A federal judge has, for a second time, struck down a Texas state law banning drag performances in settings where children may be present. In a ruling issued on Tuesday, US district judge David Hittner said Texas cannot enforce its drag show ban. He said that the measure improperly restricts speech and violates the first amendment of the US constitution.
The Texas ban, known as Senate bill 12, was passed in March 2023 and bans drag performers from dancing suggestively or wearing certain prosthetics on public property or in front of children, or “sexually-oriented performance” presented on the premises in the presence of an individual younger than 18 years of age. Advocacy groups sued the state after the bill’s passage, arguing the ban on “sexually oriented performance” infringed on constitutional rights. Texas’s move was just one across several states in 2023, driven by a right-wing backlash to increasing queer and transgender rights and equality.
Hittner initially declared the ban unconstitutional in September 2023, but it was unblocked by the 5th US circuit court of appeals in 2025, which returned the case to the judge. That allowed Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who is locked in a race for a US Senate seat against Democrat James Talarico, to resume enforcing the law earlier this year. The new ruling prevents Paxton from enforcing the law.
Paxton said he would appeal the decision. In his ruling, Hittner advised anyone “who find such activities as described in this case offensive” to “just don’t go”. The ruling mentioned Dolly Parton, who died on Tuesday, when it critiqued the law’s definition of banning performances that “appeal to the prurient interest”.
Hittner cited people who would chastise Parton “as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure”. Hittner said the terms used in the legislation were so broad they could block performers like Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus from performing in the state. Because the term ‘prurient interest in sex’ is open-ended, SB 12 can be used to cherry-pick particular aspects of performances that might be ‘in some sense erotic’,” Hittner wrote.
He said that because the law was very broad it caused some everyday activities, including “cheerleading, dancing, live theater, and other common public occurrences” to be regarded as civil or criminal violations. He also said that the law was vague on its face and that it failed “to give a reasonable person notice of what is prohibited”. Civil liberties groups welcomed the ruling.
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