Drag queen artists and performers testified alongside other Ohioans against Ohio House Bill (HB) 249 Wednesday afternoon before members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Bill, “Passing the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act” would ban drag queen and gender-specific performances outside “adult cabarets” or other public places where a minor may be present.
Several renowned drag performers have testified against the bill, including Andrew Levitt, who performs in drag as Nina West.
The bill’s conservative, Christian sponsors – Republicans Joshua Williams (Oregon) and Republican Angie King (Celina) – strongly supported anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the Ohio Statehouse, including a complete health care ban for transgender youth.
As of 2023, at least 14 states have enacted similar bans on public appearances and gender-specific performances, including Tennessee – where the US Supreme Court declined to hear a federal court appeal and allowed the ban to stand.
“Indecent” performances are already illegal
Notably, Representative Williams was absent from part of the hearing. While present, he repeatedly pressed Ohioans with the same question regarding obscene performances:
“Why do you think drag queen performers should be allowed to engage in simulated masturbation and simulated sex in the presence of minors?” he asked Levitt, who pointed to Ohio’s current law, which already prohibits indecent performances.
Against the current Ohio Revised Code 2907.01material is considered obscene if “the average person, applying contemporary societal standards, would consider that it appeals to prurient interests, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
ACLU of OhioGary Daniels told lawmakers that performances that meet the definition of obscenity are already banned under two separate laws: Distribution of content harmful to minors” (2907.31) AND Pampering Indecency (2907.32).
“If this is what concerns supporters of this bill, there are at least two bills that explicitly address the type of behavior that people cite as disturbing,” Daniels said. “Both clearly refer to performances.”
“This bill is unnecessary,” he told parliamentarians. “The conduct that people are already talking about and that worries them is specifically covered by these two areas of Ohio law.”
Targeting transgender Ohioans in everyday life
During the second hearing on the bill, public testimony from conservative Christians showed that anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and conservative Republicans intend to operate the bill to attack and criminalize transgender Ohioans by limiting their access to gender-specific public facilities such as dressing rooms and locker rooms.
The second session on the bill also takes place included public testimony support for the bill by two anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups: Mission America and based in Columbus Center for Christian Virtue (CCV)which is the main driving force behind anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the Ohio Statehouse.
HB 249 specifically prohibits “performers or entertainers who demonstrate a gender identity other than the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex by using clothing, makeup, prosthetics, or imitations of genitalia or breasts or other physical characteristics…”
However, the part of the bill that replaces the phrase “private area” with “private area” would assist criminalize transgender and gender non-conforming people who operate gender-conforming public facilities to change clothing in their daily lives.
In previous public testimony, CCV Executive Director of Policy David Mahan linked transgender people using gender-specific public facilities, such as dressing rooms and locker rooms, with drag performers performing on stages in public entertainment venues.
He cited a separate anti-transgender incident that occurred in 2022, when Greene County resident Janell Holloway filed a lawsuit after seeing a naked transgender woman using a public locker room at a YMCA in the rural community of Xenia.
Ultimately, a municipal court judge found that a transgender person was not guilty of public indecency, but Mahan said HB 249 would assist change that legal situation for other transgender people in the future.
“This bill will prevent judges from being able to do that in the future,” Mahan said.
“Touching the True Purpose”
The incident highlights larger concerns about gender policing in public spaces
Melody Wojno – going by Maelstrom West – provided extensive public testimony, answering questions from both Democratic and Republican committee members.
While trying to ask Wojno a question about the incident at the Xenia YMCA, Williams misidentified the gender of a transgender person involved in the case.
Wojno corrected him many times.
“If we have to show respect, you should too, Representative,” she said.
After a few seconds of silence, he replied:
“You won’t make me talk.”
“I think we’ve finally reached the real goal. It’s a bill disguised as a drag ban, targeting trans people,” Wojno said after the interaction. “These other things are performances. My life is not a performance.”
Director of Public Policy Ohio Planned Parenthood supporters AND Planned Parenthood Greater Ohio Danielle Firsich also testified against the bill.
During a heated exchange with Williams and Rep. DJ Swearingen (Huron), Firsich pointed to recent child sexual abuse allegations against Republican Rodney Creech (West Alexandria), who co-sponsored the bill.
“I also don’t want to be lectured on what is obscene and what is not for children,” Firsich said. “You have a man who was just reinstated to his committees and who was accused of sexual misconduct with a minor who is sponsoring this bill.”
Creech was accused of crawling into bed with the minor upright and partially clothed. He has since denied the allegations, calling them “political in nature.”
Additionally, Firsich highlighted the bill’s other primary sponsor, Rep. Angie King (R-Celina), who protested against the 2023 LGBTQ+ Pride event with members of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Freedom Network.
Anti-transgender laws in Nazi Germany
Historians notice this transgender people have been targeted, imprisoned and killed applying similar public and sexual decency laws to Germany under Nazi rule.
Historian and author of the Holocaust Dr. Jake Newsome pointed to state restrictions on resistance and gender nonconformity as indicators of fascist political ideology.
In Weimar times, there were already laws regarding public decency Paragraph 183 of the German Criminal Codewhich prohibited “sexual self-determination.” However, this rule was rarely enforced, and transgender and gender non-conforming people maintained convoluted social support networks and a wealthy cultural community.
Some with the social support of the groundbreaking sexologist from Berlin, Dr. Magnus Hirschfield Transgender people were issued “transvestite passes” by law enforcement, allowing them to move freely in their daily lives while “cross-dressing”, despite laws restricting such behavior.
After German Chancellor Adolf Hitler revoked these certificates in 1933, Nazi officials increasingly used Section 183 to arrest and imprison transgender people accused of violating both public nuisance and sexual immorality laws as they saw fit. 🔥
Ignite the action
- Buckeye Flame Ohio’s 2025 LGBTQ+ Legislation Guide can be found here.
- To register to vote or check your eligibility to vote in Ohio, click here.
- To find the contact information for your Ohio State Representative, click here.
- To find contact information for an Ohio State Senator, click here.
- If you are a teenage LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact Trevor’s project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are a transgender adult in need of immediate assist, please contact National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
- To learn more about Jake Newsome’s work as a public historian or to purchase his book, “The Legacy of the Pink Triangle: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust,” click here.
