The plaintiffs argue that the law is an unconstitutional content- and viewpoint-based restriction on speech. They also argue it does not clearly define what actions are illegal, leading people to censor their own speech out of concern for violating the law.

A federal judge’s decision whether to permanently block Montana’s drag ban law will have to wait. First, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will make a decision on the state’s appeal of the initial injunction that temporarily blocked the law in October.

“No evidence before the court indicates that minors face any harm from drag-related events or other speech and expression critical of gender norms,” Morris said. “H.B. 359’s terms prove vague and overbroad, chilling protected speech and creating a risk of disproportionate enforcement against trans, Two-Spirit, and gender nonconforming people.”

A federal judge Friday extended his block on a Montana law that seeks to ban drag story hours in public schools and libraries, saying state attorneys haven’t proven that the events are harmful to children and that the law is written too vaguely.

“No evidence before the Court indicates that minors face any harm from drag-related events or other speech and expression critical of gender norms,” Morris wrote in granting the injunction.

More than 6,000 people, and several hundred dogs, congregated on either side of Last Chance Gulch in downtown Helena Saturday morning to cheer on the Pride parade.

Including Helena, there have been 12 Pride celebrations across Montana this summer, the most ever held in the state, says Kevin Hamm, the lead coordinator for Montana Pride. And these celebrations come after a legislative session that saw a series of bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

If anything, the crowd, a hodgepodge of Billings hipsters and cowboys in wide hats and pearl snapped shirts, got even louder after McMurtry appeared in drag. Great art can act as a bridge, a common ground for disparate groups to meet, as people.

“We must continue to fight against the lingering shadows of bigotry, hatred and inequality that still haunt us today,” said Collins, the first Black mayor in Montana. “Today we celebrate the freedom to love and to be loved just as we are.”

A federal court judge temporarily blocked the enforcement of Montana’s ban on drag performances on public property two days before Montana Pride events are set to begin.

“The City of Helena faces the untenable choice between ‘infring[ing] upon plaintiff[s’] constitutional rights’ and ‘subject[ing]’ the city employees tasked with reviewing Montana Pride’s application ‘to civil and criminal liability under the provisions of HB 359.’”

Montana Pride, which has hosted an annual pride celebration in the state’s capital city for eight years, joined a lawsuit earlier this week questioning the constitutionality of House Bill 359, which banned any drag performances in public spaces, and was signed into law this session. It also bans drag performances in schools and libraries and features consequences for private businesses.

The new accusations from the Helena-based Montana Pride organizers are part of a lawsuit originally filed in early July in federal court. The plaintiffs in that case, including a transgender author, a public school teacher, local arts organizations, nonprofits, a brewery and a bookstore, argue that the Republican-sponsored House Bill 359 is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.

A public lecture on the history of Montana’s trans and Two-Spirit community that was canceled by local officials in Butte has been rescheduled and relocated.

On the first day of Pride month, Adria Jawort was scheduled to speak at the public library in Butte, Montana. She was going to give a lecture on the history of trans and Two Spirit people in the west. She is not a drag performer. And yet the city’s top elected officials pressured the library to cancel her talk, saying it might pose a legal risk given the state’s new law against drag performers reading to children.

To be clear, the presentation was not a drag performance or a drag story hour, where people in elaborate costumes typically lip sync, dance or read children’s books. Rather, the event was to be hosted by writer, activist and transgender woman Adria Jawort — wearing her usual clothing and perhaps holding books — and feature discussions about gender and sexuality in a historical context.

Jawort said the point of the post was to show how the law’s broad provisions are not limited strictly to drag shows, but could limit the ability of trans people to speak in public spaces.

Jawort said she was surprised such a decision would come out of Butte and that officials were perhaps taking the easier route.

“Hiding behind the law is very ‘sus,’ as the kids say,” she said. “It’s very spineless.”

She said she was initially shocked but has since tried to find a silver lining.

“We can expose how silly this law is, that it just targets trans people just like we said. And no one believed us, and here we are,” she said. “So, as an activist, I have to work on Step B, and work on eliminating this law so we can have free speech.”

Opponents of the bill have criticized how it conflates members of the LGBTQ+ community with sexual predators, implying every drag performance is inherently sexual in nature.

A February 2023 poll showed that 75% of Montanans oppose changes to our constitutional right to privacy, a right that affirms our ability to make personal healthcare decisions about when or whether to have children. Yet our Montana Sexual & Reproductive Health Collective members continue to track 11 anti-abortion bills still under consideration — including two potential constitutional amendments.