Monday, February 02, 2026
Judge Kacsmaryk Compares Drag To Blackface, Allows College Campus Drag Ban In Texas
www.erininthemorning.com: On Saturday, Jan. 17, far-right judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued one of his most extreme rulings yet, finding that West Texas A&M can ban drag performances on campus. In reaching that conclusion, Kacsmaryk discarded long-standing First Amendment precedent and made demeaning assertions about drag itself, including a comparison to “blackface.”
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“[Drag shows] do not convey any message about gender subversion, exempting it from first amendment protections” how does it feel to be loud and wrong??? I don’t understand how a university can ban something for being harmful without any proof of that harm to back it up. Harmless performances do not violate the first amendment, even if they are on college campuses. This is also such a blatantly ignorant avoidance of actual history and marginalization that communities who do drag face. Saying that an overplaying of femininity is inherently harmful to women, too, because it reduces women to that femininity. I guess I don’t really expect a conservative university president to understand or agree that gender expression is simultaneously very nuanced and very loose, but it is. Comparing it to blackface is also insane. Even ignoring historical precedent, blackface is a mockery of features, while drag is an imitation of expression.
Obiously, drag being equated to black face makes zero sense. Among many other reasons, drag originated in reverence of femininity while black face always has the effect of mocking Black people and culture. But that claim, even though it is ripe with glaring logical fallacies, is only a cover for a much deeper agenda. Its absolutely unquestionable that the aim here is to attack queer community and silence any political dissent. Every time I comment on something related to a political entity attacking art, performance, or culture I write about how resistance often shows up first in art, and specifically in performance mediums. This goes hand and hand with the attack on queer and trans people and queer culture. Whenever I see the government trying to regulate art, my fascist alarm bells go off. Time and time again, this is how fascist regimes begin. Other than that, I thought it was so funny that he thought “drag carries no discernible message.” Of course it doesn’t carry meaning to this guy - he’s straight, white, male, and conservative. People feel a a lot more comfortable silencing things they can’t understand.
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