Keeping Those Sparkly Dresses Off the Boys in Texas
How canceling a student drag show highlights fundamental questions of human rights
As a professor of leadership, I find myself living inside an unfolding case study at my university. The repercussions of our President’s unilateral decision to cancel a student-organized drag fundraiser for the nonprofit Trevor Project continue reverberating under every meeting and conversation.
The wording of his email sent to all staff shortly before 5 p.m. landed on me like the words of a tent-revival preacher from my Fundamentalist past. “I’m old,” I thought, “and if this makes me feel afraid and tries to make me ashamed of who I am as a queer person, what must it do to young people?”
Because my feelings were so present, my distress pushed me to send up a tiny signal flare of concern in a carefully worded email to him. This is Texas, after all, and a place where more than three dozen anti-LGBTQ legislative bills are being negotiated as I write this. My empathy and anger on behalf of the students caused me to lose sleep after I heard about the situation’s emotional effects on them.
When the event was abruptly canceled, the advisory board for the student organization was given no notice of the decision. Students found out only minutes before…
