Tennessee's Blount Pride Fest Doubles Attendance After Anti-Drag Threat
Source: Daily Beast
Tennessee’s Blount Pride Fest Doubles Attendance After Anti-Drag Threat
A local district attorney threatened charges if Blount Pride hosted its planned drag events. The show went on anyway.
Kelly Weill
Reporter
Updated Sep. 04, 2023 5:34PM EDT Published Sep. 04, 2023 5:31PM EDT
Days before Blount County, Tennessee’s annual Pride festival, a local district attorney released a letter threatening to prosecute the event’s organizers under a defunct anti-drag act. The festival went on as scheduled this weekend—and more than doubled its 2022 attendance.
Blount Pride is an annual LGBTQ+ celebration in Maryville, offering music, art, drag performances, and community resources. But this year’s festival came under legal threat last week when Blount County District Attorney Ryan Desmond warned that he would prosecute organizers if they violated a short-lived anti-drag law.
After a last-minute lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and a ruling from a federal judge, the festival went on as planned, with more than twice as many attendees as last year.
In March, Tennessee passed the Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act, a law designed to crack down on drag performances. The law classed drag performances as “adult cabaret entertainment” and banned “male or female impersonators” from performing in public spaces, or places where minors could see them.
Critics panned the law as overbroad, anti-gay, and in violation of Tennesseans’ First Ammendment rights. ...
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