Last fall when I started thinking of ideas for columns for the Betty Pages, I was excited to write interesting stories about early drag performers here in our corner of the world. However writing about these stories has taken on a weightier context as a wave of anti-drag hysteria has escalated across the country, and bills designed to restrict and prohibit drag performances work their way through state legislatures.

WE stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement.

We recognize that we are part of a society where the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color continue to be oppressed by structural racism, lack of opportunity, health disparities, and direct violence by the police and others.

We protest the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and the many other unarmed Black people by the police. We would like to express our solidarity with protesters standing up to structural and physical acts of violence across the United States. Police violence falls within a larger pattern of racism and imperialism that has a long history. We believe that history matters.

We believe that Black Lives Matter.