‘Free Speech’ Group Forces Taxpayer-Funded Texas University To Feature Trans Sex Shows
When Texas A&M University banned drag shows on campus, it took a vital step to defend its institutional mission. But a so-called “free speech” group went to court, and now a judge is forcing the school to host these explicit transgender sex shows.
The university’s board of regents recognized that “Drag Show Events are likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women,” involving “unwelcome and objectively offensive conduct based on sex,” in a Feb. 28 resolution. As drag shows “involve sexualized, vulgar or lewd conduct; and involve conduct that demeans women,” the board found it “inconsistent with the System’s mission and core values” for A&M venues to host drag shows.
But the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a misguided “free speech” group, sued to make A&M host these obscene sex shows. The university’s ban had canceled the upcoming performance of “Draggieland,” hosted by the radical student group Queer Empowerment Council, so FIRE sued on behalf of the group earlier this month. Federal Judge Lee Rosenthal for the U.S. Southern District of Texas issued an injunction on March 24, forcing the school to host drag shows while the case is in progress.
“This is another display of the resilience of queer joy, as that is an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed,” the Queer Empowerment Council said in a FIRE press release.
Rosenthal specifically forced A&M to host “Draggieland” — which she lauded as “cleverly named.” Previous “Draggieland” performances featured scantily-clad men dressed as women in sexual poses. At the time of publication, the upcoming event was scheduled to take place in a university theater on March 27.
FIRE argued the obscene drag show is simply “expressive conduct,” and Rosenthal agreed. FIRE Supervising Senior Attorney J.T. Morris claimed the First Amendment protects explicit drag shows as much as “a political rally or a Christmas pageant.” People in Christmas pageants, however, don’t depict sexual scenarios for an audience.
The First Amendment clearly protects freedom of conscience and freedom to engage in public discourse, per its protections for religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. But the Founders never thought it protected obscenity, lewdness, or pornography. As Dusty Deevers wrote for The Federalist, “public indecency and nudity were common law crimes” that violated laws enforced by the framers and early Americans.
According to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, “judges in the early republic and antebellum periods” believed “obscenity threatened to degrade the nation’s character.” As Samuel Adams said in the Second Continental Congress, “The diminution of public Virtue is usually attended with that of public Happiness, and the public Liberty will not long survive the total Extinction of Morals.” Only a long train of abuses in judicial interpretation would require a taxpayer-funded university to host explicit sexual performances.
FIRE has a history of defending explicit content. In 2023, the group opposed West Texas A&M University’s ban on drag shows, which a federal judge upheld, recognizing the performances constitute “sexualized conduct.” And in 2024, FIRE filed an amicus brief supporting the porn industry’s challenge to Texas’ law protecting minors from explicit content online. Ultimately, FIRE argues obscene content is free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Shaky judicial precedent has enabled this far-reaching assumption. The Supreme Court enacted vague standards for determining “obscenity” in the 1973 case Miller v. California. In 2002, the Supreme Court cited Miller to strike down a federal ban on content that “‘appears to be’ or ‘conveys the impression’ of” child porn, claiming it would infringe on a “significant universe of speech.” And in the 2004 case Ashcroft v. ACLU, the Supreme Court struck down a federal requirement to protect minors from porn online.
Various federal judges have been attempting to exert control over President Donald Trump’s administration, with a district judge trying to stop him from deporting illegals to El Salvador and a circuit judge forcing him to keep trans-identifying people in the military citing the musical Hamilton, as The Federalist previously reported. Rosenthal’s injunction against A&M is yet another example of judges operating on poor precedent and engaging in activism from the bench.
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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