Bella DuBalle never dreamed of becoming an activist or playing a starring role in the battle against prohibiting drag shows in Tennessee, the southern state that became the first in America to pass such restrictions in March.
“I just wanted to play dress up,” DuBalle, an ordained minister and also the director and host at Atomic Rose, the largest drag club in Memphis, told openDemocracy. “But I’ve always believed that you need to be the person that you needed when you were little. And I didn’t have that.”
DuBalle – who, out of drag, is Slade Kyle and uses they/them pronouns – took on this unfamiliar part last month, as the backlash against the LGTBIQ+ community and their freedoms escalated to where Tennessee became the first state in the US to clamp down on their art.
