Lawmakers amend bill that would have banned minors from attending drag shows

DES MOINES — House lawmakers on Tuesday amended a bill originally aimed at banning minors from drag shows — that critics argued was overly broad and could potentially target artistic performances — to instead prohibit “obscene performances for minors.”

House Study Bill 158 would have barred minors from attending drag shows or performances where a performer “exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer’s gender assigned at birth through the use of clothing, makeup, accessories or other gender signifiers.”

The bill defined performances as singing, lip-synching, dances and readings.

An adult who knowingly took a minor to a drag show would have bee guilty of a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $1,025 up to $10,245. Business operators who knowingly let minors attend drag performances at their venues would have faced a $10,000 fine for each minor in attendance.

The amended bill changes the penalty for exposing minors to obscene performances to an aggravated misdemeanor. If a person knowingly sells or provides a pass or admits a minor between the ages of 14 and 17 to such a performance, the bill makes it a serious misdemeanor. It would be an aggravated misdemeanor for a child 13 years old and younger.

Drag performers and LQBTQ+ advocates flocked to the Iowa Capitol last month to oppose the bill as it was being considered by a House subcommittee.

Opponents noted performances where actors dress up as different genders, including Shakespeare's “Twelfth Night,” would be banned under the bill as it was written.

The House Education Committee on Tuesday amended the bill by striking references to drag shows and instead inserting language from another House Bill that would criminalize exposing minors to “obscene performances,” which LGBTQ+ advocates argue still could be used to target drag events and venues that host them.

The amended bill defines “obscene performance” as a visual performance “that exposes the person’s genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast, including prosthetics and artificial sexual organs or substitutes … or involves the person engaging in a sex act, masturbation, excretory function, or sadomasochistic abuse.” The bill then goes on to apply federal standards that determine if material is obscene.

For performances to be deemed obscene, the average person viewing the performance would find the material appeals to “prurient interest” and is “patently offensive, and the performance taken as a whole lacks serious artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.”

Rep. Helena Hayes, R-New Sharon, said the amendment “will fix a loophole in our obscenity law, and it will prohibit exposing minors to obscene performances.”

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The legislation comes as LGBTQ+ pride events, including drag story times where drag performers read to children at libraries and bookstores, have been targeted by conservative efforts to restrict them. Opponents of drag story times argue they expose children to “sexualized behavior.”

Rep. Elinor Levin, D-Iowa City, acknowledged the work done on the amendment to “achieve the goals of the bill without negatively impacting people's lives.”

Levin, though, said the bill still exposes venues to potential nuisance lawsuits that host drag performances from “folks who are asserting that a performance that does in fact” fail to meet the definition of obscenity under Iowa and federal law.

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“I think that it is reasonable and rational to ensure that performances that are designed for adults are only being performed and presented to adults,” she said. “I do also, of course, have a few concerns about where are we getting into the parental decision making here? Are we making decisions for the parents about what is appropriate for their children?”

The amended bill was approved by the committee unanimously, making it eligible for debate in the full House and clearing a Friday legislative deadline by which most non-tax and spending bills must be advanced out of committee to remain eligible for further consideration this year.

Maya Marchel Hoff of Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.

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