This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame.

Ohio’s proposed drag ban received its second hearing Wednesday before members of the House Judiciary Committee.

The hearing featured public testimony in support of the bill from two anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups: Mission America and the Columbus-based Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), which is a primary driver of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the Ohio Statehouse.

Proposed by conservative Rep. Angie King (R-Celina) and Rep. Josh Williams (R-Oregon), Ohio House Bill (HB) 249, “The Enact the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act,” would ban public drag or gender performances outside of “adult cabaret” venues. 

However, new public testimony also indicates that anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and conservative Republicans intend to use the bill to target and criminalize transgender Ohioans – restricting their access to public shared accommodations like gendered dressing rooms or locker rooms.

Those found in violation of the law could face both a first-degree misdemeanor and a fourth or fifth-degree felony.

Public testimony in support of the ban heavily featured residents from Rep. King’s hometown of Celina – including her own brother-in-law and Celina City Council president Jason King, who also serves as pastor at New Life Christian Center (NLCC).

In 2020, residents established the city’s first annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival, garnering significant anti-LGBTQ+ backlash.

In 2023, while actively serving as state representative, King was filmed protesting Celina’s Small Town Pride alongside self-identified members of the Aryan Freedom Network (AFN), a quickly growing Texas-based neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate group with more than 40 chapters across the country.

King said the Small Town Pride festival motivated her to introduce the drag ban.

Another protestor, conservative Celina pastor Shawn Meyer – who often posts anti-LGBTQ+ content under the online alias Hans Meyer – also provided public testimony in support of the bill.

HB 249 specifically bans “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex using clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers…”

However, a section of the bill that substitutes the phrase “private part” for “private area” would help criminalize trans and gender-non-conforming people who use gendered public facilities to change clothing during ordinary daily life.

CCV policy executive director David Mahan conflated transgender people who use gendered public facilities like dressing rooms and locker rooms with drag artists who perform on stage at public entertainment venues.

He cited a separate anti-transgender incident that occurred in 2022, when Greene County resident Janell Holloway filed a lawsuit after she saw a nude transgender woman using the public locker room at a YMCA in the rural community of Xenia.

Holloway provided public testimony alongside her husband, calling the experience of sharing a locker room with a transgender person “horrifying.”

“My heart was pounding. My thoughts were racing. My body was shaking,” she told committee members. “I witnessed evil.”

Holloway did not interact with the transgender person, who dressed and left without incident several minutes after she arrived.

In 2023, a municipal court judge found the transgender person not guilty of public indecency, but Mahan said HB 249 would help change that legal outcome for other transgender people going forward.

“This bill would prevent judges from being able to do that in the future,” he said.

In 2023, Tennessee Republicans passed a similar bill restricting public drag and gender performance. Though the law was challenged, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to take up the case. However, those restrictions are currently unenforceable due to a federal court order.

According to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), roughly 16% of LGBTQ+ Americans live in a state with “adult performance” laws that could be used to target or restrict public drag or gender performance, including Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Texas.

In Ohio, Mahan concluded his public testimony by seemingly encouraging Ohioans to identify and report trans and gender-non-conforming people they see using gendered public facilities – along with any public drag or gender performance that features “lewd” or “obscene” acts outside of cabaret venues or in the presence of minors.

“The federal government has spent millions of dollars on campaigns to encourage us to report suspicious activity,” he said. “If you see something, say something.”

HB 249’s third hearing has not yet been scheduled.