Appeals court clears way for Texas drag ban to take effect in March

I am so tired of a small group of Christian nationalists who demand the right to force their religious views and church doctrines on the rest of the country. They want and are working for a Christian theocracy in the US. I just posted about how Kanas pushed a law over the veto of the governor that bans trans markers on drivers licenses and makes all trans drivers licenses that don’t match birth sex of the person immediately void and illegal. All because of refusing to accept the facts and medical science. These attacks on drag are just a way to get at trans people. Drag has a long history in vaudeville, on TV from the beginning of comedy, anyone remembeer flip Wilson who was hallirise as a woman. Hugs.

And while the law doesn’t have language explicitly referencing drag performances, SB 12’s original version specifically included them. Republican leaders have also made it clear that drag shows are the target.

“Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public. That’s right,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a post on X in June 2023.

Appeals court clears way for Texas drag ban to take effect in March

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reaffirmed a November ruling removing a block on Senate Bill 12 and denied a request by plaintiffs for a rehearing.

By Alex Nguyen

Nov. 6, 2025, 3:44 p.m. CentralFeb. 25, 2026, 9:00 p.m. Central

Drag Queen Brigitte Bandit performs during a Fight The Trump Takeover Rally at the south side steps of the Capitol on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. Ronaldo Bolaños for The Texas T

Texas can enforce a 2023 law that restricts some public drag shows, a federal appeals court reaffirmed in a new ruling on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 12 prohibits drag performers from dancing suggestively or wearing certain prosthetics on public property or in front of children. The law would fine business owners $10,000 for hosting such performances, while those who violate the law could be hit with a Class A misdemeanor.

In September 2023, U.S. District Judge David Hittner declared the law unconstitutional, saying that it “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment” and that it is “not unreasonable” to think it could affect activities like live theater or dancing. More than two years later in November, a three-judge panel in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unblocked the law and returned the case to the district court.

On Wednesday, the appeals court withdrew its November opinion and reissued a largely identical ruling, denying the plaintiff’s request for a rehearing in the process. SB 12 will now take effect on March 18, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, who represented several of the plaintiffs.

As part of the ruling, the panel found that most of the plaintiffs — a drag performer, a drag production company and pride groups — failed to show that they intended to conduct a “sexually oriented performance,” and therefore, could not be harmed by the law. The ruling suggests that the federal judges don’t believe all drag shows are sexually explicit.

Critics of the ban have previously raised concerns that Republican lawmakers were portraying all drag performances as inherently sexual or obscene.

And while the law doesn’t have language explicitly referencing drag performances, SB 12’s original version specifically included them. Republican leaders have also made it clear that drag shows are the target.

“Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public. That’s right,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a post on X in June 2023.

SB 12 considers a performance to be sexually oriented if the performer is nude or engages in sexual conduct, which could include “actual contact or simulated contact” between one person and another person’s “buttocks, breast, or any part of the genitals.” It also has to “appeal to the prurient interest in sex” — and most didn’t meet this criteria, according to the appeals court’s ruling.