TOPEKA — Kansas Republicans were so excited by a drag performance, they didn’t bother to question false reporting that said the state provided funding for the event.
Instead, they seized an opportunity provided by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, to bash Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly during the final stretch of a tightly contested race for governor.
The Daily Mail — a publication deemed too unreliable to be used as a Wikipedia source — delivered an “exclusive” report Monday that falsely claimed the Kansas Department of Commerce provided funding to an arts commission that gave a grant to the organizer of the Oct. 22 DADA Ball in Wichita to help fund the drag show.
The article featured photos of a performer wearing a rhinestone leotard, with thighs showing through stockings and legs spread, during a dance routine. A crowd of onlookers includes a couple of children.
The performer, who asked to be identified as FaeTality, said complaints about her dance routine were “mindboggling.”
“It was a very tame performance for me,” she said in an interview with Kansas Reflector. “I mean, the moves that I was doing, it was moves that I did in high school for dance team. We would go down into the splits, we would fold in our legs, and then we would do a sidekick. There was no provocative movement. There was nothing super crazy. It was just the fact that I looked the way I looked.”
FaeTality said she was assigned female gender at birth, identifies as a woman, and performs as a woman.
“They automatically associate the word ‘drag’ with gay and sexuality and all that kind of stuff, when it’s not,” she said. “It’s really just a performance art.”
Derek Schmidt, the GOP nominee for governor, led a chorus of Republican outrage over the story, saying government funding of such an event was “extreme,” “wrong,” demeaning to the “good name” of Kansas, and “must stop.”
Government funding wasn’t used for the event. The Kelly administration moved quickly to debunk the Daily Mail story, but Schmidt’s campaign continues to press the false narrative. Schmidt demanded an apology from the governor for promoting a drag show.
Gov. Laura Kelly answers reporter questions
Gov. Laura Kelly answers questions for reporters after voting Tuesday at the Shawnee County Election Office in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
In a brief interview with reporters after voting Tuesday morning in Topeka, Kelly said “if anybody needs to apologize, it’s Derek Schmidt for deceiving the public.”
“I really don’t know what his motives are,” Kelly said. “I can’t get into his head. I just know that it wasn’t true.”
On Monday, Schmidt falsely said governor had been “caught sanctioning and condoning activities that may expose children to sexually suggestive or explicit programming.”
