The drag show laws turn on their definitions

Quick answer: States can restrict what minors are exposed to, but the First Amendment limits how. The laws that name a type of performer have fared worst in court. The laws that target explicit content have a better chance. Read a bill's definitions section before you read anything written about it.

Three states, three kinds of law

Tennessee went first. In March 2023 it amended its adult entertainment statute to add "male or female impersonators" to the list of performers covered, alongside topless and exotic dancers. The law bars "adult cabaret entertainment" on public property, or anywhere a minor could see it. A first offense is a misdemeanor. A repeat offense is a felony.

Florida took a different route. Its 2023 law doesn't mention drag at all. It targets venues that admit children to an "adult live performance," defined by explicit or lewd conduct that appeals to prurient interest and lacks serious value. The penalty runs through licensing: a venue can lose its state license. A person who knowingly admits a child can also be charged.

Texas passed its own version in 2023. It restricts "sexually oriented performances" on public property or in front of minors. Like Florida's, it describes conduct rather than a category of performer.

That difference is the whole story. A law aimed at what happens on stage is a different animal from a law aimed at who's on it.

What courts have said

The legal ground under all of this is older than any of these bills.

In Ginsberg v. New York (1968), the Supreme Court upheld a state's power to bar the sale to minors of material that is obscene as to them, even when adults can lawfully buy it. States have real room to protect kids.

But in Erznoznik v. Jacksonville (1975), the Court struck down an ordinance aimed at movies with nudity at drive-ins, saying minors are entitled to "a significant measure of First Amendment protection." And in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), Justice Scalia wrote that a state has no free-floating power to create new categories of speech it can restrict for children. The category has to already exist, and obscenity is the one that fits.

Then there's the test for that category. Under Miller v. California (1973), a jury asks whether an average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work appeals to prurient interest, depicts conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. All three. Miss one and it's protected speech. (For the broader frame, see What the First Amendment Actually Protects, and What It Doesn't.)

Where each fight stands

Tennessee. In Friends of George's v. Mulroy, a federal district judge in Memphis ruled in June 2023 that the law was vague, overbroad and content-based. The Sixth Circuit reversed in 2024, and here's the part people skip: it didn't rule on the First Amendment. It held the theater group lacked standing to sue. The Supreme Court declined to take the case in early 2025. So the law is on the books, and the underlying constitutional question was never settled by an appeals court.

Florida. In Hamburger Mary's v. Florida, a federal judge in Orlando blocked the law in 2023 as likely unconstitutional. A divided Eleventh Circuit panel later kept that block in place. The state hasn't given up, so check the current docket before you cite any of this.

Texas. A federal judge in Houston struck down the law in 2023. The state appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which is where the live questions are. Courts there have also been looking at standing, so the same trap that caught the Tennessee plaintiffs matters here too.

One more piece of context. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025), the Supreme Court upheld Texas's age-verification law for adult websites, applying intermediate scrutiny. It shows the Court is willing to let states keep minors away from adult material when the law is built around the material and the age line.

Rulings change. Anyone telling you the matter is closed in either direction is selling something.

Commentary: write the law about the act, not the costume

This section is opinion.

Parents are right to want an adults-only show kept away from children. That isn't censorship. It's the oldest job a community has, and Ginsberg says the Constitution allows it.

But a conservative who cares about the Constitution should care how the law is built. Tennessee's wording names a kind of performer. Courts are suspicious of that for a reason: it makes the law about who someone is and what they express, not about what a child is shown. A story-hour reader in a costume and a stage act with explicit content are very different things. A law that can't tell them apart will get tangled in vagueness and overbreadth arguments, and it hands opponents a better case than they deserve.

The cleaner approach is the one Florida and Texas tried. Define the conduct. Define the age line. Tie it to the Miller factors. Then a prosecutor, a venue owner and a parent can all read the statute and know what it covers. A law you can't explain in a sentence won't survive a judge who's looking for a reason to strike it.

And a law that survives protects more children than one that makes a good headline and gets enjoined in six weeks.

What you can do about it

Most of this is decided closer to home than Washington. Your state legislature writes these laws, and most of them pass with a few hundred calls behind them, not millions.

• Read the bill. Every legislature posts the text. Go straight to the definitions section and the penalty section. Ask whether it describes conduct or a type of person.
• Call your state representative and senator. Say which bill number you mean and what you want changed. "Tighten the definition" gets more traction than "do something."
• Testify. Committee hearings take public comment. Three minutes from a parent with a specific point carries more weight than most people expect.
• Show up at city council and library board meetings. Permits for public events and decisions about children's programming are local. Many of these fights never reach a statehouse.
• Answer the jury summons. Miller hands the "community standards" question to ordinary people on a jury. If obscenity prosecutions are going to mean anything, jurors will decide it.
• Know how a case moves. If a law gets challenged, how a case reaches the Supreme Court explains why a ruling in one circuit may not apply in yours.

A bill's name tells you what its sponsors hope for. Its definitions tell you what a judge will actually read.