REP. ZOOEY ZEPHYR (D-Missoula): Thank you, Madam Chair.
Here I am again to rise on another bill targeting the LGBTQ community. I first want to start off and say, at its very core, drag is art. Drag is a beautiful art. Drag has a deep history in this country, and it is a history that is important to my community. You know, if you are a woman in this body wearing a suit today, you are challenging gender norms that existed long ago.
And in some ways, drag does work to challenge those norms. There were three articles of clothing laws 50 years ago that said if you wore three articles of clothing that were indicative of the opposite gender, the police could stop you and arrest you. It was those laws that led to the police raiding an LGBTQ bar in New York and led to the Stonewall riots, one of the most important civil rights moments in my community’s history.
I also want to reject the notion, however, that these are, as the sponsor says, events where explicit content is expected or where audiences expect risque entertainment. Drag story hours, I have been to here in Montana. They are like Disney princesses reading to people. We had people come in and talk about this. These are spaces where people come up and they sit down in libraries, and parents elect to bring their children and learn about books and the love of reading. And also, yes, be involved in part, and to hear stories told from members of my community. That is important and that is beautiful, and I do not think that we should be standing up and saying that this art form, because it’s somehow connected to my community, is not allowed.
But there’s something underpinning this that makes this even more insidious. And the sponsor called this a fix to last session’s bill. It’s important to note that last session’s bill, when it was applied, the first application of this was not on a drag show. It was to prevent a trans woman from giving a history lesson in a library. That’s where this came up. That’s how this is going to be attempted to be applied: as an attack against the trans community.
And we have even more examples of that, because in committee, when the sponsor closed on this bill, he said, “this bill is needed” — he said, and I quote his words — “because transgenderism is a fetish based on cross-dressing.” Those were his words for why this this bill is necessary.
And I’m here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that is not lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family.
This is what these bills are trying to come after. Not obscene shows somehow getting in front of children. We have the Miller test for that. We have laws for that. This is a way to target the trans community. And that is my opinion, and in the speaker’s own words.
Please vote no.
MADAM CHAIR: Further discussion. Representative Essman.
REP. SHERRY ESSMAN (R-Billings): Thank you, Madam Chair.
To speak to the bill, I’m speaking as a parent and a grandmother. And I’m very emotional because I know the representative in seat 20 is also a parent. No matter what you think of that, she is doing her best to raise a child. I did my best to raise my children as I saw fit, and I’m taking it for granted that my children are going to raise my grandchildren as they see fit.
Everybody in here talks about how important parental rights are. I want to tell you, in addition to parental rights, parental responsibility is also important. And if you can’t trust a decent parent to decide where and when their kids should see what, then we have a bigger problem.
So I advise you all to vote about parental rights, parental responsibility, and remember we already have indecency laws in this state. We voted on one, I don’t know, earlier this week, last week, sometime during the session. We all wanted to make sure we knew what indecent was. And now we know.
Trust the parents to do what’s right, and stop these crazy bills that are a waste of time. They’re a waste of energy. We should be working on property tax relief and not doing this sort of business on the floor of this house and having to even talk about this.
Please vote no.
[On a vote of: 44 yes / 55 no, House Bill 675 fails to pass its second reading.]
- Refers to:
- Montana HB 675: “Revise laws related to hypersexualized shows” (2025)
- Bill sponsor Rep. Caleb Hinkle (R-Belgrade), who scurrilously called being trans “a fetish based on cross-dressing”
- KXLF News: Butte-Silver Bow County cancels transgender speaker at library over concerns of violating new state law (2023-06-01)
- Learning for Justice: “Teaching Stonewall” — Three articles of clothing laws and their enforcement at the Stonewall riots (2022-06-27)
- “Inside, police lined up the bar’s patrons and demanded IDs. They especially targeted gender-nonconforming people, detaining many of them and citing a statute that allowed for the arrest of people not wearing three articles of clothing ‘appropriate’ to their sex assigned at birth.”
- Free Speech Center: Miller test, “the primary legal test for determining whether expression constitutes obscenity” (2018-01-01)
- Montana HB 675: “Revise laws related to hypersexualized shows” (2025)