Meet the Drag Performers Teaching Everyone How to Fight Back Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Threats in 2025
On a chilly evening at the start of March, drag king Blaq Dinamyte found himself looking out at a crowd of young activists eager to make change.
He was certainly proud of the turnout — as the president and co-founder of drag activism group Qommittee, Dinamyte had organized that evening's march on the Kennedy Center weeks after President Donald Trump replaced 18 board members of the arts organization with MAGA loyalists, was appointed chairman by those new members and vowed to end any and all drag shows or 'other anti-American propoganda' featured by the center.
More from Billboard
The 100 Greatest LGBTQ+ Anthems of All Time
You Can Shop Addison Rae's 2000s-Inspired Look From Her 'Times Like These' Music Video Now with Free People
Mariah Carey Celebrates Pride Month in Style With Rainbow Merch Available on Amazon
But the D.C. drag performer also couldn't help but think about his fellow protester's safety. What would the consequences of protesting outside the center look like for them? 'There were a lot of young faces protesting for the first time, and a lot of things that they didn't realize could happen,' he tells Billboard. 'We really wanted people to understand what it is they are risking, what could actually happen to them, and how to counter that effectively.'
Three months later, Dinamyte and his colleagues at Qommittee have created exactly the kind of guidance he wanted to provide those protestors. The organization published the Drag Defense Handbook in May, a 43-page guide for drag performers around the country dedicated to providing tools on how to respond when met with threats, harassment and violations of their personal freedoms.
'We want to address all of these elements that you can't really think of when you are literally in the middle of it,' Dinamyte says. 'We want everyone to have a plan ahead of time before all of this happens.'
Separated into seven sections — including 'crisis response,' 'threats of violence and harassment' and 'protections against defamation' — the handbook offers step-by-step guides for what performers can do when dealing with different, unwelcome scenarios.
Each of those sections were created, Dinamyte says, with the help of drag performers who have experienced firsthand what the latest wave of right-wing backlash looks like. 'I am in such support of this handbook,' says Miss Cali Je, an Idaho-based drag performer who volunteers with Qommittee. 'It has a lot of vital information that I was grasping for two years ago that I did not have available.'
Je serves the Idaho-based non-profit Reading Time with the Queens, where she and her fellow board members perform a 45-minute drag storytelling events for kids and families at a local library. But in February 2023, a group of Christian churches and anti-LGBTQ+ groups began opposing the event, staging sit-in protests at the public library where the event was held, harassing the performers online and claiming that the event was putting the children attending in danger.
'It's ironic when a lot of that hate is coming from a group of people who seemingly are there to 'protect the children,' when in actuality, at the time that they were protesting the loudest by taking up all of the space in our room at the library, they were scaring children that were there,' Je recalls. 'I didn't want that to happen anymore.'
Je kept the performances going, even with protestors taking up space in the room with her. But when city officials refused to provide the resources necessary to make the reading event safer for everyone involved, the performer decided — with the help of a number of community members — to move the event to a local synagogue.
'What it boils down to is not giving your oppressors what they want. They want you to not exist, and that can look as simple as you just not holding your program anymore,' Je offers, matter-of-factly. 'Sometimes the solution that is easiest and is the most safe is to not hold that program, which I get. But I think all of us had a feeling that it was just like … everything was fine until a Christian-nationalist hate group decided to rain on our parade. The idea of backing down and not being ourselves, of bending to their will and their understanding of where queer people are allowed to be and not to be, was out of the question.'
That experience helped inform a section of the handbook, which instructs performers to put in the work building a community around them that, if and when the time comes, can offer support where necessary. The guide asks performers to not only establish those connections, but to create action plans with those community members by creating 'clear roles and communication protocols,' while also training those community members about de-escalation techniques.
Yet some of the most pervasive threats for LGBTQ+ performers don't come in-person — they're instead issued online, via social media accounts mounting hate campaigns that result in persistent threats of violence and death. It's a tactic that Los Angeles-based drag king Jack King Goff knows all too well. 'I wouldn't even recommend having a personal social media page at this point,' they say.
Back in 2024, Goff was starting his fourth year as a public school teacher in Washington state. Their co-workers and bosses all knew that they were a drag performer on the side, but they kept that information from students and parents, feeling that it wasn't important information for them to know. But, when a student discovered a years-old tagged photo on Goff's out-of-drag Instagram page, they created a fake account and started a cyberbullying campaign against him.
'That's the fun thing kids do now,' Goff says. 'They make anonymous Instagram pages, and then they will take photos and videos of people without their consent and write terrible stuff about them.'
Before long, the campaign caught the attention of far-right activist group Moms for Liberty as well as a number of conservative influencers, who began petitioning for Goff to be fired from his job. In the process, he was also inundated with anonymous threats on his life, some of which required the intervention of the FBI. Goff ultimately decided to leave his job and his home, moving down to L.A. to try and start over.
Today, Goff recognizes that the situation could have been much worse than it already was, thanks to the fact that they and their partner were already paying for a data removal service to scrub as much of their personal information from the web. 'Who knows if people would have shown up to my apartment if they found my address online, or if they called me or something,' they say. 'Cybersecurity is super important, but unfortunately, I think this country is absolutely terrible at it.'
After working with Qommittee to help navigate their hate campaign, Goff consulted on the handbook, reading over the guide's lengthy section on online harassment and digital security and offering feedback. The section advises performers to keep their personal and professional accounts entirely separate, reminds performers to always document any threats issued against them, and to drive their community members to report and block all hate accounts involved.
Goff adds that, with recent news of the the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being granted greater access to Americans personal information — as well as the Trump administration's recent expansion of data technology firm Palantir's access to federal programs — cybersecurity ought to be the first step queer people everywhere take to protecting themselves. 'With DOGE taking all of this data and giving it to Palantir, and now having more biodata being stored, we have to be really careful,' he says.
Dinamyte agrees, pointing out that because younger drag performers rely heavily on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to gain a following, cyberbullying has become one of the most common forms of anti-LGBTQ+ threats in recent years. 'They're going to be reluctant to lock that down, to make that non-visible,' he explains. 'So, being able to show them, 'Hey, here's some things you should think about when you're online,' feels like it's having the biggest impact on the community.'
While attacks on the LGBTQ+ community have been steadily rising over the last few years — whether in the form of coordinated legislative attacks, online threats or actual instances of physical harm — a recent report from GLAAD revealed that, in 2025, attacks on and threats against drag performers dropped by 55%.
Some attribute this sharp decline to the numerous court rulings that have affirmed drag performers' First Amendment rights to perform in public, without restriction. But Je cautions against thinking that the courts alone will solve the problem, pointing to the federal appeals court that overturned a previous decision allowing a drag performance in Naples, Fla. to take place outdoors. 'This is why I have so much trouble really trusting anything coming out of the courts,' Je says with a sigh. 'If there's this much disagreement about what a First Amendment right is, then something is inherently flawed.'
Goff also points out that the 55% drop in threats may account for the fact that many venues and organizations have pulled back on hiring drag artists in 2025. 'Just with Trump being back in office, I've watched shows that I've been booked for being cancelled, shows that have been going on for years and years,' they say, as Dinamyte joins them in agreement. 'The political implications of having a drag performer come to your event have fundementally changed.'
That's why Dinamyte hopes drag performers — and everyone else in the queer and trans community, for that matter — adopts the strategies within the Drag Defense Handbook to better prepare themselves for the scary new reality we're living in. 'Violence happening to a minority group is not specific to drag. There is nothing 'new' in this handbook,' he says. 'So, I really hope other groups take the information in here and help protect their communities with it.'Best of Billboard
Kelly Clarkson, Michael Buble, Pentatonix & Train Will Bring Their Holiday Hits to iHeart Christmas Concert
Fox Plans NFT Debut With $20 'Masked Singer' Collectibles
14 Things That Changed (or Didn't) at Farm Aid 2021
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
34 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Natalie Sue wins Leacock Medal for Humour for novel ‘I Hope This Finds You Well'
Natalie Sue's debut novel 'I Hope This Finds You Well' has won this year's Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The $25,000 award is given to the best Canadian book of literary humour published in the previous year. The novel follows the story of an office worker in her early thirties who one day stumbles upon all of her colleagues' private emails and decides to use their gossip to help save her job. 'I Hope This Finds You Well' was published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Sue is a Calgary-based author of Iranian and British descent who spent her early years living in western Canada. Runners-up, who received $5,000 each, were Greg Kearney for 'An Evening With Birdy O'Day,' about an aging hairstylist who lost connection with his childhood best friend when he left to pursue a pop music career, and Patricia J. Parsons for 'We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock,' which follows one woman's attempt to reconnect her family with Newfoundland. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2025.
The Hill
36 minutes ago
- The Hill
Watch live: Trump addresses the nation after US bombs Iranian three nuclear sites
President Trump is set to address the nation tonight after he announced the U.S. had dropped bombs on three sites in Iran, including the Fordow site located in a mountainside. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home,' Trump added. 'Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' The action follows days of speculation over whether the U.S. would join the Israel-Iran conflict, and comes shortly after Trump noted he would make a decision on involvement within two weeks. Trump's remarks are scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. EDT. Watch the live video above.
Los Angeles Times
41 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
With US airstrikes, Trump aims to deliver a decisive blow to a weakened Iran
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump with his decision to order U.S. military strikes on Iran's nuclear facility is gambling that direct U.S. involvement can deliver a decisive blow to a weakened Tehran while managing to avoid bringing the U.S. into an expansive regional conflict. Trump announced the strikes on three Iranian enrichment facilities — Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan — and said that a 'full payload of BOMBS was dropped' on Fordo. 'All planes are safely on their way home,' Trump added in his post. 'Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' It remained to be seen whether the attacks mark the totality of direct American involvement in strikes against Iran or the opening salvo of a larger campaign. Trump, who said he will address the nation about the strikes at 10 p.m. Eastern U.S. time, called it a 'very successful military operation.' The president also celebrated the strikes in a call with the news site Axios in which he said, 'We had great success tonight' and that 'Israel is much safer now.' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday had said that Trump would decide whether to move forward with U.S. strikes on Iran within two weeks. But on Saturday afternoon, commercial flight trackers identified multiple U.S. aerial refueling tankers that were on a path suggesting that they were accompanying aircraft from the Midwest to the Pacific, raising speculation that something could be afoot. Still, the flight pattern left many in Washington speculating that an attack might happen soon but would not happen immediately because of the time it would take for the aircraft to make it to the region. But that aircraft may have been a decoy — it was not part of the the mission that was carried out early Sunday morning in Iran. Trump returned from his New Jersey golf club just after 6 p.m., and was to head to a previously scheduled meeting with his national security team. Less than two hours later, the president announced the strikes had been completed. The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country's air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. The strikes are a perilous decision for the U.S., as Iran has pledged to retaliate if it joined the Israeli assault. The stakes are also high for Trump personally — he won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism. U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and the U.S. 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground, including at Fordo. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. bombers did in fact drop the bunker busters on the Iranian facilities. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States in advance that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic would 'result in irreparable damage for them.' And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared 'any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.' The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the damage inflicted by the bombings. Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would motivate the country's leaders to give up their nuclear program peacefully. But Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel's operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran's nuclear program, perhaps permanently. The Israelis have said their offensive has already crippled Iran's air defenses, allowing them to already significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites. But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel had appealed to Trump for the U.S. bunker-busting bombs, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its immense weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The penetrator is currently only delivered by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is only found in the American arsenal. The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility. Trump's decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program. For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time. The U.S. in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and U.S. bases from Iranian attacks. All the while, Trump has gone from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a 'second chance' for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran's unconditional surrender. 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding,' Trump said in a social media posting. 'He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.' The military showdown with Iran comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-administration brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the 'worst deal ever.' The 2015 deal, signed by Iran, U.S. and other world powers, created a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump decried the Obama-era deal for giving Iran too much in return for too little, because the agreement did not cover Iran's non-nuclear malign behavior. Trump has bristled at criticism from some of his MAGA faithful, including conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who have suggested that further U.S. involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end U.S. involvement in expensive and endless wars. The action by Trump immediately raised some concerns among U.S. lawmakers that the president had exceeded his authority. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., quickly posted on the social media site X: 'This is not Constitutional.' Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said on social media that Trump hit Iran without congressional authorization and lawmakers should pass a resolution he's sponsoring with Massie 'to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war.' Vice President JD Vance in a lengthy posting on X earlier this week defended his boss, while acknowledging that 'people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.' 'But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue,' Vance wrote. He added, 'I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals.' Madhani and Boak write for the Associated Press. Madhani reported from Morristown, N.J.
