Texas Senate revives library cuts for hosting drag story times
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Lawmakers are bringing back an effort to create consequences for any public library in Texas that hosts a children's reading event led by a drag performer, reviving legislation that failed to pass during the last legislative session.
The Senate Committee on State Affairs will hold a hearing Thursday at 9 a.m. to consider Senate Bill 18, introduced by Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes of Mineola. The proposal's wording closely mirrors a similar piece of legislation he brought forward during the 2023 session.
The new bill proposes that a "municipal library may not receive state or other public funds if the library hosts an event at which a man presenting as a woman or a woman presenting as a man reads a book or a story to a minor for entertainment and the person being dressed as the opposite gender is a primary component of the entertainment." Additionally, that funding freeze would take effect during the fiscal year that follows whenever the drag story time event happened.
Hughes' previous proposal, Senate Bill 1601, sailed through the Texas Senate two years ago, garnering support from all the Republican lawmakers at that time. However, no committee in the House ever took up the bill, which led to the legislation dying in the 88th regular legislative session and not becoming law. During that session, state lawmakers put forward a historic number of bills impacting the LGBTQ+ community, which the KXAN Investigates team examined closely for the Catalyst project entitled "OutLaw: A Half-Century Criminalizing LGBTQ+ Texans."
While laying out the original legislation, Hughes brought up only one incident to justify his bill. In 2019 he pointed to a Houston Public Library location hosting a drag story time with a performer who was a registered sex offender. The library system previously told KXAN that its programming no longer included any more drag queen story hours.
“It is important to reiterate that every program sponsored by HPL is supervised by library staff, and all children are accompanied by a parent and/or guardian,” a 2019 statement from the library read. “Further, no participant is ever alone with children, and HPL has not received any complaints about any inappropriate behavior by participants at any of its storytimes, including this program.”
The debate at Thursday's committee hearing comes during the 60-day window where lawmakers can begin the session by only considering legislation related to Gov. Greg Abbott's emergency items. Those seven priorities he laid out earlier this month do not include anything related to drag story time events. However, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named this as one of his Senate priority bills for this session, which explains why the state affairs committee may be taking up the legislation now.
Every Republican senator has signed on now as a co-author of SB 18, raising the chances that it will once again gain approval and move quickly through the GOP-controlled chamber. However, just as it did two years ago, the legislation is likely to draw loud opposition among Democratic lawmakers as well as LGBTQ+ advocates in the state.