Texas Senate advances bills restricting some access to drag shows for kids

The Texas Senate gave initial approval to a pair of bills on Tuesday that seek to limit the exposure of children to drag events, continuing a Republican-led push across multiple states against drag show performances.

One of the bills that lawmakers in the Texas Senate gave initial approval to would ban “sexually oriented” drag performances in front of children. The other would strip libraries of state funds if they host a drag event, looking to limit drag queen story hours that have become increasingly popular.

The bill that would bar children from attending “sexually oriented” drag performances would slap any business that hosts such a show in front of children with a $10,000 fine and performers could face a misdemeanor, which would carry a jail sentence of up to a year. Every Republican in the chamber voted for the bill, with two Democrats also supporting it.

Both of the bills require another vote in the Senate before they can be sent to the House, but the initial approval of the pieces of legislation continue a multi-state offensive by Republicans against drag performances.

Tennessee passed and signed a first-of-its-kind bill earlier this year to criminalize some drag performances, but a federal judge placed a temporary hold on the law being enacted. Lawmakers in a slew of other states, including Arizona, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia, have filed bills that would in some way limit or restrict drag performances in their states.

The push against drag performances is part of the Republican battle on a number of cultural issues related to the LGBTQ community. At least 11 states in the U.S. have handed down partial or full bans on youth access to gender-affirming care for transgender children, with Republicans in at least 19 other states weighing the same type of legislation, according to an ABC News analysis.