One night a week, a gay dance club in downtown Austin transforms into a lecture hall.
There's still flashing lights. Bone-shaking bass. Drinks flowing from the bar. Then a six-foot-tall drag queen with a hot pink wig and thigh-high boots steps onto a stage — holding a lecture stick. On the screen are two words: "LegiSLAYtion & Liberation."
That's the name of the event Austin drag queen Brigitte Bandit hosts at Oilcan Harry's on West Fourth Street. Every Tuesday, a crowd gathers to hear her talk about the week in politics, from President Trump's latest executive actions to bills that state lawmakers are debating just up the road. The show aims to help LGBTQ+ Austinites and allies keep up with news relevant to their community and find resources for political advocacy.
Bandit held the first LegiSLAYtion & Liberation in late January to coincide with the start of the 89th state legislative session.
"The Texas Legislature is confusing," she said. "They intentionally make it as difficult as possible for people to make their voice heard and for [lawmakers] to listen to their constituents. And so I was like, how do I make this information accessible and break it down to people?"
Her desire to help people sort through the noise became even greater, she said, as President Trump began to issue a whirlwind of orders reshaping the federal government and targeting LGBTQ+ Americans.
LegiSLAYtion & Liberation is a natural extension of Bandit's drag career, which has gone hand-in-hand with politics. The Austin native has testified at the Legislature in drag, and she was part of a lawsuit against a 2023 Texas law restricting drag performances, which was ruled unconstitutional.
"I've used drag to fight for First Amendment rights. … I've talked about reproductive rights, I've talked about gun control," Bandit said. "Drag is a way to get people's attention."
It's well-documented that most people don't pay a lot of attention to the Legislature. Recent polling from the Texas Politics Project at UT Austin shows that just 8% of the state's voters say they've been following the Legislature extremely closely this session.
"In the economy of people's attention, the Legislature and things that are related to state politics tend to be crowded out by big national political stories, and there are a lot of those right now," project director James Henson said.
There isn't a straightforward answer to making people care about politics — and the most popular strategies aren't "our ideal of political mobilization," Henson said.
"The most prominent example of how you do that recently is by making people feel angry or fearful," he said. In the last decade, "attempts to engage people in a way that touches and mobilizes positive emotions has been greatly overwhelmed by attempts to mobilize people using negative emotions."
That's what makes Bandit's approach stand out. Queer joy, she said, is as much a part of LegiSLAYtion & Liberation as political education.
The event opens with "breaking news bingo," a game where Bandit reviews the week's headlines and audience members can cross out keywords on their bingo cards. Bandit also invites local speakers to present deep dives on specific topics, like how to testify during hearings at the Capitol. The presentations are punctuated by dance numbers from Bandit and other drag performers.
"I actually find that I feel less overwhelmed here," audience member Randy Pituk said.
Randy and his husband Matthew have attended the event from the beginning. They say they've learned a lot from Bandit about state politics, and they feel more empowered to take action based on resources she's given them.
"She keeps us up-to-date as far as when bills are being voted on, how to drop a card to register our position and actually make our voices heard at our Capitol building, which is something that I was not aware of," Matthew said.
Matthew and Randy are deaf and spoke with KUT News through one of the event's official ASL interpreters, Jeremy Sheffield from Sign Language Access for Social Justice.
"Regardless of your gender, your race, your creed, deaf, hearing — this is a wonderful event," Matthew said.
At this recent show, Bandit spoke about cuts to HIV research, the arrest of a transgender woman in Florida over a bathroom law and the Trump administration's effort to require proof of citizenship for voter registration.
"That's a lot of bad news for seven days," said Germaine Wyld, a first-time attendee. She wasn't the only one to make that kind of comment. Throughout the night, Bandit and many of the audience members described the information as difficult and stressful. As Bandit spoke on stage, the crowd would often fall silent, concentrating on the presentation.
Then the music would start. Bandit would rush into the crowd. People would clap, sing, and move their bodies to the beat. It would look like just another night at the club.
"It's a lot easier to take bad news when you know you have people around that support you, that feel similarly to you, and you can all grieve and celebrate together," Wyld said. "Doom-scrolling by yourself is not healthy. Coming out to community is healthy."
Bandit had originally planned for LegiSLAYtion & Liberation to last until the end of the state legislative session in June — but she said she's already gotten requests to take the show to other cities in Texas. For now, she'll be performing at Oilcan Harry's every Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. The event is open to everyone 18 and older.
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