Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore, issued a statement via Instagram in response to two Tennessee bills that target the LGBTQ+ community: “Drag is not a crime. Gender-affirming health care for all, including our youth, is a necessity,” Williams weighed in, as state legislatures across the country consider bans and restrictions on both.
As reported by The Hill’s Brooke Migdon, on February 23, Tennessee lawmakers sent two bills to Governor Bill Lee’s desk to be signed into law: one written to target drag performances in public spaces — the first drag ban in the nation to pass a state legislature, Migdon noted — and another to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. The drag ban would punish drag performers within 1,000 feet of a public park, school, or church with up to a felony offense.
In a Story posted the evening after the hearings, Williams wrote, “Once again our state has passed two regressive and unfathomably harmful bills. We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ family and local LGBTQIA+ orgs in this fight, not only for inclusion for our friends & family in the queer community, but for radical acceptance and empowerment for each of them.” The post concluded with the hashtags #ProtectTransKids and #DragIsNotACrime.
Williams also reposted efforts from state LGBTQ+ organizations, such as Inclusion Tennessee and Nashville Pride, to call upon Gov. Lee to reject the bills. The messages were reposted to Paramore’s account.
These bills have garnered criticism from the Tennessee Democratic Party and the state’s ACLU, as well as from a slew of drag performers. “[The drag ban] could easily ban pride. It bans public drag. It bans transgender people performing, who are just living their lives. It charges them with a felony! It is blatantly unconstitutional,” wrote trans advocate and legislative tracker Erin Reed.
Earlier this week, The 19th News covered a recent report by the Movement Advancement Project that described the current legislative assault on LGBTQ+ rights as a “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist,” whether drag bans, gender-affirming care bans, or educational restrictions.
Williams is a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. In an October 2022 letter shared via her Instagram Story, Williams said LGBTQ+ people, young women, and people of color are who “punk music actually represents.”
“Young girls, queer kids, and anybody of any color…" Williams wrote. "We have shifted this scene together, messily, angrily, heartbroken, and determined.”
In 2020, Williams publicly called out a former Paramore band member over homophobia, tweeting, “Paramore do not condone religiously/politically dogmatic beliefs which leave our LGBTQ+ friends, fans, & family feeling abandoned and hopeless… And ya know, if that doesn’t jive with you, well, feel free to go where all past members of Paramore have gone, which is literally anywhere else but Paramore.”
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