The December 2022 protest against the drag show at the Aztec Theater was met with an even larger counter-protest that circulated through local and national media, including MySA. But a new video from Vice shows a counter-protest from the point of view of a local black transvestite, Fantasy Queen.
On December 13, 2022, the Texas Freedom Force urged people to protest Christmas-themed drag shows by pushing false allegations from far-right anti-LGBTQ+ groups about the sexualization and grooming of children. The FBI identified the Texas Freedom Forces as an extremist group, and they had like-minded gunmen protesting the drag show.
Vice’s Dexter Thomas Jr. took a peek into Fantasia’s life and their “dressing room” with a wall adorned with wigs showing Fantasia’s outfits, including Jupiter’s outfit from Sailor Moon. But Fantasia also urged others to join the counter protest, and Vice follows them as they deal with a tense situation that also included armed counter protesters.
“We have to know how to make a name for ourselves – how to keep the momentum up because they are not going to stop,” says Fantasia. “But we are not going to stop.
Fantasy at one point holds pads that go under five layers of pantyhose.
“Girl, I’m not naked,” Fantasia says. “We are much more secure than most people think. We don’t just go to school here, bring a pole and dance in a two-piece suit.”
During the protest, one venue, Starlighter, canceled all future drag shows after a far-right “freelance journalist” named Tyler Hansen who posted the video on twitter about an all-ages Christmas drag that claimed a child was left unsupervised on the show. This was not true and the child’s mother was at the event.
Fantasia’s point of view offers a black, weird POC perspective on the ongoing hate and, as seen in the Club Q shooting in Colorado, the dangerous rhetoric of the far right. Fantasia also has an honest conversation with Thomas, who is also black, about the politics behind drag and how people tend to support black voices only when they are victims, not when they resist oppression.
“I want to believe that we have moved a little further — that we don’t have to rely on someone getting hurt, someone getting killed or someone threatening us for people to hear,” says Fantasia.
Watch the full excerpt from Vice below (video contains profanity).
