CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—Perhaps only the younger children in the bar didn’t know the gyrating, thinly-clothed “ladies” were actually men.
At the Big Chill and Grill on Sept. 26, Chattanooga’s Pride Week Drag Bingo night attracted a crowd that buzzed with conversation.
Several attendees were parents who may have been introducing their children to the idea of men masquerading as women in immodest clothing. Throughout the show, performers danced and reached for dollar bills shoved at them by a shouting audience.
One drag performer wore a blonde wig and tight, white dress that revealed the contours of his legs, buttocks, and stomach. Occasionally, he hiked up his outfit to keep fake breasts from escaping. A brunette wig and a barely-there leopard print skirt disguised the other male performer as a woman.
Before the show, the two announced that recording or photographing their show was forbidden, and anyone doing so would be thrown out.
Staff at the bar said the media blackout was to protect the drag performers.
The packed bar let out a rousing cheer at the idea of throwing out anyone who documented the event.
With that, each so-called “drag queen,” in turn, sashayed through the restaurant, lip-syncing to the music, and executing provocative dance moves.
Who’s There?
Few of the children in attendance looked older than 13. Some were far younger, including a tiny girl with Velcro-buckled shoes, and a little boy with silky-blond hair.One boy wearing sparkly eye makeup got an up-close view of the leopard-dress performer flash his women’s underwear, while performing splits.
When a performer danced near a young girl, the teen or tween’s mother handed the child money to hand off as a tip.
“All the LGBTs in the building, shout out!” one of the performers called into the microphone. He received a huge cheer.
“Allies, shout out!” he commanded. The audience cheered again.
“Everyone else?” he asked. Silence.
To kick off bingo play, one of the performers coyly pointed out the letter-arrangement of the game card.
It’s “B to the O to the O to the B,” he said, in a not-so-subtle reference to female anatomy.
Stop the Press
Multiple Chattanooga businesses have allied to keep the press out of events like this one, conservative social media influencer Ashley Kaye told The Epoch Times. Kaye lives in Chattanooga.
Since the video went viral, events with “child-friendly” drag shows have coordinated to ban her from their property, she said.
“They have threatened that if they see me in public to call the police and remove me from any establishment,” she said. “I’ve received messages saying that if I show up, I will be removed from any of these events.”
The businesses justify these restrictions on media by saying the drag queens are receiving death threats, she said. But Kaye said she has yet to see proof that threats are being sent.
“If they have nothing to hide, why are they so concerned with us filming it?” she wondered aloud.
According to Kaye, many of the same groups that sponsor Chattanooga Pride Week’s “child-friendly” drag shows also sponsor schools. She believes the events are designed to get children used to the idea of sex with adults.
“They’re purposely doing this because children are impressionable,” she said.
“The whole point is they want to normalize pedophilia,” Kaye alleged.
Although businesses have tried to disguise support for “child-friendly” drag events as support for LGBT issues, Kaye said it’s only a smokescreen.
“I have a lot of friends who are gay, who are liberal gays from when I lived in California. And I don’t know one of them that’s OK with this.”
