Drag show statement – Please sign!

We are disturbed and dismayed by president Oldham’s statement on the drag show that was recently hosted by two student groups on campus.

President Oldham refers to the performances in this drag show as obscene. The boundaries of what is considered obscene are notoriously broad and unclear, as demonstrated by many landmark cases in the supreme court that have dealt with matters of obscenity. Statements that place our students, especially queer students, into this category of the obscene matter to their well-being on our campus, and our university has a history of failing to protect the well-being of our queer students.

Drag shows as we know them emerged in response to policing of queer bodies, which occurred socially through harassment and physical violence and was supported by anti-cross-dressing laws that criminalized non-traditional gender expression. This violence was done under the same claims of obscenity. The performance of drag became an outlet to subvert the power and violence being exerted on them, and the “disparaging mockery” of Christianity—as president Oldham refers to it—is a part of the same subversion of power dynamics, since Christianity plays such a large role of the normative culture at the source of this violence.

By casting our students as obscene, president Oldham is inviting harassment and violence toward them from their peers, and continuing a long history of ostracizing members of our community for falling outside cultural norms. The safety of our students, and providing them a safe environment for learning, should be the most important of our values as educators. Whether or not these students otherwise represent our campus values should not jeopardize their safety, which our president is doing in very subtle ways with his statement. We call on all faculty, students, staff, and community members to speak out in support of our queer students. You can add your signature to this letter by filling out this form https://forms.gle/pZ35DVCC5TnvF8PC8