How laws targeting LGBTQIA+ Texans are impacting Austin’s live music scene

I'm Elizabeth McQueen.

And I'm Myles Bloxson. And you're listening to Pause play. A podcast about live music, why it matters and what comes next.

This season, we're exploring some changes that are impacting Austin's live music scene.

In the last episode, we looked at how the Texas abortion ban was affecting women working in the Austin music ecosystem.

And in this episode, we're taking a look at how proposed bans on drag performances and laws outlawing gender affirming care for minors are impacting LGBTQIa plus members of our music community.

In the last legislative session, two bills were signed into law. One was SB 12, aka the drag ban.

We asked our friend Sergio, who's a national correspondent for NPR and who you heard in the last episode to help us understand SB 12. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: This bill Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: in particular Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: would ban Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: drag shows Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: that are Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: explicit in Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: front of minors. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: What explicit

But a lot of musicians and performers, especially those who identify as queer, were involved in the movement to stop the passage of SB 12.

In that same legislative session, the Texas Legislature also passed a ban on gender affirming care for minors.

We ask Sergio to walk us through the bill and what gender affirming care really means. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: Yeah, so for each Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: state that Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: is different Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: and that looks different.

In his reporting, Sergio talked to both trans people who oppose the bill and Republicans who supported it.

We wanted to know how SB 12 and SB 14 have been affecting members of our LGBTQIa plus community.

One person we spoke to was Maggie. Yeah.

My name is Maggie Lea. I, co-own chair of Charlie's, music venue, bar, LGBTQ space downtown and, program stuff there, and just general community organizer, I guess.

We've talked to Maggie a lot in this podcast, especially during the pandemic. You should go back and listen to those episodes if you want to know what things were like for Austin venue owners during the most intense Covid times, Chair.

Of Charlie's has always put on a mix of live shows, drag shows and dance parties, and Maggie saw the signs that the legislature might be trying to restrict drag pretty early on.

I got word of it right when I think Equality Texas. I made a post about it so pretty early because they did come out with it really, really ahead of other folks. And then, my dog sitter works at the at the legislature. It was kind of like I had heard the rumblings about all these different, anti LGBTQ bills that were that were about to be released. And, I think, like, you know, because I caught wind of it, I, I remember I made a post about it on cheer.

Maggie and her partner Tamara, who also owns Cheer Up Charlie's, did spend some time at the legislature. They actually signed up to testify against the drag ban, but were never called to speak. But mostly they support. The seen through holding drag shows.

So one of my really good friends is as Brigitte Bandit.

Brigitte Bandit is a drag queen who in some ways became the face of the fight against the drag ban.

She's like both probably talked to her throughout the whole day. We're like really great friends. And I, to be frank, like, it would be funny if she heard this, but I honestly was sort of afraid to, decrease any of our drag programing. She would have just had a fit and yell at all of us. Part of protesting, I think, for all of us, was to, just go on about business as we normally would. And we were kind of in a period where we were having more drag shows as it was.

But Maggie told us it wasn't all fun.

You know, one dark sort of shadow side of last year was that while we were putting on all these drag shows and having a lot of fun doing it, I could tell, you know, folks in our community were super burnt out. There was very just a looming sense of, not knowing if we would have our spaces that, you know, we consider spaces that we can be free to be ourselves. I saw a lot of, like, infighting, competition within our community, like, really high level kind of hateful things.

By the end of 2023. Sheriff Charlie's was in a tough place.

Yeah, we almost we almost closed. I mean, we had to, like, re pivot. Right? Right before South. By this year, I spent sort of the winter months like, okay, we have drag shows but I'm spreading them out. I'm bringing back live music, I'm bringing back our dance parties and all kinds of other stuff like comedy events and stuff, just to sustain the business.

And Maggie told us it wasn't just the legislation aimed at her community that made 2023 a hard year for cheer ups.

Chair ups is an outdoor venue, and like we talked about in our episode about climate change last summer with its record breaking heat, was tough on a lot of outdoor venues.

It was terribly hard to, like, process all this that was going on in the legislature and try to have events at your space and be hit by pretty much just unending heat.

And there were other factors as well.

I haven't totally processed it. It was such a it's such a difficult year for us, and we were struggling financially the entire time because it was also sort of the year that any venue, queer programing or not, was coming out of the pandemic like that, them three year mark or 2 or 3 year mark, where our folks were like, oh my gosh, it's time to pay back my

We also wanted to know what this time was like for musicians like Caleb.

I'm Caleb de Casper. I am a local musician and I guess political activist. Now.

Caleb uses elements of glam rock in drag in his act. And when he first heard about the bill seeking to ban drag shows in Jinja affirming care, he didn't really think it would go anywhere.

But then something changed.

I guess when I started to see other people in the community also. Like speaking on it and posting about it. I was like, maybe this is a little bit more serious than what I thought. Specifically, I saw, like, Maggie from Cheer UPS was starting to post about it. And so that's a person who owns a business. So it's like they're not going to. Go on a ledge for something that's not real, you know? Then I saw, my friend Brigitte Bandit, who was.

Caleb started going to the legislature every day. He even testified about SB 12.

Welcome. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: Introduce yourself Sergio Martínez-Beltrán: and your testimony. Hi there. It looks like I'm going to bring this thing home. I'm Caleb the Casper, and I've been a resident of Austin for seven years. I am opposed to both of the bills, SB 12 and the, reading to cats, drag queens, reading the kids bill. I'm a well-known and successful musician across Central Texas, and I wear both male and female clothing on and off stage.

But Caleb told us that all this time at the Capitol, it really took a toll.

I, I guess the best way to describe it is after. This session. I took six months off from my life. So I had a lot of other stuff going on because I always have stuff going on, but that every single day was so much. And the things that I learned and the people that I met and the things that I heard were just outrageous. And so much to process day to day.

And Caleb thinks there was an unintended consequence to these bills.

When you and ty things, you make them really cool. So right now, going to a drag show or supporting a queer band, it's more than just watching music. You're like showing people what you think and who you are. And they did that eventually.

Like we said, both the drag ban in the ban on gender affirming care pass the drag ban would go on to be ruled unconstitutional. And Caleb said the whole process will definitely make its way into his art.

My first album was like finding myself as an artist and as a queer person, and that translated well to like all people. And that was a very Salvatore. And, a celebratory, anthem Bass Lake album. Very positive. Self-Empowerment. But my next album. Is a little bit darker. Because this is what I've experienced now. So I'm trying to find ways to write about. Realistic things without pessimism, and it's going to be different.

Inside of my head. They made it to my snow party to see me all red.

Coming up after the break, we speak to more LGBTQIa plus artists about how proposed restrictions on drag shows and the ban on gender affirming care for minors have impacted their life and art.

Welcome back to Paul's Play, a podcast about live music, why it matters and what comes next. Earlier, you heard from venue owner Maggie Lee and musician Caleb the Casper about how recent anti-LGBTQ laws have affected them.

We also spoke to Austin musicians Lizzy and Jamie.

My name is Lizzy Lehman, and I'm a musician and artist here in Austin, Texas, and I've been here since 2011 and very excited to be here today.

My name is Jammy Violet. My band is called Pelvis Wrestley and I'm also happy to be here today.

How long have you lived in Austin, Jamie?

Well, I grew up in Austin, was raised in Oak Hill until I turned 18 and just couldn't wait to get out of here. And then I went to Seattle for a while, and then I couldn't wait to get out of there. So I came back in fall of 2016, and I've been here since then.

And Lizzy, you said you got here in 2011. Where did you come from?

I was in Austin in 2009 and then went back to Portland, and then came back to Austin in 2011. But I'm originally from Evanston, Illinois, outside of Chicago.

So you guys have been in Austin for a while. You both have chosen to live in Austin, but things have changed, you know, recently, especially in this last year with the legislative session. How did you kind of feel when you saw that that was happening, like at the very beginning when you saw that the legislature was starting to float these anti gender affirming care and anti drag bills.

Really discouraged and honestly afraid. Both of us spent a good amount of time at the Capitol this past year, protesting, you know, a few things that they have passed. And it was just it was a very scary time and really exhausting. And it has made living here feel more difficult and personally, for me and my spouse, feel like maybe it's time to go.

I found out about the earliest versions of the drag ban bill on Thanksgiving of 2022. I was about to go, have have Thanksgiving lunch with my with my family. A lot of my family is very conservative. A lot of my family isn't. But it was just extremely disregulated to go and sit down and try to have a nice dinner. And then just like I begged you guys to pay attention to this stuff, and I know that you want me here, but now I got to go.

Lizzie told us that these laws affect how they feel about performing live, which is a huge part of being a musician in Austin.

I am not playing out these days. I'm recording and releasing music and writing, but it feels it feels, scary to want to to get up and and perform and in a public space, even here in Austin. One thing that's interesting is I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, Austin, you know, it's really liberal and it's it's great there. But it's become increasingly, increasingly more conservative. And we hear about more and more hate crimes happening.

This feeling that you're feeling, does it make its way into the actual art that you make?

Oh, 100%. The album that I put out that Jamie was a part of, it's called Technicolor Love. It's really about queer visibility and saying, you know, we've always been here. We will always be here. This is a scary thing for us to to come out and say, but it has to be said, you know, at this point, I don't think that I could write about anything else except for what is happening. And in my life and in the world I don't want to live

I believe, I believe Technicolor love. I mean, I mean Technicolor.

To Lizzie's point about like performing live it, it becomes this never ending minefield. Because when you are a performer, you're not only a performer, you're a promoter. Being non-binary, queer, trans artists, visibility is danger. So our job is to actively put ourselves in more and more danger without fail. Whenever pelvis wrestling has a like a higher visibility moment, like even being artist. Not that cuts. It turns into spending days combing comment threads, removing the death threats.

And Jamie has a really good metaphor to describe how this feels.

Okay, so I used to have this front yard, when I was out there one day, I saw this just very normal Texas chameleon. Do you know the anoles? And this, like, this little lizard was perched on a like, faded fencepost, and it was shining bright green at a circumstance where it should, for safety reasons, be brown. Gray. Right. And this was just like the most gorgeous, queerest little dangerous lizard. And I was just like. Hey, my little sister. It's nice to see you. Visibility is danger.

Absolutely. You sacrifice a lot to show and be who you really are.

There's a lot of people who would hear what Jamie and Lizzie are saying and think, why don't they just leave?

Yeah. I mean, people are leaving. We heard that in our last episode when we talked about the abortion ban. And, you know, staying can be complicated.

It's a combination of of the heat and feeling unsafe. You know, it's two things that feel really hard to want to stay with them. You know, one of the most recent songs I've been working on is basically talking about, like, you know, these laws are telling me I don't belong here. I shouldn't feel safe here. I need to go. But then all of my closest friends are here, and so that's what makes it so hard. It's the attachments and the routes that we've all set down. It just makes it that much harder.

Okay, I'll get worked up about this for a minute. One of the like, clear goals of this kind of legislation is to purify the populations of certain states. It's strategic to get us out of here. So Texas is like it's a very purple state. It's like one district readjustment away from turning blue. That's one of my, like, more feet planted. Come and take it. If I have a motherland, this is it. I love this land so much. Like I love the hill country and like granite.

Hang. More said and done even when I. Until.

To live comes. I'm gonna keep on running.

Maggie, Caleb, Jamie and Lizzy. They're staying in Austin, but a lot of people in their community are choosing to leave the city, in part, at least because of the laws we've been talking about. Like Jack.

My name is Jack Kaulfus I've lived in Austin for about 20 years. I'm a musician and a writer, and my band is called Brand New Quay, wear a queer Americana band, and we've been together, we've been playing for about ten years.

Jack told us how they felt when the legislature started putting these laws out there. They also heard about these laws from Equality Texas.

I think that I was super upset. More upset than I thought that I would be. I think a lot of queer people, we just sort of live. Our lives. Thinking, you know, when's the next shoe going to drop? You know, they gave us marriage, but but after that, like, we were, we kind of live prepared for retaliation in some way. Like, if we get something, if we win something, then there's going to be some sort of retaliation.

Jack told us they were initially pretty surprised by the drag ban, especially given how mainstream drag has become because of RuPaul's Drag Race.

And so that one was a big surprise. But the way that was worded, the way that it was originally worded, it would have come after trans people, two trans people who haven't had every single surgery, you know, you know, and a lot of trans people don't want all surgeries, you know. A lot of us don't.

So could you tell us a little bit about, like, where that waterfall went?

Yeah. So. Bars already are having a hard time, especially smaller bars, and the ones that are independently owned have a hard time. Just like staying open. A lot of the time, it's difficult to, attract enough people enough nights of the week in order to stay solvent. And so what I was thinking was that. If they book us and we're just an out queer band, right.

Jack decided about a year ago that they wanted to leave Texas, and they told us it wasn't just the laws we've been talking about that are prompting their move. It's the abortion ban and the governor's militarization of the border.

They also talked about climate change, which as we heard about in a previous episode, a lot of people in Austin are concerned about.

And affordability also plays a role in their exit from Texas after the pandemic hit and rent got really high. They had to move because they couldn't afford the neighborhood they've been living in for 15 years.

Jack decided to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico. New Mexico is a state that has laws that are like mirror images of the laws that we have here in Texas.

For instance, there's House Bill seven. They got signed into law and prohibits any public governments are agencies from restricting reproductive or gender affirming health care.

But there's something else that's pulling Jack to Albuquerque.

Okay, this is just maybe an old person thing, but I will say it just reminds me so much of Austin in the 90s. There's there's weird stuff going on everywhere, and it's. And no, it's maybe not even being advertised, you know. You know, you walk around the corner and there's, a weird little festival that, wasn't on Instagram, wasn't anywhere.

Because I'm a star. I'm not.

I'm not.

You, Jack. We wish you all the best on your next adventure. Now that, when we interview people, we always ask if there's anything they want to say that we didn't ask them about. And we wanted to share what Caleb said to us.

I just feel like talking about a lot of these things can be very negative. And I feel like there's like this dark cloud over them. But that's not the point. Like, the point is like going through life. I mean, people in the Middle Ages used to get stabbed walking down the road, just like there's always been things that you have to experience in life. This is our thing to experience. So don't get caught up in there. The negativity of it. Try to figure out what you can do to help.

And how can people that maybe like never thought about supporting the LGBTQi community? How can they step in and play a role or play their part?

Hmhm. I'm trying to think of like. I shouldn't have to think about that that much. But I want like, the real answer, not the like, performative answer. Right. Like. Just I showing up. I'd say yeah, that's a big thing. Like. Show up and support people trying to do things in your community. Show up and cheer on a queer musician or a drag queen and be there and and watch and make sure there's no crazy person in the audience, you know, because that's what you can do.

Brother. Love a lovely, lovely.

In the next episode of Pause Play, we'll be talking about changes in ticketing and how that's impacting Austin's live music scene.

Cosplay is a listener supported production of CT and CT Studios in Austin, Texas.

It is reported produced and hosted by me, Myles Bloxham.

And me Elizabeth McQueen and you can support our work by becoming a sustaining member at support This Podcast dawg. Our executive producer is Matt Riley.

Zachary Crim helps write, record and edit this episode. Production assistants by his signature.

Jake Perlman and Matt Largey also helped with editing and audio production.

Stephanie Federico is our digital editor. Michael Manasi is our multimedia editor.

Special thanks to Todd Callahan and Peter Babb for their technical support and guidance.

Original music for this episode was created by the talented Jaron Marshall.