Virulence in the Volunteer State

By Lauren Means

LGBTQ+ individuals living in Tennessee have, unfortunately, come to see the constant barrage of attacks on our constitutional rights as just something we must live with and fight year in and year out. It’s so
commonplace here that we expect a “Slate of Hate’’ to be presented by our state lawmakers every year.

This year has felt a little different. In case you might not have seen the letter circulating on social media, the City Manager of Murfreesboro, Tennessee has brought it upon himself to prohibit any future events by Boro Pride. This came about after a video from the event made its way around social media. The individual who posted the video was calling for bans on drag events and even suggesting the event was sexual in nature.

In Chattanooga, a clip from the Chattanooga Pride Youth Day at Wanderlinger Brewing Company was posted to social media along with commentary from the poster that was misrepresentative of the content calling the performers who were dressed as mermaids and princesses as drag queens. The video was trying to sexualize an event that was meant for youth in the area. These claims were disproven by event leaders, the hosting facility, and people in attendance.

Then, in Jackson, the pride organizers were forced to make a last-minute compromise to require ID checks prior to their drag performance. This was on top of them being forced to move their event from an
outdoor public park to an enclosed auditorium.

It’s not just drag shows and pride festivals being targeted. There has been an uptick in individuals challenging books in school libraries and public libraries. In Maury County, for example, there has been an
ongoing battle since June over books with LGBTQ+ characters and topics when the library put up a display of books for pride month.

This isn’t just a Tennessee-focused attack. The American Library Association’s (ALA) State of America’s Libraries Report 2022 noted that “library staff in every state faced an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.”

The ALA’s office of intellectual freedom (OIF) also said the challenges have become increasingly hostile, documenting 27 instances of police reports filed against librarians over books they had on the shelves.

Finally, we have the inevitable Slate of Hate coming from the Tennessee Legislature as Chris Sanders covered in our December 2022 issue. More details on those bills will be available as they are presented.

We will be covering all of these stories in detail in a multi-part series beginning with this issue. It will break down the calls to censor drag shows and pride festivals, the attack on libraries, who is behind the social media accounts calling for bans on the LGBTQ+ community, the upcoming slate of hate, and more.

To follow this story and read all parts as they are released visit https://weconnect.lgbt/?s=Virulence+in+the+Volunteer+State.