Opposing Proposed Drag Bans in Oklahoma
February 11, 2025
February 11, 2025
To the Members of the Oklahoma Senate Public Safety Committee,
My name is Ricci Levy. I am the President and CEO of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a national human rights organization. As a representative of Woodhull and in my capacity as an expert on the human right to sexual freedom, I am writing to you and your fellow members of the Senate Public Safety Committee today to express our strong opposition to Oklahoma Senate Bill 550.
SB550 seeks to make it a felony to “organize or authorize” drag performances deemed “harmful to minors” in public spaces or locations where a minor could view the performance. As written, this bill is overly broad. It relies on paragraph 2 of Section 1040.75 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes to define “harmful to minors,” which should not apply to all drag performances, such as a storytime reading hour appropriately designed for a young audience. This bill unduly categorizes all drag performances under the same banner, conflating performances for adult audiences with those developed with age-appropriate content intended for children.
In your capacity as a member of the Oklahoma Senate Public Safety Committee, we at Woodhull urge you to recognize how SB550 is, in fact, a public safety threat. Since drag performances became a target in state legislatures across the country, we have spoken out against them because they undermine American values and one of the most basic principles of American society: free speech. SB550 and bills like them violate the First Amendment, which protects “expressive content” and “symbolic speech.” By codifying restrictions on free speech, SB550 makes drag performers targets for arrest and potentially dangerous interactions with law enforcement. This bill and those like it also have the potential to embolden public animosity against drag performers, further eroding public safety.
We at Woodhull stand firm in our defense of Constitutionally protected free speech. As you and your fellow Senate Public Safety Committee members hold a hearing on SB550 today, we urge you also to consider the free speech protections under threat if the bill moves forward. We urge you and your colleagues, as lawmakers, to ensure the equal protection of all Oklahomans before the law and reject SB550.
Your consideration of these matters is very much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Ricci Joy Levy
President & CEO
Woodhull Freedom Foundation