for performance into adulthood. He toured with a post-punk rock band and worked as an assistant on the original Broadway productions of Hairspray and The Producers.

But in the world of drag — and San Francisco — Drollinger found a home for both his playwriting skills and his acting chops. He moved back in 2010, and by 2015, he and two business partners had converted a former bathhouse into their very own club space, Oasis.

He has since become its sole owner, navigating the club through the coronavirus pandemic with creative ventures like a drag telethon and “Meals on Heels”, a food delivery service that kept performers employed even as stages shuttered.


“Someone was asking the other day: Why is drag important?” Drollinger said. “And it’s like: Why is theatre important? Why is film important? Why is dance?”

All those art forms are mirrors for truth, but in the exaggerated performance style of drag, Drollinger found a unique perspective to share with audiences.

“Drag blows things up in sometimes comical, sometimes dramatic ways. You look at things under a microscope in a sense,” Drollinger explained. “You can see things in a different way.”

As San Francisco’s drag laureate, D’Arcy Drollinger had the honour of raising the rainbow Pride flag from a balcony at city hall

 [Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

A mainstream entertainment

But the very thing that makes drag powerful can also make it “disquieting” to some viewers, according to drag historian Joe E Jeffreys.

“Drag un-tethers sex from gender. And that is not a concept that some people find comfortable,” he explained.

While some drag practitioners trace the origins of the art form as far back as ancient Greece — where men played female roles — Jeffreys believes the roots of modern drag more accurately lie in 19th- and 20th-century vaudeville.


“In fact, some of the highest-paid performers in vaudeville were male and female impersonators,” Jeffreys said.

Styles ranged from the camp caricatures of Bert Savoy to the naturalistic performances of Julian Eltinge, who disappeared into the women he portrayed — only to burst the illusion by plucking off his wig at the end of his shows.

“I think we need to consider that drag has always been part of the mainstream entertainment,” Jeffreys said. “There used to be any number of — and there still are — large nightclubs that presented lavish female impersonation shows primarily to heterosexual audiences.”

Oasis, D’Arcy Drollinger’s nightclub, presents parody performances of TV shows like Sex and the City and The Golden Girls

 [Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

But just as drag has its precursors, so too does anti-drag legislation. In the 19th century, more than 40 US cities had laws restricting “cross-dressing” — including San Francisco. An 1863 ordinance banned individuals from appearing in public in “dress not belonging to his or her sex”.

“This is nothing new,” Jeffreys said of the current spate of anti-drag legislation sweeping the US.

On June 3, a federal judge struck down one of the most wide-ranging bans in Tennessee, which would have barred “male or female impersonators” from appearing on public property or in the presence of children.

Critics feared its broad language would have criminalised not just drag performance but also transgender and nonbinary identities.

“What’s really going on is they’re trying to legislate how gender is presented in society — that non-conforming genders should not be visible,” Jeffreys said. Other states, including North Dakota, Texas and South Carolina, have considered similar legislation.

D’Arcy Drollinger plays Samantha Jones in a drag parody of the TV show Sex and the City [Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

Drag, a political force

The proposed bans come at a time of heightened visibility for drag, buoyed by the success of TV shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Honey Mahogany is an alumna of that show. Now, she chairs the San Francisco Democratic Party. She sees the two experiences as a natural fit.

“To me, drag has always been at the forefront of the queer political movement,” Mahogany said.

That history, she explained, began with figures like José Sarria, a drag performer who, in 1961, became the first openly gay person to run for public office in the US.

And it continued with the Compton’s Cafeteria riot and the Stonewall Uprising — acts of resistance against police violence in San Francisco and New York, respectively.

“Those things were led by gender non-conforming people — drag queens, trans people — at that time because I think they had the least to lose,” Mahogany said. “It was, for us, life or death.”

A billboard advertises D’Arcy Drollinger as San Francisco’s new drag laureate 

[Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

Drag, at that time, had a regional flavour.

In the South, it was shaped by pageant traditions, while in New York, ballroom culture and Broadway exerted their sway. But San Francisco drag, Mahogany said, was more “punk rock” — less glam and more transgressive, with styles like “genderf***” that eschewed traditional binaries.

Still, despite its rebellious nature, San Francisco’s drag scene was not insulated from outside pressures. Mahogany remembers that, during the fight to legalise same-sex marriage in the US, drag became “almost a dirty word”.

“There was a strong push towards assimilation in the LGBTQ community, to prove we were like everyone else, that we wanted to get married and have kids,” she said. That “sanitised” version of the LGBTQ community did not involve the outré performance styles of drag.

From left, Vanilla Meringue, D’Arcy Drollinger, Sue Casa and Steven LeMay take a curtain call after their stage show, Sex and the City Live 

[Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

An ‘easy target’

But that perspective has changed over the last decade, Mahogany said. “We have swung in the other direction, and drag has taken centre stage and is very much celebrated right now within the LGBTQ community.”

Unfortunately, she added, that has also made performers “an easy target to attack”, even in the famously left-leaning San Francisco Bay Area.

Last June, at the San Lorenzo Library, members of the far-right group Proud Boys disrupted a Drag Story Hour, a read-along event designed to promote child literacy. Earlier this month, protesters returned to the library to denounce another Drag Story Hour reading.

Mahogany herself leads Drag Story Hour at the San Francisco branch where she received her first library card, right across from her pre-school. Her latest reading went off “without incident”, she said — but the library did have two security guards on hand, just in case.

Even at Drollinger’s club, Oasis, heightened security has become the norm.

“I have to have metal detectors now at my nightclub. It sucks,” Drollinger said. “We have to live with this constant threat of intimidation by these people that are trying to squash a few people trying to bring joy into other people’s lives.”

D’Arcy Drollinger hopes to use her role as drag laureate to inspire others to feel ‘more fabulous’ [Allison Griner/Al Jazeera]

But Juliano Innocenti, a nurse practitioner who performs as Shalita Corndog with the outreach group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, believes the drag laureate position can help turn the tide of hate.

“The creation of a drag laureate says so much with so little,” Innocenti said. He predicts the role will trigger a “trickle effect”, fostering similar drag laureate positions in other cities.

“It will just be a matter of time before we see them pop up in Chicago and New York and Los Angeles and Miami and Dallas and some of these progressive cities,” Innocenti explained. “And then that will start to trickle into some of the smaller ones, including places in conservative areas.”

Already, West Hollywood is on the verge of naming a drag laureate, and New York has previously weighed launching its own version.

For Drollinger though, the goal for the next 18 months is simple: Inspire people “to walk through the world a little more fabulous”.

“If you can just be a little more authentic and a little more fabulous, you inspire others around you to be more fabulous,” Drollinger explained.

“And if everyone’s a little more fabulous, there’s a little less room in their hearts and in their heads for anger and hostility and prejudice and violence.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA