House passes anti-drag bill as legislature convenes for 2026

LGBTQ+ advocates, including Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project, right, protesting anti-LGBTQ+ measures outside the House of Representatives. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

The Tennessee House opened the 2026 session with rancor, passing an obscure bill targeting businesses that hold one drag show in a year.

It marked a raucous beginning for lawmakers as critics of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation held signs in the Capitol calling the bill “vague” and “dangerous” and shouted at Republican lawmakers as they entered the House chamber.

“This is the wrong bill to start the legislative session with. It sets the wrong priority,” said Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

The bill’s vagueness will make it difficult for local governments to enforce, and performers and businesses will have trouble figuring out whether they’re complying, Sanders said.

Numerous businesses across the state, whether they cater to the LGBTQ+ regularly or hold shows once yearly, are likely to fall into this new category if the bill becomes law, making it harder for them to operate. Local governments also would be put in the position of having to determine whether a business is violating the law.

Protesters formed a ring outside the entrance to the House chamber, singing songs about love as lawmakers entered. Inside, the protests continued.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton had troopers remove three people for shouting from the gallery as lawmakers tried to speak.

House Bill 884, sponsored by Republican Rep. Chris Todd of Madison County, would classify establishments as an adult-oriented business if they hold one drag show or sexually-related movie or activity in a year. Under the new designation, such businesses would have to be 1,000 feet from public parks, schools, churches and residences, putting them in a restricted category.

Todd, who sued the city of Jackson in 2022 to stop the LGBTQ Pride festival from being held in the city, previously sponsored the bill that lawmakers passed in 2023 to stop the festival from being held where children could see it. That law deems drag shows in some instances as harmful to minors and defines it as “adult cabaret,” prohibiting it on public property or areas where children could see the performances.

A Memphis theater group called Friends of George’s was part of a group that challenged the law in court. A federal judge initially found the measure unconstitutional, but an appeals court overturned that decision, finding that Friends of George’s lacked standing to sue. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Democratic Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville blasted Todd’s bill Tuesday, calling it “absurd” that the legislature gave it priority on the first day of the session while families across the state are facing financial problems.

“It’s a veneer of hate to try to demonize another,” Jones said, calling the matter a “non-existent threat” that nobody other than Todd cared to take up. 

The new measure passed 73-24, but the Senate version still has to gain approval after it failed to gain traction in 2025.

Memphis schools takeover bill to resurface

The House is set to take up legislation Wednesday that would give the state control over the Memphis Shelby County School District, creating a state-appointed advisory board that would have authority over the elected school board.

The bill is pitting Republican and Democratic lawmakers from Shelby County against each other as the session begins. 

The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill in 2025 but couldn’t reach a compromise. The Senate version is to come before the House Wednesday, where lawmakers will be asked to concur or send it back to the other chamber.

Tennessee House, Senate speakers accuse Memphis schools of subverting audit

From that point, it could go to a small committee made up of senators and House members where a deal could be worked out for final approval.

Republican Rep. Mark White of East Memphis, who is sponsoring the measure, said this week he wants to reverse years of poor performance and mismanagement by the school district.

White said he worked all summer and fall of 2025 to push the House version of the bill, which would allow an oversight board to be appointed by the governor and House and Senate speakers. 

The Senate bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Brent Taylor, was amended last year to enable an advisory board to select replacements for elected Memphis board members removed by the state, a provision considered unconstitutional.

Democratic Rep. Joe Towns of Memphis said he opposes the bill, in part because the state-run Achievement School District already failed to make significant changes in Memphis schools, despite costing roughly $1 billion over a decade. The legislature dismantled the district last year.

Towns said White’s bill would make the district’s elected school board irrelevant.

“It says the elected body by the people don’t have their say. Taxation without representation,” Towns said. “These people have been elected, good, bad or indifferent.”

The advisory board, which would be funded locally instead of by the state, would supersede the elected board on budgets, contracts exceeding $50,000 and some policies.