A Texas Republican lawmaker says he will introduce legislation that would allow for the “bounty hunting” of drag performers in the Lone Star State with massive fines that can be collected if any resident wants to sue a person performing where a child might see them.
The Advocate reports:
Houston-area state Rep. Steve Toth filed HB 4378 on Thursday. He seeks to define “a cause of action for drag performances performed in the presence of a minor.”
According to the bill, “An individual who attends a drag performance as a minor may bring an action against a person who knowingly promotes, conducts, or participates as a performer in the drag performance that occurs before an audience that includes the minor….”
A winning plaintiff can expect to be paid actual damages, attorney’s fees, and statutory damages of $5,000.
Such legislation, however, would only serve to place a “target” on transgender people, according to LGBTQ advocates such as transgender rights activist and reporter Erin Reed, who warns, “These bounties can easily be turned against trans performers. It could ban a trans person singing karaoke. It could ban pride.”
Toth’s bill is just the latest attack on the LGBTQ community by Republicans in conservative states, according to Bloomberg.
State lawmakers in the US have already introduced more anti-LGBTQ bills this year than in the past five years combined.
At least 385 anti-LGBTQ laws have been introduced at the state level in a majority of US states as of March 3, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. By comparison, lawmakers introduced 162 anti-LGBTQ bills last year, 19 of which were signed into law. Between 2018 and 2022, state legislators introduced at least 361 anti-LGBTQ bills total.
Gillian Branstetter of the ACLU remarked, “These bills represent an effort to purge transgender people from the law and from public life. Even if only ten percent of those bills become law, it represents a massive rollback of freedoms every person deserves.”
