SLO businesses were harassed for hosting drag shows. Here’s how they’re fighting back

Under the warm glow of Christmas lights, about 45 people gathered at Highwater on Tuesday night to discuss safety at LGBTQ+ events.

While grappling with the Colorado nightclub shooting and harassment for hosting drag shows, Art and Soul SLO founder Faith LeGrande created the Queer Event Safety Committee, an organization committed to enhancing safety in the LGBTQ+ community.

The committee’s goals include offering security resources, safe spaces, and guidance for the queer community to “address and prevent harassment,” LeGrande said. They hosted their first forum at Highwater on Dec. 6 to discuss keeping the queer community safe in SLO, especially after the Colorado shooting.

“We want to be precautionary about these tragedies and them not occurring in SLO,” LeGrande said. “Queer events are different than regular events. It’s a marginalized community that we’re celebrating, and it’s really important that that community knows that we have their back.”

Also on the committee are Highwater co-owner Robin Wolf, Big Balsz Productions founder Jean Mussen Balsz and Gala Pride and Diversity Center Executive Director Dusty Colyer-Worth.

SLO businesses harassed for hosting drag shows

A local business harassed Art and Soul SLO and Highwater on Instagram for hosting drag shows. The event organizers chose not to reveal the perpetrator’s identity.

In July, August and September, Art and Soul SLO hosted Drag Night at Bliss Cafe. It was an all-ages drag show intended to create a casual setting for new drag performers to practice their act “before applying for more established shows in SLO,” LeGrande said.

All-ages drag shows exclude profanity and have dress codes and choreography guidelines to create a “kid-friendly, family-friendly show,” LeGrande said. She opened the event to families at the request of parents of children she babysat or taught in school.

“It’s not about getting children involved in drag. It’s about allowing children to see that drag exists,” LeGrande told The Tribune.

Every Drag Night sold out. Parents brought their children to the first two shows, but the audience of the third show happened to be folks 18 and older, LeGrande said.

Then, a local business sent Art and Soul SLO threatening Instagram messages ahead of the October Drag Night, sharing their intention to shut down drag shows available to children, according to LeGrande.

“I’ve been chatting with one of the founders of @gaysagainstgroomers and they’ve agreed to assist in the advertising by utilizing their 130K followers to get the word out about your event. We will make your organization famous for inviting children to drag shows, I promise you that,” the Instagram message said.

Gays Against Groomers is a national, anti-transgender organization that opposes drag performers interacting with children.

Founder Jaimee Michell appeared on Fox News in November and blamed transgender people for the Club Q shooting in Colorado, according to the news organization Them.

LeGrande canceled the October Drag Night as a safety precaution.

“It’s just frustrating because I started off Drag Night by listening to my community,” LeGrande told The Tribune. “I was meeting two community needs of creating a show where families could attend together and newcomers could be comfortable.”

The same businesses sent intimidating messages to Highwater on Instagram for hosting a 21+ drag brunch.

According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Justice, 20% of hate crimes are motivated by bias against sexual orientation.

“Just as your queer neighbor exists, your anti-queer neighbor exists as well,” LeGrande said at the forum. “This is not to evoke fear, but awareness.”

LeGrande hasn’t yet decided if future shows will be open to all ages, and plans to see what the community requests from Art and Soul SLO, she said.

What is drag performance?

Drag is a performance art where the artist brings an alter-ego to life with costumes and choreography, LeGrande said.

“It’s like acting but with more makeup, more costumes, more theatrics,” LeGrande said. “I really don’t see it as any different than somebody performing a play.”

A person’s alter-ego can land anywhere from masculine, feminine to androgynous, and doesn’t have to match the performer’s gender identity when they’re off stage, according to LeGrande.

“It’s a part of who you are, and it’s bringing that expression that you see inside yourself and giving them a character,” LeGrande said. “It’s just a beautiful representation of the spectrum of gender representation.”

Colyer-Worth explained that drag is not inherently sexual but can include sexual humor like any performance art — and drag performers will not use sexual humor around children.

“The artist knows to whom they are performing, so it will always be tailored and customized,” he said.

The 1970s and ‘80s drag ballroom movement in New York City “brought forward a home and community for many queer and trans youth that had been cast out by religious and conservative parents,” Colyer-Worth said at the forum. “Drag is in so many ways the birth of a lot of safe spaces, as well as the power of chosen family.”

How to enhance safety at queer events

About 45 people attended the Queer Event Safety forum to brainstorm how to enhance safety at their events — and also discussed how to motivate support from non-queer allies.

When Balsz hosts events, she takes precautions such as hiring security guards, having a first-aid kit, alerting attendees to entrances and exits and notifying police about the event. Law enforcement isn’t invited to attend, but police are on call for emergencies. Also, a handful of attorneys volunteered to work pro bono if the committee needs legal help, according to Balsz.

“We can’t guarantee that that’s going to make a difference, but we can do what we can,” Balsz said.

Colyer-Worth suggested that event coordinators create T-shirts or other markers to indicate who’s running the event, who’s responsible for its safety and who’s “there to be of help,” he said.

One audience member advised events to use groups besides the police for protection.

“If we’re talking about queer safety at events, cops ain’t it,” they said.

SLO resident Laura Albers suggested recruiting volunteer peacekeepers to look out for threatening activity and deescalate conflict at events. Women’s March SLO and Race Matters SLO used peacekeepers at their events, she said, and it was successful.

Another audience member said that it can be triggering for folks with a queer identity to be a peacekeeper, as they’re exposing themselves to anti-queer people with potentially violent intentions — but peacekeeping is a great opportunity for allies to support the community, they said.

Let There Be Lesbians event coordinator Reese Galido suggested that the committee give non-queer folks a “specific ask” to take action on, and call upon people “who have more privilege than us to spend that privilege on our behalf.”

Galido also recommended attending City Council meetings to demand policy that creates more safety for the queer community.

“That way we can systematize some of the safety here,” Galido said.

Colyer-Worth suggested that the committee create toolkits for allies to create safe spaces.

“It is very important that the lift isn’t put on the historically marginalized group,” Colyer-Worth said. “We’re all in this together to make our world a safe space.”

If community members experience harassment, they can email the committee at queereventsafety@artandsoulslo.org.

On Saturday, Art and Soul hosted live music at Bang the Drum Brewery, then Glitterotica and Big Balsz Productions were set to host an 18+ drag show “Kingdom Come, a Holiday Celebration” at 6 p.m. as a fundraiser for Art and Soul SLO.

Art and Soul will host an all-ages Holiday Market at Bang the Drum on Dec. 17 from noon to 4 p.m.