The Mahogany Project provides Rapid Relief Funds to full-time Drag entertainers in the LGBTQIA+ community of Greater Houston, whose work has been affected by anti-discrimination protests, harassment, or intimidation as a result of pending bills in Texas and across the country.
We are requesting the community's assistance in uplifting and maintaining the relief fund through donations and network-wide sharing.
Since the start of Pride Month in June of 2022, more than two dozen anti-drag protests and online harassment campaigns have been reported. Numerous influential activists, extremist groups, and politicians have fueled anti-drag hysteria by categorizing all drag as inherently and malevolently sexual, regardless of the content or audience. Under the guise of protecting children, these claims have been used to justify persecution and legislation targeting the LGBTQ community as a whole.
At least one-fourth of the anti-drag protests have been directed at events that organizers indicate are not even faintly sexual: drag queen story hours, where performers read children's books in an effort to promote literacy, often at libraries and bookstores.
Prominent anti-drag figures have made it plain that, regardless of context, they find drag to be obscene.