By Carolyn Kaster and Calvin Woodward | Associated Press
SHAMOKIN, Pa. — Deep in Pennsylvania coal country, the Daniels drag family is up to some sort of exuberance almost every weekend.
They’re hosting sold-out bingo fundraisers at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Co.’s social hall, packed with people of all ages howling with laughter and singing along. Or they’re lighting up local blue-collar bars and restaurants with Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunches for bridal parties, members of the military, families and friends.
Or they’re reading in gardens to children dressed in their Sunday best — Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” is a favorite book for performers and kids alike.
In a string of towns running along a coal seam, the sparkle of small-town drag queens and kings colors a way of life rooted in soot, family and a conservative understanding of the world.
Here two very old traditions mingle — and mostly happily, it seems, in contrast to the fierce political winds ripping at drag performances and the broader rights of LGBTQ+ people in red states from Utah and Texas to Tennessee and Florida.
One tradition is the view of family as mom, dad and kids, plain and simple.
The other, back to before Shakespearian times, is drag, a loud, proud and seismically flamboyant artistic expression of gender fluidity. Not plain, not simple, but also bedrock, rising above ground only in culturally adventurous cities.
Yet the Daniels drag family is firmly woven in the fabric of the larger community in this area, where voters went solidly for Donald Trump, a Republican, in the last election. Their trouble is more apt to come from politicians who are increasingly passing laws restricting what they can do.
So far, no bans have surfaced that curb the Daniels family’s performances. A bill was introduced in the state Senate aimed at banning drag shows in public places, but it remains stalled in a committee with little prospect of advancing.
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