HBO’s ‘We’re Here’ spotlights anti-LGBTQ+ movement in North Texas town
Anti-LGBTQ and hatred toward drag queens in a small town outside of Fort Worth are at under the spotlight in the season 3 premiere of HBO’s We’re Here. The episode opens with the Hood County Democratic Chair Adrienne Martin combing through Facebook comments threatening to attack the camera crew and bring rotten eggs after rumor spread that the drag queens would be in the Fourth of July parade in Granbury.
The drag queens did appear in the parade after all.
We’re Here follows popular drag queens Shangela, Eureka O’Hara, and Bob the Drag Queen as they change the lives of queer and straight people through drag. This is the second time the trio has come to Texas, first visiting Del Rio and its first openly gay mayor Bruno Lozano in the second season of the show.
This time the drag queens were faced with growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment that was recently pushed into the national spotlight after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Colorado.
At one point in the show, a coffee shop cancels a drag queen story time event with Shangela at the last minute because of a “scary dude” that was calling the coffee shop all morning.
Shangela stands on the Hood County Democrats’ float before it appeared in the parade.
Greg Endries/HBO
“He asked if we were having story time and if there were children here, and I said, ‘Because of the safety issues that you presented we’ve canceled that,'” says a coffee shop employee to one of the producers. “He said, ‘That was a smart move.'”
In another moment in the show, the queens see a Facebook post from someone named Melanie (her last name is blurred out) sharing photos they took inside the queens’ temporary studio at the Lake Granbury Conference Center in an attempt to “doxx” them, or share their private location. One comment says the queens should be dragged “through the sage bush.”
“There are a lot of people in this community who don’t want this show to happen. The reason they’re winning is because it’s not a fair fight,” Shangela says in the episode. “Nobody is speaking up on the opposite side.”
Ahead of the show’s premiere on Friday, November 25, Bob the Drag Queen called Granbury one of “the toughest towns” to film in.
Protests against drag events are not isolated. In Taylor, a town outside of Austin, the Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance’s Christmas parade float requirements were updated to include entries must be “consistent with traditional biblical and family values,” which the LGBTQ community felt was not inclusive. The City of Taylor, which used to be a sponsor, broke ties and has created its own Christmas parade.
In San Antonio, an anti-LGBTQ group called for “patriots” to join them in protesting a Christmas drag show at the Aztec Theatre on December 13. If any show up, they will be met counter protesters supporting the event.
