The author of a Texas bill restricting drag shows in the state was caught on video in drag.
A video surfaced on social media showing State Rep. Nate Schatzline, a freshman GOP lawmaker, skipping and running through a park with other characters dressed in drag.
Schatzline is described as “the virgin” and is wearing a black dress and shiny red mask.
The congressman has admitted that he was in the video and said it was a “joke”.
“Y’all really going crazy over me wearing a dress as a joke back in school for a theatre project? Yah, that’s not a sexually explicit drag show… lol y’all will twist ANYTHING,” he wrote on Twitter.
But, Schatzline’s bill, HB 1266, defines drag as exhibiting a “gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience for entertainment.”
The bill says any venue showing “drag” will be labeled a sexually oriented business, and thus subjected to special taxes and other restrictions.
Schatzline is the second anti-drag Republican lawmaker to be caught in drag this week. Photos resurfaced of Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee in drag as he is set to sign legislation restricting drag shows in the state.
