DALLAS — From trivia nights and live music to vinyl listening sessions and Super Bowl watch parties, Jacob Sloan has always been looking for ways to bring new faces into his Lemmon Avenue business, On Rotation Brewery & Kitchen.
But one recently planned event left Sloan, his business and his employees facing a deluge of threats and harassment.
Last June, On Rotation hosted a drag brunch to commemorate Pride Month. The show was a success, and Sloan decided to make it a monthly event, where guests could drink mimosas and eat fried chicken while watching a drag show.
The event, called Misfits and Mimosas, went on without much controversy for nearly nine months. But days before the brewery’s scheduled March show, Sloan started noticing one-star Yelp reviews for his business. Then phone calls and social media comments began pouring in, accusing Sloan of exposing children to sexual content.
“Do I have to call y’all or come over there??!!” one person tweeted. “I will! On the hour every hour if you don’t stop cooperating with child groomers.”
Sloan found himself the latest victim of a scorched-earth campaign against drag and the venues that host the performances. For months, restaurants and breweries across Dallas-Fort Worth have been in the epicenter of a growing nationwide movement to restrict access to drag shows or ban the public performance of the art altogether. Events in Plano, Roanoke, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Dallas and Fort Worth have been picketed or subject to online harassment campaigns. Drag performers have faced some of the worst harassment and threats.
The vitriol confused Sloan, who doesn’t remember the last time he actually saw a child at a drag show hosted by his brewery. Most people who attended were adults participating in birthday or bachelorette parties, he said.
While promotional materials for the show did not include an age limit, they also didn’t indicate the show was meant for children — unlike other venues that have promoted some drag performances as being family or kid friendly.
Sloan owns a brew pub. The name of the show has the word “mimosa” in it. It’s clear, he said, that children weren’t his target audience. That didn’t stop a pair of anti-LGBTQ+ groups, the Texas Family Project and Defend Our Kids Texas, from encouraging their followers to harass On Rotation.
In one email sent to supporters, Defend Our Kids Texas executive director Sara Gonzales described the event as a “hyper-sexual drag show targeting children.” Gonzales encouraged her supporters to “speak out” and included On Rotation’s phone number, Facebook and Yelp page.
“I think the mischaracterization of this show being like, ‘bring your kids’ was frustrating because we weren’t really doing anything like that,” Sloan said. “There’s people calling us groomers. There’s people saying we’re demons.”
Reached by email, Gonzales declined to answer a series of questions, saying she doesn’t "engage with fake news and hack reporters lying to promote agendas.” She shared the same sentiment in a tweet she posted after being contacted by The Dallas Morning News.
‘You have a home’
Since 2020, Texas has seen 35 anti-LGBTQ+ mobilizations, including protests against drag shows, according to data tracked by The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which warned the number is likely a conservative estimate.
Texas has emerged as an epicenter of anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization. The state has seen more anti-LGBTQ+ protests than any other state besides California, according to the ACLED, and accounts for about 12% of all protests nationwide.
The anti-drag efforts are organized and promoted by an amalgam of groups, including Protect Texas Kids, Defend Our Kids Texas and the Texas Family Project. These groups say their goal is to prevent children from viewing drag shows, but their public messaging and actions are more muddled.
The Defend Our Kids Texas website encourages supporters to simply “report drag show(s)” without specifying those that don’t enforce age limits. At least one venue targeted by Protect Texas Kids promoted its drag show as being an adults-only event. Each of the groups has targeted shows, like the one at On Rotation, for not explicitly saying they were for adults, regardless of whether children actually attended.
Texas Family Project President Chris Hopper did not respond to an email sent to his organization or a text sent to a phone number listed under his name seeking comment. Protect Texas Kids founder Kelly Neidert also did not respond to an email and text seeking comment.
The groups’ efforts have gained national momentum. Legislatures in 14 states, including Texas, have introduced bills seeking to restrict or limit drag performances. Last month, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill banning drag in public places where a minor can see the performance; a federal judge temporarily halted the first-of-its-kind law last week, right before it was set to take effect.
Anti-drag bills are making progress in Texas. The Texas Senate last week passed two bills seeking to restrict or criminalize certain drag performances. The bills will head to the Texas House for further debate; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he wants to make anti-drag bills a legislative priority.
“Bringing children around sexual content is a targeted assault against their minds and bodies that should never be tolerated in a civilized society,” Neidert said before a state senate committee considering those bills before their passage.
Drag performers, venue owners and patrons alike have said they don’t believe all drag shows are meant for a child’s eyes. But Sloan and other business owners described the groups’ tactics as efforts to stoke misplaced and, at times, inaccurate outrage. Had a person or a group reached out to Sloan in good faith, he said he would have considered preemptively adding an age limit to his show.
“There seemed to be an active effort, I think, to keep people angry and frustrated,” he said. “They want everything to be a fight and then a win. Nothing’s a conversation and that, I think, is part of what really upset us — that there was no way we could avoid, in our best interest, all this harassment.”
The protests draw people with varied beliefs and intents; some legitimately believe they are acting to protect children from sexual content. Others are right-wing streamers or content creators who hope to mine any potential confrontation for clicks and views.
But they also frequently include members of far-right extremist groups including the Proud Boys. In two recent protests witnessed by The News, armed members of neo-Nazi groups showed up to protest the shows.
They also draw pro-LGBTQ+ groups who seek to protect venues and attendees. These counterprotesters, made up from a variety of mutual aid groups, are also frequently armed, and some venue owners are more comfortable with their presence than others.
Standing outside of his Fort Worth bar, Tulips, and looking toward three protesters — one of them wearing sunglasses bearing a Neo-Nazi Schutzstaffel emblem — Jason Suder said the thought of canceling the drag show that prompted the protest at his business late last month never crossed his mind.
“Come and take it. Don’t tread on me. This is Texas. This is my business,” he said before motioning toward a larger group of counterprotesters that had gathered. “These are my people. Come as you are, come who you are. You have a home. No, there was never any conversation about canceling.”
‘We just couldn’t be sure’
Sloan is not exactly sure how his drag show captured the attention of Defend Our Kids Texas and the Texas Family Project. The brewery did not promote the show, other than a page on Eventbrite he used to sell tickets. By the time he started receiving calls, the show had been sold out.
Defend Our Kids Texas asked supporters to refrain from making threats during their outreach, but that didn’t stop them. Sloan was frequently called a groomer — a word that has been co-opted by anti-LGBTQ+ advocates to describe any person who might introduce LGBTQ+ concepts to children. (Experts in psychology and child development have said there is no evidence to support the idea that exposure to LGBTQ+ topics means children will join the LGBTQ+ community.)
With the show set to take place in a few days, Sloan looked into hiring private security, but it proved costly and there wasn’t enough time to vet potential guards. Hardening his business against a protest also seemed contrary to the open, carefree and safe environment Sloan always sought to incubate at On Rotation.
“It wasn’t very clear what was planned or what might take place if we were to have the show,” he said. “In a lot of messages, people were not necessarily using the most sane logic, so we were concerned. We just couldn’t be sure what would be at our doorstep that day.”
In an effort to tamp down the calls his restaurant was getting, and head off any potential protest that might take place, Sloan clarified on the website selling tickets to the performance that it would be an 18+ show. In another email to supporters, Gonzales declared victory, but harassment still didn’t stop. In one message, after Sloan told a man who used a homophobic slur that the show would be adults only, the man was not dissuaded.
“Regardless, not interested in any place promoting or allowing drag shows,” the man said.
Concerned for unwitting patrons who might walk into a political demonstration without knowing what they were getting into, Sloan canceled the show. He paid the performers and ate the loss, which he estimated to be thousands of dollars.
“We told our staff it was basically the best of bad options,” he said. “We still felt like we were basically letting the bullies win, and the harassment in their eyes truly succeeded. But the thing we kept going back to was, we care most about making it a safe experience and that people get to connect and that it’s a community space.”
Going forward, he wants to be more prepared. Sloan is in touch with other breweries that host drag shows, hoping to share tips and best practices.
He’s open to the idea of continuing to host drag shows in the future.
———
