In the spirit of mixing politics and pageantry, San Francisco supervisors Matt Dorsey and Rafael Mandelman will perform in drag for a political fundraiser this week.
But raising money for the United Democratic Club at Oasis on Sunday won’t all be about lip-syncs and death drops.
“We’re taking a hot minute to talk about trans rights and LGBTQ legislation,” reads a Facebook post advertising the event.
The show will be hosted by D’Arcy Drollinger, the owner of Oasis, who was appointed San Francisco’s drag laureate by Mayor London Breed to promote the city’s LGBTQ+ culture and small businesses.
More officials are expected to participate in the show, the Facebook post says.
In addition to raising money for the political club, part of the proceeds will also go to Drag Story Hour, where drag queens read to children at public libraries.
The drag event comes as the U.S. grapples with a wave of anti-trans and anti-queer sentiment, including right-wing groups protesting drag storytime events and queer politicians being called “groomers.”
Anti-LGBTQ legislation is also sweeping the country, including here in California, where a controversial mandate from the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County requires educators to out students who identify as a gender other than what they were assigned at birth.
The mandate, passed in July with a 4-1 vote by the district’s school board, prompted outrage from supporters of trans rights and a civil rights investigation from California’s attorney general.
Supervisors Mandelman and Dorsey, Drollinger and United Democratic Club president Bobak Esfandiari did not respond to requests for comment.