March 18th - Show Your Pride, Keith Porter, and the Drag Ban with Violet S'Arbleu!

This week, we dive into a campaign now in its fourth year. SHOW YOUR PRIDE is a portrait project and collaboration with the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with creative partner Chandrayee Soneja, with Soneja Creative. Tammi Wallace and Chandrayee are interviewed by Brett Cullum. Then Jacob Newsome interviews Keith Porter, Jr.'s father. His son was killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year's Eve. Finally, Brett Cullum speaks with Houston Drag ICON, Violet S'Arbleu, about the Drag Ban, which goes into effect on March 18th. 

Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here.  Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond.  Check out our socials at:

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Transcript

Intro And Segment Roadmap

Brett 0:02

You are listening to Queer Voices, a radio show and podcast that has been on the air at KPFT for over five decades. We aim to bring you voices from within Houston's LGBTQIA Plus community. I am Brett Cullum, and we have three segments for you this time. First up, I interview the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce about their project, Show Your Pride. It's a campaign that is starting this month. Queer Voices starts now. This is Brett Cullum, and they always say a picture says a thousand words. And this year, Histonians of all ages and backgrounds are invited to be part of the 2026 Show Your Pride Campaign. This is proudly co-created by the Greater Houston LGBTQ Plus Chamber of Commerce and Sonaja Creative. The 2026 Show Your Pride campaign marks the fourth consecutive year of this awareness campaign. It serves as a sort of a rallying call, encouraging businesses, organizations, and individuals to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQIA plus community through a meaningful and inspiring photography campaign. Basically puts your pictures everywhere. So during Pride Month in June, these photos that are taken at these sessions will be displayed on 116 digital kiosks throughout Houston, thanks to a partnership with Ike Smart City. So today to talk about all of this, we have, of course, the president of the Greater Houston LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, Tammy Wallace, who I feel like I talk to all the time, and first time guest Chandre Sonaja of Sonaja Creative, and also the co-creator of Show Your Pride. So there we go. Hi, welcome to the show, both of you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Brett 1:47

I'm so excited to have you here. Why portraits? I mean, what made you just say, hey, let's just take pictures of people and put them everywhere?

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Right after COVID was, it's not gone. Let's not get that completely. But right after COVID was dissipating, where we were allowed to go outside our homes a little bit, mingle, I felt like we have changed. We have changed as people we were before COVID hit. And we have changed in the time we spend too much time with our partner. We have spent time away from our partners. I wanted to put those changes in a photographic series. So year after year, the changes, not just mentally but physically as a community, where this change has led us, I wanted to document it. I call myself a documentary photographer. Even when I take photos on my non-pride side, I try to document the events versus and tell a story where she's just making those grip and grins happen. So I texted Tammy, and Tammy's love for photography and my love and passion for photography came together. So the platform was created, and we had more than 350 participants the first year alone. And those same people, they said they saw those pictures as pictures of how they see themselves and not how they want us to see them. How they look at themselves and feel like this is a photo that captures their true essence. And that was the biggest compliment I could get. I think this is the legacy I want to leave behind. People saying that looks like me. That's how I see myself. And it's been four years, and those same people come back. They bring new friends and they're excited to see the back of the camera and excited to see the photos once we publish them. With one of the things that differentiate our photos is the fact we asked you what pride means to you. So it's not just a photo, so you have your first name and three words of what pride means to you. So they can see not just themselves, but how those words change. Four years ago, if pride meant family to you, and four years later, pride means more you, yourself, and how you feel versus the entire family, the entire community, that could be it. Or four years ago you were single and pride meant something to you. And now pride means your partner, your spouse, your family, your kids. That's how we see this campaign to be very essential, I would say, Brett, at this, at this junction in 2026.

Brett 4:21

Well, it's interesting because you bring up 2026, and I think pictures, we have all this AI stuff going on and filters and Instagram. So it's nice to think of getting a picture of yourself that shows you who you are and shows you in that light. And that's a very talent. That's a great compliment that people are giving you to say this is how I see myself. You obviously have some talent. And Tammy recognized that and decided we were going to make this an event. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

Yes. Chandra, she is our creative partner. She's the creative force behind the Show Your Pride campaign. I mean, it wouldn't be the campaign without not only her skills, just her technical skills around photography, but her vision and how she captures individuals. This year, we we theme it out every year. This year it's visibility as power. But the way she captures individuals in these photographs to show their power, right? Through stepping, you know, in front of this incredible backdrop that, by the way, she creates every year as well, and then just gifts them to be comfortable and allows her to photograph them. Both as individuals, we've had couples in there, we've had families, we've had puppy dogs, you name it. No cats, I don't think, yet. It's just a beautiful, beautiful campaign. And Seandre really, really, through her lens, brings out the magic in every one of these photos.

Brett 5:42

Right, Tammy, I'm bringing a cat.

SPEAKER_05 5:43

I know I need to bring mine too.

Brett 5:45

I love a good cat pride picture. Why not?

SPEAKER_05 5:48

Yes.

How To Register And Show Up

Brett 5:48

Well, let's talk a little bit about how you can participate in this because I think people are going to be real curious about what to do. I have that you have several dates and there's different times. And I'll run through it real quick, but is there somewhere where you can go to where we can find out?

SPEAKER_05 6:01

You bet. It is uh showyourpridecampaign.com is our website that shows not only the upcoming photo shoot dates and times, but it gives you an overview about what the campaign is and also the galleries from the past three years and the current year as well.

Brett 6:18

It looks like Saturday, March 21st, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Then we have Tuesday, March 24th, 5 to 8 p.m. for you early evening crowd. Then Saturday, April 18th, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, April 23rd, again, 5 to 8. I'm sensing a pattern. Day, April 27th, 5 to 8. And these are all taking place at SESH Coworking, which is at 2808 Caroline Street, suite 100, 7704 Zip Code. So is it is it downtown or downtown adjacent?

SPEAKER_05 6:49

It's it's midtown. Some folks may know it as the building where Waits and Mezzers is, but there is plenty of off-street parking, plenty of parking in the lot behind the building. Really easy access in and out. And um, if you register in advance, we go ahead and capture the photo release. You can obviously come on site and get the photo. And we're talking, you know, like a 10-minute 10 minutes or so to to for Chandra to work her magic and and work with the subject.

Brett 7:16

I can pre-register at the site and do the photo release before I get there.

SPEAKER_05 7:20

You sure can.

Brett 7:21

But if I just show up, I can also just sign a photo release and be like, yeah, work your magic, Chandra.

SPEAKER_05 7:26

Sesh has a wonderful restroom facilities and all that. So if you need to bring a little makeup, you want to touch up or whatever for those that maybe for the evening shoots are coming from work, get set, or you want to change clothes. Um, we just want as many people to participate in the campaign as possible. And there's no charge. We do have a suggested donation, but that is completely optional. It is just so important that we're visible this year as it has been in years past. But I would say, particularly this year, so critically important that we're showing up. And I'm also telling people show up, be part of this photo shoot and show up for those who cannot show up, who cannot be visible right now. We've got it all organized. People just have to show up.

Brett 8:06

This year, there's feels like there's an effort to erase a lot of our community. But it is important to get out there and document and, you know, spread it all over. This stretches March through April. So you've got some time. And then of course, when do the photos run? Do they they run in June or they run starting in March or May?

SPEAKER_05 8:24

So we'll finish up the photo shoots at the end of April. That gives Chandra all the time that she needs to do final edits on those photo shoots for those late April photo shoots, but also for us to create all the assets that we need to get. I like smart cities to run on the kiosks. And so that gives us just a little bit of time to get all that done. But we'll do a show your pride kickoff too at the end of the May to celebrate, celebrate the photos. And then we do at our Pride in Business luncheon and after party that'll be on June 12th, we do a show your pride exhibit to showcase all of the photos.

Brett 8:57

Wow. Physically they're printed and put all around the room or last year we did them in a box format.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

So if you can imagine these huge cubes stacked on top of each other, it made for an incredible exhibit. And we're exploring, you know, what that might might look like this year. It was something Chandra was like, we should bring this to Pride and Business, right? We have well over a thousand people expected this year. So everybody should see the campaign and also see the photos if they weren't into this year. Go, I'm gonna make a point to be in it in 2027.

Seven-Day Photos And Pride Words

Brett 9:25

Chandra, you edit all of these photos? How long does it take you to edit a photo?

SPEAKER_04 9:30

Well, I promise that the photos will be ready in seven days and you get it in seven days. So you take a photo on a Monday. By next Sunday, Monday morning, you wake up and the photos are on the website, download them, use them, show your friends, and tell them, hey, look at what I did, and go to the next one if they love it. It's a promise. I take my time from the very beginning when I take the photo. This is one thing I tell each of my models, I call them my models. So you assign a model release form, and I tell them, I will not let you leave from the backdrop till you tell me you're happy with the photo. I will show you the photos and they'll go over it over and over again. The first rounds always people are a little conscious, a little shy. But then when they see the photos and they see themselves in front of it, a very vibrant background. Every year I try to make it as vibrant as possible. And they see it, and you can just see a change in their personality. You can be like, I know what I did and I know what what I don't want, so let's do that again. But this time I'm I'm a hundred percent sure. And then, Brett, I kid you not, the photos are so much different. They're very happy, they walk away with excitement. It starts from the very beginning of taking the photo. Once your person that you're trying to capture is happy, the rest is just touching up a little shine or uh fray hair, but I don't do a lot. I feel like my models do everything, my participants do the work. The backdrop makes the person pop standing in front of it in seven days. You put the words in, it takes more time to put the words in than it takes for me to Oh, that's great.

How Photography Builds Community Power

Brett 11:10

So tell me a little bit about um Sonai Creative. What is what is that? It's your company, obviously, but what what all do you do?

SPEAKER_04 11:18

So I'm an event photographer, and I started unfortunately right before COVID 2, where tinkering with a camera just made me happy. I'm an engineer by trade. So I went to school for a couple of degrees of engineering, and I didn't find my joy. And that same joy came from tinkering with a camera and seeing the results and ultimately seeing the faces of happiness, of emotion. And I shouldn't just say happiness when I capture weddings or events that are very close to a person's heart, whether it be a funeral, whether it be an engagement, a birth. It just you see the emotion, and that's what makes me wake up every day and do what I do. If I started a company and I had to take a pause because COVID happened, I feel like my entire life is revolving around that. It has been an outlet for not just me, but for everybody around me to see themselves how I see them, but also see themselves how they because a lot of times they'll be candids and they'll come to me and like that's great. I don't like when people are taking my photo with and I don't know about it, but you did a great job. That's how I see myself. You caught the moment that had emotion in it. I take photos for a living, that's all I do.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Pretty pictures. No, that is not all she does. Chandra is a storyteller through photography, whether it's show your pride, she has captured so many of our events, and you can literally see the story and put yourself in the place in that event. Couple that with her passion, right, for the art, the craft, with photography, but then her passion for community around show your pride or our events. I'm so grateful that she reached out to me that day via text and said, Hey, I've got an idea. And I immediately called her. And here we are today. But this is what it looks like. First of all, the chamber partnering with one of our small business members and helping to elevate a small business. But this is also what it looks like with a small business really, really being proud of uh, you know, her community and really stepping in to say, here's a way that I think I can make a difference for my community. She's a champion for our community through her through her photography. Yeah, and she was a member. She is a member of the company. She is absolutely a member and an LGBTBE certified business as well.

Brett 13:39

Oh wow. Okay, so all in, Sandra.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

When you come from India and you know nobody here, and you have to either decide do you want to be yourself or do you want to keep living the life that you've lived when you were back in India and just uh doing the things that are expected of you. So, yes, I went all in. I I'm no longer ashamed of who I am and I'm no longer gonna be shy. I I've I'm public-facing a lot too, because I work for Harris County. I do not take myself away from the equation every day that I show up. So spread the gayness, but say that well, we certainly are spreading it with showyourpride.

Brett 14:20

So there you are. You're putting pictures up all over Houston. You can't ignore us, right? Yeah, I think you're doing pretty good on spreading that. And of course, Sammy does too. Thank you both so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

Of course, uh, remind me one more time that website show to your pridecampaign.com.

Brett 14:36

There are multiple photo shoot dates throughout March and April. So no excuses. You can get out there, Sesh co-working, 2808 Caroline Street.

SPEAKER_05 14:45

I just wanted to say one last plug, but we do have sponsorships available for the for the photo shoot. And then we can do through an a through a formal engagement if companies want to bring uh a photo shoot on on site, we can do that. All of that information is on showyourpride uh campaign.com.

Brett 15:03

All I have to do now is find a cat to bring to the photo shoot.

SPEAKER_05 15:06

Bring a stuffed animal. You don't want me bringing my cats to a photo shoot. They might scratch draws up. You can see uh quite the gentle gentle souls of the puppies, but I don't know.

Brett 15:17

There's some puppies that could take it on too. So I think I I don't think we need to shade cats too much. I know if it's very loving ones, but certainly have their exceptions. Show your pride. Thank you both so much. I'm so proud to get to talk to you about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

And to bring it up. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Keith Porter Jr. Killing In Focus

Brett 15:38

Keith Porter Jr. was a Los Angeles man who was killed by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE officer on New Year's Eve. He was a 43-year-old father of two, and his father lives here in Houston. The ICE agent claims he killed him in self-defense, but witnesses say Porter was simply doing celebratory gunfire for the new year and was killed for no reason. His father lives here in Houston, and in this segment, Jacob Newsom from the Power of the Narrative podcast interviews him.

A Father’s Grief And Isolation

Witness Accounts And Media Narratives

Seeking Justice Through Local Networks

Turning Loss Into A Foundation

SPEAKER_03 16:15

My name is Jacob Newsom with Power of the Narrative, and I am here with Keith Porter Sr. And Keith Porter and you are more than welcome to introduce yourself. Hello, my name is Keith Porter Sr. I'm the father of Keith Porter Jr. that was fatally murdered by an off-duty ICE agent, New Year's Eve, Northridge, California. And so tell me what your experience has been like as a dad grieving your son. It's been a battle. It's been a terrible not being able to sleep, eat, maneuver. Daily life task has become pretty difficult and in some cases obsolete that these days. How have you been able have do y'all feel like you've been supported throughout this time? My family has been supportive of me, but I live in Houston, Texas, so I haven't had much support out here. Maybe because they don't know that I'm here. I haven't had the support that my family at California is getting for him. He is one of the ones that helped us move here in 2005. He lived here from 2005 up until 2016 a couple times, you know, what's Paul's stint. So he he has Houston people up here that he's he was still in constant contact with they all just found out recently through social media and they've been reaching out to me and they're devastated. So I have a network of people out here that know him that's been supportive of the tragedy. Who we talked about is getting you more connected in Houston because I feel like when we met and talked about a week ago, Hugh Porter Jr.'s case was growing, but now it's national attention. Like I told you, I feel like your your family's working the narrative in Los Angeles, so you're gonna be working the narrative in Houston. That's absolutely um what I am trying to do. You mentioned Keith Porter Jr. may have kids. Uh to ask that again. Children? Yes, he has two daughters. He has one 20 years old and one that's 10 years old. How have his children have been processing this right now? Well, it's been difficult. The youngest has been taking it the hardest. She was always around him. His baby, she pretty much taken it the hardest. They had a bond. And when I last spoke with her mom, she said that she's having house births at school. Can't sleep. She's she's going through it, you know. Poor baby. I feel so bad for her. She was around him all the time. It's just hard on everybody. Everybody has their own little thing. They're dealing with him being murdered. A lot of us are feeling it. Everything is off with me now. It sounds like you're dealing with that. You're dealing with that grief and black men get that space to talk about what's going on with us. They have to hold it together because other people need us. Absolutely. I've been have to walk that line, try to make sure I keep my head up high. Everybody's watching. I have to make sure I'm maintained and the line. But at the end of the day, I was like, man, they don't worry. We we grew up together. I was 18 when he was born. One day he had called me and said, Pops, how you feel about to have a child 35 years old? And I like, you know, I lost track of his of his age and he did that to me. I have a lot of good memories with Keith, man. We grew up together. It's gonna be hard on me, you know. Hawaii I found out about this case, because I have a friend that lives in LA, and uh a lot of the news stories around a lot of black deaths. It's about how Keith was the aggressor, about how he shouldn't even have been in those apartments. And it it even started talking about how Keith may have had a rifle and he may have shot first the officer. How did you feel seeing seeing your son just like his story distorted like this to be the aggressor in this situation? We all looked like it in shock because we knew that wasn't his character. We all know not to point no weapon at nobody is saying that they're the law. Just the way the story sounded, he turned around and just fired three times at the at the officer, but none of the the shells hit the officer, but the officer three shots that shot that two of them hit Keith. When the coroner released the papers, the the ballistics don't lie. It shows Keith standing with his back to the guy, and the guy came to Keith's right side and fired the weapon because of the way the bullet hit his chest and his in his left hand. The bullet hit hit his right upper torso over his nipple and killed him. And then another bullet hit his left forearm and it came out his thumb. Then the witnesses that was out there said the guy walked up and said, put it down, and Keith gently turned his head to the right of his right shoulder and said, What? And when Keith said, What? The guy popped three times, popped. We went in and talked with everybody. And I sat in this apartment for an hour and 45 minutes, packed all his belongings up and all his personals that I thought his mom should have, that did my closure and all that in there, and pretty much knocked on all the doors. His his law team. This is the first week when it happened when I went down there. I was there for five days. A lot of witnesses are coming out. A lot of those ladies and a lot of those those those yuppie, really nice suburban ladies liked my son. They were all friends and they all had good things to say about him. Just because he shot in the sky, he's not supposed to be killed for that, you know. Yeah. That's be an arrest. Citation is not supposed to be a death penalty without it Any hesitation. He didn't even give my son a chance to even sit nothing down. People are talking now. People are talking. They're telling the truth now. So the federal government is doing everything they can to convince him that they're going to protect him, trying to let him paint the picture that he was he was protecting himself, which that's always has been the case whenever it's a victim being shot. Always say he had a gun. Oh, and then they had this hideaway throwaway weapon they had staffed in their sock or their boot and then they put it on the perpetrator. It's been years that's been going on, if not put a throwaway on the victim, lie on a victim. I watched them say that innocent poor girl that was shot in the face by that guy in Minnesota, he tried to ring him over, so he shot her in the face. He she didn't even turn the wheel towards her. Then they said she's a terrorist and all that stuff to s slander her character and make her look like that stuff, like they're doing to my son, trying to make it sound like, oh, he fired a weapon. Why haven't the LAPD showed any any casings or any there's nothing been given? I I did file open records requests with LAPD and the DA's office, and you know, they they were they were running circles around me. LAPD is talking about how, oh, it's an open investigation. We can't give you anything right now. Uh I I asked the DA's office for a case number. They didn't give me a case number. It's it's one of those things where everybody's trying to hide, because you know, the attorneys are gonna make them come clean. They have to come clean. They can't no longer hide it or hold it. It's they gotta tell the truth now, and the truth is gonna come out. The guy deliberately killed my son. He didn't even give my son a chance to even put no gun down or anything like that. And he just shot. This simple mistake cost him his life. The simple mistake took his life. That's that quick, that's that fat, that's wiped that boy off dessert. His name is out there now. Brian Palace Palacios or something like that. With Keith, you know, you're seeing all these stories that aren't true. You think you know who how your son is. Let's say somebody did shoot in the air during New Year's Eve. That doesn't equal death, that equals jail time or some some penalties are established. Because you because it doesn't sound like you're not pro accountability if Keith did anything. You're you are saying, like, even if he did it, why did you kill my son? Exactly, exactly. He was the the judge and the executioner, basically. So you mean to tell me he has a path to do that, apparently, if he's allowed to do it. What was told to me by the organizers that's uh involved in that group, when you're black or brown, it doesn't matter. They don't care. Don't sweep it up under the rug, then your family better prove otherwise because black and brown don't matter. She said, Did you never thought a year last year at this time you would be here going through this with it with a fallen child that's been killed by ice? She said, You never thought it'd happen to you, huh? I told her no. She said, You're living proof that it can happen to any one of us, Mr. Porter. Welcome aboard. We we're happy to have you with us and whatever we can do to help you, we got your back. She hit me with that one. You hear me? That's gotta form some kind of alliance and allegiance with people that that's experiencing this stuff. Like that organization called P O M C Parents of Murdered Children. I tapped in with them and I'm scheduled to go have a meeting with them. I'm gonna go and meet with them also, just trying to stay out in and and find out how other people are living with this. I don't want to have to sit and try to figure it out myself and be sitting over here going crazy. Well, you're doing the right thing. You're doing better than most because I think in our community get very side tra like we get blindsided, like we're not expecting somebody in our family to be murdered by the police. That's that's not on our on our little agenda. Seeing all these different false narratives about your son. What do you want people to understand about who he really was and what part of his story has never been heard correctly? They're hearing all this about him having this weapon, but he was not that type of individual. He was just like any other typical kid, always out there having fun, riding his bikes, his skates or his skateboard, video games. You know, he was always having fun. He was always around a lot of love and laughter. He came inside the house with a huge smile on his face. He brought the energy into the room. We all could not get enough of him whenever he came around. And when it was time to leave, you can feel his presence when he left the room or the house. People don't know when Keith was growing up. He was really athletic. He was one of those guys, man. He was a, you know, really good dude, uh, very athletic. Everybody loved him. Funeral was packed. 600 inside, 600 outside. They wouldn't even let the 600 outside in. We're talking celebrity type funeral. He was loved. Everybody loved Keith Porter. And we all going through it right now. I'm going through the emotional. I'm my phone lines. I'm trying to reach out and see what I can do to reach people and keep his name ringing and preach the truth about him opposed to this the narrative they try to paint, the picture they try to draw on him. You know, try to assassinate his character by saying he drew the gun on the guy and all that. It's like, nah, that's not even him. I'm not even gonna let y'all even do that. You know, that there is a rule in the neighborhood, and we all know if there is a law enforcement officer around you and you have a weapon, and he tells you put it down, you put it down. It ain't no I can take him. Why would he want to try to take him? Why? What's the reason he won he wanted to shoot you? People that want to kill officers do kill officers. Like, so there is no ambiguity to it. That's that's the reality. If Keith wasn't like that, I don't saw the news articles and I'm like, who gotta be a vigilante? Like, you know, he said off-duty ice agent, go home, your clock out, stop. From what I was told, it's like a hundred some ice duty agents, ice agents out there, right? Throughout, spread it out throughout the country. So this is sad. You know, all of them have a place they go to when they're not arresting people. So when they're not arresting people, they have that same mentality, and if they get in the way with killing and they're not being held accountable, it's gonna be more. The craziest thing with this is that like ICE agents, to our public knowledge, they're not used to kill people. Now, I'm not I'm not gonna say as far as them detention centers, because you know, we know that some stuff's been going on with them for a while, but but this is the first time ICE has been publicly executing civilians. And so now it's it's getting dangerous. And so I commend your bravery while your family's doing what they need to do to survive. You're feeling your grief and you're saying, Hey, like, I gotta fight. That's the only thing. That's the only language I know how to do. And if you're like this, I know Keith Porter Jr. was a fighter for sure. Remember some words he said to me when we're we were trying to put it all together and and go do some some family things. He said, All we can do is try, Pops. All we can do is try. So that's what I'm trying to do is try to keep the fight going. He would have done it for me. If it was, if it was me and it was him out here, he would have done it for me. So I'm gonna do it for him. I'm gonna what do you want his legacy to be? You know how these things go, is that it's it's big for a while and then it starts to go back in the box. So we're I wanted his legacy to be for people to remember him. I want to set up something, some kind of foundation or something with his name, some kind of nonprofit where the money will go back towards keeping his name alive and keeping some organization or something doing good in in his honor. That's where I'm gonna and also provide a platform for all the other victims. I've I've I've I'm 61 years old. I've lived a lot. I wanna I wanna definitely try to be be able to help the rest. I want to be a part of something great in myself. I want to share the knowledge, share the information. That is my ulterior motive, that is the goal. I appreciate you coming on today. I it is very apparent that you loved your son so much so that you turn your love into action. I promise you that your son's story won't be forgotten because you're the one holding it, but then all of us as a community will be holding your son's story. We're we're gonna keep working to keep Pete's name alive in this moment at memorials, at one-year anniversaries, two, five, ten, twenty-year anniversaries. His name will never be forgotten. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Brett 30:22

On Wednesday, February 25th, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas's drag ban can actually go into effect. It is going to be effective on March 18th. Now, if you remember this thing, back in June 2023, Texas governor Greg Abbott passed SB 12, which criminalized sexually explicit performances in the presence of minors. Now, the law defined such performances as those in which a male performer is exhibiting as a female or a female performer exhibiting as a male, so take it as genderbending, using clothes, makeup, or other similar physical markings, and it involves singing, lip-syncing, dancing, or otherwise performing before an audience. Now, under this law, both performers and the venues that hosted these performances face a$10,000 fine and up to one year in prison. Now, in September 2023, U.S. judge David Hitner struck down the ban after the ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit on behalf of local drag performers, challenging the law. We thought we had won. Hitner had said it impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech. But when the appeals court agreed to consider the case in November 2025, it lifted Hitner's injunction against the law and allows it to go into effect while remanding the case back to Hitner's court for further consideration. So a lot of jargon, a lot of stuff going on with uh SB12. And with me today is the thinking man's drag queen. Violets are blue, aka Jacob Shapu. Violet, what does this all mean?

Why The "Drag Ban" Is Vague

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Nothing. It means nothing. When they had the bathroom bill, what was that, four years ago? Where they were like, you can only use the bathroom that line up with the genitals you were born with when they had that whole thing. I think it was right before the pandemic, if I remember. Maybe a couple years even before that. Time has no meaning anymore. The law that was on the books says, yeah, you have to pee where you should pee. But if you're gonna have to have an emergency, you don't have to pee yourself. You can use the other bathroom. So when they made this new bill, they were like, oh, we have trans people in the bathrooms. And it was like, but you can't make a bill that says people can't pee. So they made this bill that said, oh, trans people can't pee in the trans bathroom, unless, of course, they really have to pee. And if it's like an emergency or any kind of thing, they can use whatever bathroom they want, like everybody else, because we can't take that out of the law because it's illegal. So they literally made a whole bill to be like, don't you want trans people to not pee in the bathroom? Here's a bill that says trans people can still pee in any bathroom they want, but we won't tell you that. So sign it because we're winning for bigotry. So that's literally what this is the SB12 ban. It had so many iterations before it finally went through. Because I think it was first proposed in Austin, because I remember the video of Brigitte talking about it, Brigitte banned it. And then it happened another place, and then the ACLU filed the thing that caused it to be stopped and all that. And the bill literally says the first thing was like, no drag around minors. And then they said, Well, you can't say that because like parents bring their kids where they want, they have parental rights. I said, Okay, well, no sexy drag around minors. And then it was like, well, you can't really say that because it's not like all drag is sexy. So by the time they finally came up with the draft of the bill that passed, it was like, okay, so you can't do provocative sexy drag that is a sexual nature or pruriently sexual, which is a term that nobody can define, which is the point, um, anywhere where there's minors, but if there's minors that sneak in, it's not the venue's fault if they use a fake ID. The draft of this literally says, if it's an all-ages drag show for all ages, that's fine. If it's a drag show that's not sexual in public, that's fine. If it honestly, the way the bill is written now, it people who do burlesque are more at danger of being punished by this than actual drag performers, which is ridiculous. So you have to be nude. It has to be like a nude performance, which is entirely unclothed or closed in a manner that leaves uncovered the part of the breast where the nipple is, or part of the actual physical genitals or butt. There's not a lot of drag that does that. Especially not if you've seen my body, the parts of my body you see I have to shave, and the parts of my body you don't see I don't shave. And um, I'm not a hairy drag queen, which means everything that you see that looks like skin is not skin. I'm wearing eight layers of tights. I'm wearing like a ski suit almost every time I'm out in public, which is why I don't do a lot of outdoor gigs, especially during Pride season. You can't see any portion of my genitals or buttocks. Most people have never seen any portion of my genitals or buttocks, but enough about me being 40 and single. And then in addition to being nude and having to have the profanity of your body showing because God made it that way, but it's filthy and from the devil, then you have to do sexual conduct, which means you have to expressly simulate or represent sexual acts specifically, or simulate genitals for a sexual thing specifically, or you have to do a performance that is specifically stimulating or trying to arouse people sexually, or you have to have any physical contact between all the parts of the body that you're not supposed to see, like boob to butt or whatever. And then it's like, so that's it's not drag. We don't do that. So the part that makes it drag is doing any of the above using prosthetics or accessories that exaggerate male or female characteristics. You're like, aha, gender exaggeration. This is sort of too vague to be used for anything. And then, of course, you have to have the prurient interest in sex in addition to everything I already mentioned, which it's like tur the the the court couldn't define what that meant. And part of the challenge to the bill is what is this? And they don't know. If you're in a venue that minors can't get into, you can do whatever you want. If you're at an all-ages drag show doing drag for all ages because it's marketed that way and you've planned for it, you can do whatever you want. If you're doing drag in public, unless you're going to simulate whole heterosexual intercourse using nudity and prosthetics, you can do basically whatever you want. But the bill is written in such a way and being called a drag ban so that people here in the audience who want to complain about it and it can go to court and it can be a whole thing. I I'm pretty sure they're aware of this, but um people who do drag, we're not making a lot of money. A couple of people are. There have been, I think, a hundred and about 160 different people on RuPaul's drag race now in the US. They're all making money. The rest of us are not. Not all of them. Some of them are. Their booking fees are still higher than mine, I will tell you that, I'm sure. But the rest of us, we're not making that kind of money. So they know that if they try to take this to court, we're not going to be able to do court costs. It's intentionally made to be as many roadblocks as possible for queer people and trans people and people who are doing nothing and minding their own business to distract from, you know, the actual crimes, like school shootings, that they could do anything about at any time, or um, you know, pursuing pedophiles would be nice, or really anything to distract from, you know, illegally gerrymandering the state halfway through the census period. You know, whatever. Whatever we can use to scapegoat the people wearing the wigs and the lashes. Which, of course, how do I want to phrase this diplomatically? How would that even be diplomatic? I do say, even with all of this going on, I still find it surprising the number of mostly women of a certain demographic who voted in line with this law to support the creation and enforcement of this law, who do still come to the drag shows and have a good time. And they're always the ones who want to be the dirtiest. They have the penis straws, they've got the sash, they want to do the boobs in the face, they want to put their face in your fake boobs. They want to be, they are the things that generally straight bachelorettes do at drag shows is the most sexual things that happen at a drag show. It's not with kids, it's not with each other, it's not with men in the audience. It's women who come and party, which is great. They're a lot of fun. We love a woo-girl. This is not, I'm not insulting them. I would like them to keep coming. Thank you so much. It's just interesting to me that like the people who go out and do that with drag queens in their free time when they want to party are the people who are believably convinced that our behavior is the problem and that we're doing things to children. Did you see a kid at the show last night when you were half blacked out before you got married? No, there's no kids here.

Brett 38:23

I've never seen kids in a bar at a drag show. I mean, it's just not happening. I mean, I I heard tangentially, and this may be an urban myth completely, but I heard that this whole thing started way back in Florida, that they had a Christmas show with kids in attendance. And Jimbo, a Canadian drag queen who happened to have been on RuPaul's Drag Race, came out and did a number called Rudolph the Red Nippled Reindeer in front of children. Probably not the best judgment, and he did have prosthetics. Lives for it. My biggest concern is that you talk about the bathroom ban and how unenforceable it was, but the state buildings and the federal buildings now have the bathroom ban in effect. I mean, there's really supposed to be, you are supposed to have the correct genitals to go into the rooms on the state things, and they can find these state-run things. And what does this do to somebody who is not using prosthetics who maybe has a body that they are showing scan? I mean, because their identity is wrapped up in something more than just their drag. Are they being discriminated against in this way? They're being discriminated against in every way.

Bathroom Policing And Public Fear

Pop Culture Drag Versus Panic

SPEAKER_01 39:28

I will say to revisit that story real quick, I do think it would be ironic if the entire thing about the way we need to regulate drag in America is because of the way a Canadian person did drag. Yes. I just I just want to point it out. I do think it's ironic. I'm just saying, and also a Canadian person who um is making the amount of money that they can go to court over it, and yet they're not the one who has to suffer from this. Um, which is not a dig at Jimbo. I'm sure she's lovely. I've never actually met her, but I do know plenty of people who have. Um Jimbo is a clown. Jimbo is a uh obviously the giant breasts are something that is associated with sexuality. Jimbo has the giant boobs, but like it's about the absurdity of being like these bidonculous plastic things on her chest for the sheer hilarity camp factor of of the giant boobs that you know are not her boobs. So even that is a sexual look that's not being used in a sexual way. Especially if it's for a number called Rudolph the Red Nippled Reindeer. I don't know about you, but that doesn't make me think that she's trying to get people off, you know. But anyway, not at all. Not at all. That's the thing. And because again, you have to use the right restroom, but in the law, they legally cannot force you to if you have to go to the restroom and there's nothing open. You have to be allowed to use the other one. It is written in the bill. So the thing is, people don't read the bill. People didn't read the bill when they voted for it. They don't read the bill. As we know here in Texas, people don't always read anything before they vote, which is why all of those propositions passed the last time we had the votings. I know plenty of cases that we've seen of um tomboyish woman at an airport where she is harassed or harangued because they think she's going in the wrong restroom. Or um that uh girl at Boeing Stop, where she was wearing a hoodie and she was cut-chested and she had a short haircut. She was wearing a hoodie and she was trying to go to the bathroom. She got in the bathroom, but an employee followed her in and was harassing her about being in the wrong bathroom and was literally like demanding, take your shirt off and prove that you're a woman because I don't think you should be in here. She did, but it like showed the sports bra or whatever. I hope she sued. I hope she sued the whole chain. I hope she got more money than that chain makes in a month because wings. But like, especially if it was Buffalo Loblings, oh my God, the service at that place, I know they're not making money. You can mute that if they're a sponsor. They're not. No shade. I enjoy the wings. This is what was supposed to happen. People are supposed to be harassed by renegade rogue agents who think they're Batman in army fatigues, being like, I don't think you're a man or a woman. But they are. If you demand to see people's genitals, that's not protected by the law. And you shouldn't feel like it's protected by the law. If you think someone's going in the wrong restroom to pee, does it bother you? Because it shouldn't bother you. The person needs to pee. Also, as a couple of people have very smartly pointed out recently, with things like the bathroom bill, I am a single father who's out with my daughter. Which restroom do I need to take her in to pee? Because one of us is going to be wrong regardless. Also, the like the dangle of here's money if you turn someone in, I believe the word is dystopian. The weaponization of people's free time against each other is intentional. It is a device. It is not a side effect, it is a function of this bill, of most of these bills, because they decided they can't be discriminatory enough by themselves. They have to rile up the populace to be discriminatory for them. So that anytime a queer person is minding their own business, buying groceries or peeing at the movie theater, they need to have people on the on the streets, feet on the pavement to make sure that that trans person feels uncomfortable in public no matter where they go. Because they don't want those trans people in public. They don't want trans people to exist everywhere. And now we have ice so that they don't want people of color to peacefully exist everywhere. They want them to carry their paperwork on them at all times. And they want people who wouldn't wear a mask for COVID and didn't want to get vaccinated, but they want brown people to have 15 pages of documents that they won't believe anyway. They just want to come up with as many ways as they can to make as many people who aren't single white men be as anxious in public as possible because the intimidation factor is the reason it succeeds. White men are a minority. So if you include white men and white women, I believe they are still also at this point in history a minority, or they're about to be in the US, which is not a threat. I'm just talking about statistics. And they need to make sure that all of those people fall in line with the I don't want to call it it's not Orwellian. Fall in line with the idea of the regime of if you are not normal, you need to be afraid. And there's not enough of us who are normal anymore. So the few that we have left need to be the loudest and the most offensive because everybody else will be too divided to unite. I mean, we just saw it with the Texas primary, like at Jamestown. Rico and Jasmine Crockett both ran, both good candidates, honestly. James Talrico had eight or nine months of campaigning. And then because Texas gerrymandered Jasmine Crockett out of a seat, she joined the race like three months ago and already disadvantaged because she has less time. Same thing that happened to Kamala and did a great job, ran a great campaign, and they were very, very close by the end. Both over a million votes from a red state in a primary. Great record, great turnout. But as soon as it happened, a lot of black people voted for Jasmine Crockett. Well, there it's racism. We're not going to vote now in November, keeping people divided. And the James Tal Rico supporters, there was not from the Talo Rico camp, but there was plenty of misinformation of people who didn't like Jasmine Crockett. Well, she took APAC money. She didn't. She went to Israel. She didn't. And then, of course, on the Jasmine side, the few campaign ads that were run, not by Jasmine Crockett, were talking about like Talo Rico being a Trump sleeper agent because he happens to be white and a Christian. He's just like Fennerman. He's not. He is anti-black. He said racist things behind closed doors. Brilliant. So like they intentionally, even not even the candidates, but people on behalf of the candidates were running ads smearing the other one to make sure that the few Democratic voters who turned out were going to be split. So the next morning, Jasmine's like, it's important that we flip the seat. Whichever one of us gets it needs to be elected. So when James was called the winner, she congratulated him and was like, we all really need to show up and vote for James because this is what we need to do. And people are like, no, she's just saying that to be nice. I'm not voting. We are successfully playing into what the other people want us to do. And that's the whole point of this. People are in the streets successfully playing into don't pay attention to gun debts, don't pay attention to the abolition of healthcare, don't pay attention to the crumbling of education under Mike Miles, who can get bent. Pay attention to the one trans person, the one trans person that you don't even know if they're trans, they might be peeing over there. You need to do something.

Brett 45:57

Well, one of the things that going back to the original drag ban, um oh no, no, no, it's fine. I I love going all over the map. Yeah. Um, but I think about it and I'm like, okay, RuPaul's Drag Race has been on for 18 seasons of the US franchise and 646 spin-offs of international seasons and UK versus the world and UK and All-Stars and everything else. And it just seems like drag now is so mired in pop culture that it's almost a non-issue. Hey, why is this suddenly in the spotlight again? I mean, it just seems so crazy. I mean, all these people whose their favorite movie is Mrs. Downfire or Tootsie. It's like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

I think it's ironic because if you look at Robin Williams' mouthing, dude looks like a lady dancing with that vacuum, that's drag. That's a drag performance. There is not singing. He is lip syncing, he is in a prosthetic of some sort, and he is performing. Just because people are not physically handing him the money does not mean it's not a drag performance. And you still watch that. That's a kid's movie. And there happens to be a particular drag lip sync performance in the middle, a very entertaining, very comical, very enjoyable drag performance. It's very close to what I do, but that's drag. So when people are like, I think they're stripping in front of children. No, they're not. If you've seen um Too Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, also featuring Robin Williams, which features a not great representation of drag queens kind of as trans people, because different times. It's them driving across the country and then going to a small town where they teach people the joys of wearing vintage and having a party. There's no one in that movie under 18. Then you have The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which is set in Australia, which is a bus tour with a lot of um darker content because it's not a kid's movie. Um, but it's not perverse content. It's just about like gay trauma and things like that. And uh the end of that is that the person I don't want to spoil the movie. Um spoiler alert for a movie that came out in the 90s. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it's still a good movie, you should see it. But uh there is a plot point. There is a trans character, and there are two non-trans characters, and there is also a plot point with a woman and a child, and none of it is sexual, and it's all jovial uplifting, but it's just about the complicated realities of people's relationships. And there's nothing in the movie that is perverse. And it's it's not like manipulative about children and a lot of ABBA. That's that's the vehicle. It's an ABBA vehicle. It's it's the gateway to ABBA. These are movies that are specifically about drag, these are movies that are classics that involve drag. Tootsie is probably the most manipulative drag story. I don't think anyone under 30 is even in that movie. It's a story where a man who is an actor can't get enough work, so he cross-dresses for a part on a soap opera, gets the part on the soap opera, and then doesn't tell anyone. So it's a man pretending to be a woman, the opposite of Victor Victoria. The most controversial thing is while he's in drag pretend to be a woman, he falls in love with a stunning Jessica Lang. Anything with drag queens in movies that are being manipulative or tricking people, they're not even drag queens. They are straight people cross-dressing. And that's the whole point with the bathroom bill. They're like, oh, men are a danger to women. Yeah, they are. Straight men, cis men, they are a danger to women. They're the ones raping the women. You are correct. You got that right. But that's not a trans woman. That's a straight man. So even in the movies, it's not gay people who suddenly start doing drag to trick you. And that's how it is in reality, too. There are a grand total of still zero instances of a trans person who did this in the bathroom. No, it's a straight person who cross-dressed to do something to somebody. I believe now they've gotten up to a total of four trans people who've committed public shootings or four total. The comparison for straight people just in the last 20 years is something like 4,600. It's fear and panic out of misinformation to trick people into giving a few people on the far right what they want to avoid them from having to give people what they want. There's a lot of stuff in Texas that still hasn't been fixed. Republicans have been in power for over 30 years. There's so much that could be done. There's so much that could be done with money. There's so much that can be done for money, there's so much that could be done for people. But we're protesting the unconstitutional enforcement of a ban on drag that really doesn't even ban drag. I know that what's behind it is fear. And I do feel bad for that because there are people who are genuinely afraid because they have been made to be genuinely afraid of simple, straightforward things like existing, not even, I'm not even gonna call it progress, just simple things like going about your day, buying groceries, existing. One of my best friends is trans. She is was is again genuinely concerned about like going to the grocery store. She has breasts and has to live as a woman. But if somebody questions her, like she's not a hundred percent a woman. I was like, well, according to the bill, as long as you don't expose your breasts while lip-syncing along with whatever music is playing at Kroger, we put a can of peas in your basket, you're probably okay. But the people who want but the people who want to make a scene with her and want to question her and want to challenge her in public haven't read that bill, so they don't know that. So And that's really the danger, isn't it? And that's why she's at risk. Not because of anything, it's because people were too stupid to know what the bill is, which is not as an insult. It's they are ignorant of the bill and they're not looking it up.

Brett 51:22

I, for one, am thrilled that this bill will not prevent any of your performances. Houston has an incredible drag scene. You are at the epicenter of it usually. Uh Violet's are blue. Where can we see you weekly? I I know Michael's.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Yes. Um, so I am you can see me out of drag Wednesday nights, downtown hosting karaoke at if you know you know at 10. You can see me in drag hosting karaoke at JR's at 9 p.m. on Thursdays. And Fridays and Saturdays, I am at Michael's Outpost at 7:30 p.m. until 9.45 p.m. On Fridays, we do Modern Nostalgia, which is a time traveling decade show where we cover the 20th century and beyond. One decade and or genre at a time, 50s night, 80s night. And then on Saturdays, we do Houston's longest-running celebrity impersonation show, Icons, which is sort of like a Vegas style celebrity impression review. While we're talking about social media, A, follow me on Instagram at Violet with a V, like Liza with a Z, Violet with a V. And you can also go to what is it called? The Drag Defense Handbook. If you look that up online from the ACLU, if you search drag defense handbook, there is a whole website which is created by literally like actual lawyers and the ACLU and representatives and everything. And it's 40 pages long. It's all very specific, detailed breakdowns of every little thing in the bill and advice on how to counter it. If you're challenged in public, if you are assaulted, if anything. It's a whole list of stuff to do to de-escalate situations, what your rights are in situations, and it also has information on who to contact if you end up in a situation. I would also like to remind other people who are not drag people, who potentially are worried about the drag in public that could affect your children. We are certainly less of a risk than priests are, but if you think that we are a risk, feel free to also read the drag defense handbook because it does point out what the law is and what it isn't. If you are genuinely concerned about drag queens and you genuinely think we're an issue and you genuinely want to stop what we're doing, I would encourage you to read the book as well so that you not only know what our rights are, so that you also know how little jurisdiction you have over them.

Brett 53:36

Because they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Too many of us. Like honestly. Yeah. We're the lightning rods of the queer community, and we don't put on all this stuff just to be ignored. So that is what we're here for. Thank you for being a lightning rod. It's my electrifying personality. I have to go dose up every now and then. On a personal note, I'm very lucky. I've always had a very supportive family. My brother was like a Boy Scout, and my sister was a Girl Scout. When they had me, within weeks of me being born, my parents were like, this one's different. We can tell this one's different. And as I grew up, they were like, Well, yeah, this one is not like the others. I have been gay my whole life. I've been queer my whole life. It's not something that I was conditioned into. It's not something I was programmed to be. It's not, I was exposed to drag, and therefore I'm a queer. That's not how it worked. And because I'm so lucky that I had a supportive family growing up, everybody in the family knows, my aunts, my cousins, my brother and sister-in-law know. And they're all supportive, which is great. When I was growing up, my parents, they allowed me to be aware of the fact that these people like me exist. These people like me function. These people like me have lives worth living. I met a former Marine who was a trans woman who is an icon. I remember her vividly. She had a beret, red lipstick, and long platinum blonde hair with red nails. She looked like Janice from the Muppets and had a smoker's voice. And I thought she was the coolest thing ever. Nothing was mentioned about the fact that she used to be a man. It was that she was a Marine. This is when I was six, eight, ten, because my parents knew I was queer. When I was 15 and I started being attracted to men, and I wasn't attracted to women, questions of me myself. And because I have very supportive parents, I did not have a problem talking to my very supportive parents. Because if your children don't feel safe talking to you, that's your problem, not their problem. I talked to my parents about what was going on and they retroactively filled me in on like, these are all things you could be. These are all lifestyles that are perfectly reasonable. And if you are those things, there's nothing wrong with it. It's gonna be a little harder. And you need to just be aware of the fact that you are becoming cognizant of the fact that your reality is not the common reality, but it's not unusual, it's not abnormal, you're not wrong, you're not weird. And that was that. So I grew up my whole life never thinking there was anything wrong with me, because there's not anything wrong with me.

Brett 55:52

If any, if just everybody could go through that. But I'm so glad that that was yours.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

My parents never made me feel like there was anything wrong. So I never questioned or well, I never second guessed. I I did question a lot, I still do, but I never second guessed, am I doing something okay? So I do drag now. And it's not because I want to trick people, it's not because I want to coerce people, it's not because I want even not even because I want to like, can I inspire you to realize you're gonna you're gay? Like, that's not even it. It's just simply by people existing and being around each other, you realize there are things you can do with your life that no one ever thought of. I encourage everybody, not just with drag, be friends with artists, be friends with writers, be friends with musicians, because the way that different people's brains work from each other is wonderful. I encourage everybody to meet people who are not like you and talk to people who are not like you. And sometimes those people were drag queens. They're not scary, they're just loud and intimidating.

Brett 56:44

Well, thank you so much for talking about our drag bill and everything else under the sun. I think you have some incredible viewpoints on politics and you're so well spoken. And we'll have you back.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Thank you. I promise I won't be quite so frazzled next time. I can be a little more concise.

Brett 57:01

Thank you for listening to Queer Voices. We are a collective of volunteers, and KPFT is listener-funded. Please consider making a donation to KPFT at KPFT.org. And please let them know Queer Voices sent you. And know that your contribution goes 100% towards keeping shows like ours on the air. We get no salaries. We are all volunteer. Our executive producer is Brian Lowinka, and I am Brett Cullum. I'm a producer along with Deborah Moncrief Bell. Contributors include Jacob Newsome, Lee Ingalls, Joel Tatum, and Davis Mendoza DeRuzeman.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at KPFT.org.