Kiba Walker has been a performer since he was a kid: dancing, singing, acting, everything.
It’s been a fun career, he said, but auditioning meant subjecting his younger self to constant judgment.
"Theater and acting auditions would be like, well, you're too fat for this, or you're not quite Black enough for this, or you're too gay, or anything like that," Walker said. “I was told so many times that I'm not good for something just because of how I looked."
Eventually he found an art form that put talent first: Drag.
Walker had dabbled in drag through theater and cosplay, he said, but the reality competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race showed him the possibilities of creating a character and funneling his talents through her.
That’s how Salem Moon was born.
“It wasn't about me being a bigger-bodied person. It wasn't about me being a little too flamboyant. It was about who Salem was and what she brought to the table,” Walker said.
Being a drag queen in Texas has changed a lot, Walker said. People protest outside drag shows. Some critics equate drag queens to sexual predators, an age-old attack against queer people.
Politicians are pointing their attention at drag queens, too – including Salem Moon.
On May 4, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare asked the state's top tax official to investigate a venue where Salem Moon hosted an all-ages drag trivia night, alleging that Moon may have exposed herself to the audience, which included kids.
Walker said that’s ridiculous. Dressing for that show involved multiple layers of opaque tights under a gown and “a bevy of other undergarments and padding beneath that.”
But the attacks on drag and drag queens have had an effect. Elected officials at all levels in Texas are taking aim at the art form, while drag performers and advocates point out that drag has been thriving here for decades.
Protest and counterprotest
Walker is a full-time drag performer based in Fort Worth, on top of his voice acting career in anime and video games. He uses he/him pronouns in everyday life and she/her pronouns as Salem Moon.
Performing as Salem Moon is now Walker's "favorite thing in the world," he said.
"It brought back confidence that I lost when I was a kid," he said. “And she's kind of helped me grow into a better person.”
One of Salem Moon's regular shows is her Sips & Quips trivia night. Tulips, a bar and performance venue in Fort Worth, hosted the event for more than a year, Walker said.
One show on March 27 drew attention from protesters, which has become more common. GLAAD, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy group, identified 166 anti-drag protests and threats at drag events from early 2022 to April 2023.
Walker and the venue’s owner worked together to counterprotest, Walker said. The event turned into a fundraiser for the local nonprofit LGBTQ SAVES, and Walker hopped on Instagram Live to invite performers with family-friendly acts to join the show.
Photos from the event show Tulips was packed. The trivia night raised thousands of dollars for LGBTQ SAVES.
But the controversy continued after the show. Critics tweeted photos from the performance, claiming Salem Moon had exposed herself to the audience.
"They're grasping at straws,” Walker said. “What I mean by that is that they will use anything to silence queer voices to make them look like the bad guys."
On May 4, O’Hare used that information to write to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar. He asked the comptroller to investigate whether Tulips was operating “as an unlicensed sexually oriented business."
"Elected officials must take action to protect our children from indecency and sexualization. Their innocence is being stolen,” O’Hare wrote in a tweet.
Last week I sent this letter about an “all-ages drag show” in Tarrant County to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar. His office is being responsive and helpful. Elected officials must take action to protect our children from indecency and sexualization. Their innocence is being stolen. pic.twitter.com/jhhzNgH9nt
— Tim O'Hare, Tarrant County Judge (@TimothyOHare) May 10, 2023
Sexually oriented businesses are usually places like strip clubs. They have to pay the state a $5 fee per customer if the business offers “live nude entertainment or live nude performances" and allows people to drink alcohol.
Hegar has launched investigations into North Texas businesses before for hosting drag shows: Mr. Misster in Dallas and Ebb & Flow in Plano.
Deputy Comptroller Lisa Craven accepted O’Hare’s letter and said she’d forward it to her office’s enforcement division, which conducts investigations into sexually oriented businesses, emails obtained through a public records request show.
It’s unclear if the Texas Comptroller decided to take on the investigation. The office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story, over several weeks.
While the comptroller's office has pursued investigations of businesses hosting drag shows, the Texas Legislature has been active in drafting legislation limiting the reach of these performances.
Drag targeted in legislature
Over the weekend, the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton dominated the news out of the Legislature.
But the day after the Texas House impeached Paxton, state lawmakers passed a bill designed to prevent children from attending drag shows.
That’s according to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who released a statement after the bill’s passage Sunday. This bill was one of his top priorities this session.
“Someone must push back against the radical left’s disgusting drag performances which harm Texas children,” Patrick wrote. “It is shocking to me that any parent would allow their young child to be sexualized by drag shows. Children, who cannot make decisions on their own, must be protected from this scourge facing our state.”
Gov. Greg Abbott needs to sign the bill for it to become law.
Under this bill, known as Senate Bill 12, it would become a Class A misdemeanor to hold a “sexually oriented performance” in front of a minor.
A sexually oriented performance could include pantomiming a sex act, showing a sex toy, or “the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics.”
Drag queens often wear fake breasts, hip pads and other prosthetics.
Johnathan Gooch, spokesperson for the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said the bill is based on a false narrative that drag is inherently sexual.
“Just as with any other type of performance, there are PG versions and there are PG-13 versions,” Gooch said.
The bill also conflicts with other areas of the law, the Texas District and County Attorneys Association tweeted on Sunday.
“The age of consent in TX is 17, not 18, so to the extent this version of SB 12 criminalizes (for example) pre-coital sexual conduct in private between consenting adults when one or both are 17, that's... that's not going to work," the tweet reads.
And the age of consent in TX is 17, not 18, so to the extent this version of #SB12 criminalizes (for example) pre-coital sexual conduct in private between consenting adults when one or both are 17, that's ... that's not going to work. pic.twitter.com/4S3Jyewuro
— TDCAA (@TDCAA) May 28, 2023
This legislative session has been “nightmarish” for LGBTQ+ Texans, said Ash Hall, who advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights at the Texas Legislature for the ACLU of Texas.
The final bill doesn’t use the word drag, unlike the original version of the bill the Texas Senate passed, but it's still dangerous for drag queens and even other types of performances that may be labeled "sexually oriented," Hall said.
"This is part of a greater strategy that extremists have to send LGBTQ people back into the shadows to make sure that youth don't know that we exist," Hall said.
The debate over drag, and its consequences
Kiba Walker, who performs as Salem Moon, said the focus on protecting children is facetious. Banning drag won’t achieve that goal, he said.
"If people really, genuinely think that queer people dressing up as a character and reading storybooks, or doing bingo, or performing at brunch, or doing birthday parties or whatever, is more dangerous than going to school right now, then they need to get their eyes checked," Walker said.
Regardless of whether the state decides to take on an investigation of Tulips, the protest against Walker’s show already has had consequences. The landlord that owns Tulips’ building banned drag shows on the premises, Walker said.
"The aftermath was wild, because it was just heartbreaking to know that something I'd built up for a year was just getting thrown out the window because of fear and rhetoric and assumptions,” Walker said.
Salem Moon’s trivia night did find a new home: the Urban Cowboy Saloon, a gay bar just a few miles down the road from Tulips.
“I’m still doing my show, and I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere,” Walker said.
And neither is Texas drag, he added.
The state has a robust drag pageant system, and some of the biggest names in drag are from Texas. In the most recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Houston’s own Mistress Isabelle Brooks made it to the final four.
To Walker, people who oppose drag seem like they just noticed the art form exists.
"You can’t change a tradition,” he said.
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Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
