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    Tennessee Law Limiting ‘Cabaret’ Shows Raises Uncertainty About Drag Events

    The measure is part of a wave of legislation by conservative lawmakers across the country against drag performances. Many are wondering how it will be applied.NASHVILLE — A bill signed into law this week in Tennessee makes staging “adult cabaret” on public property or anywhere a child could see it a criminal offense. The law forbids performances in those places by topless, go-go or exotic dancers, strippers, or male or female impersonators who, as the law defines it, provides entertainment that is “harmful to minors.” The word “drag” does not appear in the legislation. And to some legal experts, the description provided in the letter of the law would not apply to drag as they know it. But many in the state are still trying to grasp how the measure will ultimately affect drag events, theater performances that involve drag, and even transgender and gender nonconforming people as they go about their lives.The law is part of a cascade of legislation across the country fueled by a conservative backlash to drag events, which has also spurred protests from far-right groups and threats directed at performers. Now that it is one of the first to succeed, with lawmakers in other states pursuing legislation with similarly ambiguous language, the law has prompted concerns about how it will be enforced and the implications it could have.“The murkiness of this law is causing a lot of people to be on edge,” said Micah Winter, a performer and board member of Friends of George’s, a theater company in Memphis whose shows are often centered on drag.Proponents of the legislation have described it as a way to safeguard children, asserting that drag events can have sexualized language and suggestive performances that may be too mature for younger viewers.“This bill gives confidence to parents that they can take their kids to a public or private show and will not be blindsided by a sexualized performance,” Jack Johnson, the Republican state senator who sponsored the legislation, said on Twitter.Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee giving his State of the State address in February. Mark Zaleski/Associated PressStill, the legislation figures into a campaign by conservative lawmakers across the country to curb the rights of people in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. In Tennessee, one proposal would block transgender people from changing the gender listed on their drivers’ licenses, and on Thursday, the same day Gov. Bill Lee signed the adult cabaret bill, he approved legislation that prevents all puberty-delaying treatment, hormone therapies and referrals for transgender children to receive gender-affirming medical care in the state.Drag has become more mainstream in Tennessee, as in much of the country. Performers in vibrant costumes that upend gender assumptions could simply be reading a book, promoting acceptance and literacy. Or they might be “reading” — that is, playfully mocking — tourists piled onto buses rolling through Nashville or lip-syncing in variety shows in boozy brunches in Memphis or Chattanooga.“Not one of our performers on this bus has ever shown more skin than a Titans’ cheerleader on a Sunday afternoon,” David Taylor, an owner of the Big Drag Bus Tour in Nashville and bars that host drag events, said in a hearing on the legislation.Legal experts said the equivocal wording meant that the adult cabaret law was not exactly a ban on drag but could still have consequences.“It’s an anti-drag law,” said Kathy Sinback, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, “because they passed it intentionally to try to chill and prevent people from doing drag, but that’s not really what the law says.”“It should not even touch any drag performances,” she added. But after watching public commentary and a series of legislative hearings debating the merits of the bill, she said, “it’s clear that some people think that drag in and of itself as an art form is obscene and that it should not be viewed by children.”But Ms. Sinback said the parameters set in the legislation should not apply to most drag performances, given that they would have to be considered extremely sexual or violent, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific values, and be considered broadly offensive and obscene to a child to warrant charging the performer with a crime.Mr. Johnson said that the law was not meant to target drag performances in general or discriminate against the L.G.B.T.Q. community. “It simply puts age restrictions in place to ensure that children are not present at sexually explicit performances,” he said in an interview with CNN.Critics said the legislation reflected what many in the gay and transgender community have described as a bleak and dangerous climate in Tennessee, threatening people who are often marginalized and already uniquely vulnerable. The law over medical care has provoked the most alarm. The Tennessee chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics opposed the law, saying in a statement that it will “significantly limit our ability to practice to the standard of care established by numerous national medical organizations.”Sruti Swaminathan, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, which is working with other civil liberties groups in mounting a legal challenge to the legislation barring gender-affirming care, said, “This is clearly an effort to villainize us and isolate us because they fear our resilience and our self-love and our collective power.”People protesting against the bill on cabaret restrictions in Knoxville, Tenn., in February. Jamar Coach/News Sentinel, via ReutersTennessee is one of more than a dozen states where conservative lawmakers, focusing on issues of gender and identity, have pursued legislation that explicitly or otherwise seeks to impose restrictions on drag events.Some of the bills would require venues to register as adult entertainment spaces or “sexually oriented businesses,” and others would forbid performances at schools or libraries. A proposal in Arizona would outlaw drag performances within a quarter-mile of public playgrounds and schools.The law in Tennessee has not yet spurred a legal challenge, but activists and lawyers were prepared to start one as they watched to see how it is applied. Those who violate the law will be charged with a misdemeanor or a felony for continued offenses.The drag performer Poly Tics attending a rally in Kentucky on Thursday. Bruce Schreiner/Associated PressIn Kentucky, where the State Legislature has advanced a sprawling bill to curtail health care access for L.G.B.T.Q. children, lawmakers had also considered restrictions that included prohibiting what the state classifies as “adult performances” from operating within 1,000 feet of child care facilities, schools, public parks, homes or places of worship. The legislation was amended on Thursday to limit such performances from taking place in public places or a location where the performance could be viewed by a child — a step that critics of the legislation took as a victory.“This version is much more narrowly tailored to just explicit sexual content,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group in Kentucky, who acknowledged that much of his organization’s limited energy was focused on challenging the legislation on restricting gender-affirming health care.Compared with other proposals on L.G.B.T.Q. issues that advocates contend will have immediate and damaging impact, the ones that are tied to drag stir worries rooted more in uncertainty.For transgender and gender nonconforming people, who face a heightened threat of violence, some fear the law could be wielded as a tool to further discriminate against them.“The language is vague enough that it leaves it in the hands of each individual jurisdiction to define what counts as a ‘male or female impersonator,’” said Dahron Johnson, who works in community outreach with the Tennessee Equality Project. “They could say I, just going about my daily life, am an ‘impersonator.’”In theater, there is a long history of performance featuring cross-dressing and drag — Shakespeare famously employed male actors to play female roles — and many touring shows feature some variation on the practice: “The Lion King” (a male meerkat, Timon, dons a dress to dance the Charleston), “Hairspray” (the protagonist’s mother is often played by a man in drag) and “1776” (now touring with a new production in which all the male characters are played by female, transgender and nonbinary actors).“Hairspray” and many other theater productions feature drag performances.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“We’re absolutely opposed to any legislation that restricts the rights of our producers to present stories we’ve been presenting for 4,000 years,” said Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, a trade association representing producers and presenters around the country. Ms. Martin said the league is “very concerned” about the legislation under consideration in multiple states.Brett Batterson, the president and chief executive of the Orpheum Theatre Group in Memphis, said that on Friday, he paused conversations about bringing to Memphis a solo show, “Dixie’s Tupperware Party,” a small, long-running and popular touring production that has played all over America and is performed by a man in drag.“We decided we would pause our discussion to see how some of the language is interpreted,” Mr. Batterson said. “I think the law will be challenged, and we want to see how it plays out.”For now, Friends of George’s was not ready to change any of its plans. “We think it’s outrageous, but we’re forging ahead with our next production in spite of everything,” said Ty Phillips, the nonprofit’s vice president.Yet uncertainty remained. Mr. Winter noted that over the years he has played Mother Ginger in “The Nutcracker” and the mother in “Hairspray.”“Can I still do that?” he asked. More

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    The Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard Libel Case Is in the Jury’s Hands

    After closing arguments, the judge asked a jury in Virginia to decide a defamation trial that focused as much on domestic abuse as damaged reputations.After 23 days of testimony that painted conflicting pictures of a tumultuous Hollywood marriage, lawyers for Johnny Depp and Amber Heard delivered their closing arguments on Friday, seeking to persuade the jury that their client had been the person who was abused and defamed.Mr. Depp’s lawyers asserted that their movie star client had been falsely disparaged in a Washington Post op-ed in which Ms. Heard referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”The accusations of spousal abuse that she was referencing, the lawyers argued, had ruined Mr. Depp’s life.“We ask you to give Mr. Depp his life back by telling the world that Mr. Depp is not the abuser Ms. Heard said he is,” a lawyer for Mr. Depp, Camille Vasquez, said, “and hold Ms. Heard accountable for her lies.”Ms. Heard’s lawyers countered that not only were the accusations and the op-ed entirely true, but during legal proceedings in 2020, the actress was unfairly maligned when a lawyer, who represented Mr. Depp at the time, called her abuse accusations a hoax.“In Mr. Depp’s world, you don’t leave Mr. Depp, and if you do, he will start a campaign of global humiliation against you,” argued a lawyer for Ms. Heard, Ben Rottenborn.Now, the case is in the hands of seven jurors who deliberated until Friday evening and left the Fairfax County Circuit Court with instructions to return on Tuesday.The trial has drawn widespread attention because the proceedings have been both televised and livestreamed through a pair of cameras in the courtroom, a rarity in Virginia. On one YouTube channel streaming the proceedings, called Law & Crime Network, more than one million users were reported to be watching.There has been stiff competition to fill the public seats in the courtroom, with observers — most of them fans of Mr. Depp — lining up in the middle of the night to secure a spot. On Friday morning, about 150 people waited in line to get into the courtroom, with hundreds more lining a nearby road, some of them dressed as Mr. Depp’s movie characters.Peyton Elmendorf, a 27-year-old Depp fan, said that when she first heard about Ms. Heard’s accusations, she had misgivings about defending the actor given the #MeToo movement. But now, after hearing other of the actor’s romantic partners speak positively about him, she said she felt confident voicing her support.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors has become a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship. What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are suing each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.Stan Culture in the Courtroom: The closely watched trial is a case study in what happens when complex claims are filtered through the lenses of extreme fandom. TikTok’s Hate Machine: The online commentary about the trial quickly turned into an internet-wide smear campaign against Ms. Heard. Dressing to Suggest: Both litigants appeared notably sober in their fashion choices. That is no coincidental thing.“I knew he didn’t do it,” she said.Outnumbered outside the courthouse, but unpersuaded, Dan Kim, 26, quietly held a sign nearby that said “I stand with Amber.” He called it “crystal clear” that Mr. Depp had abused Ms. Heard.Supporters of Mr. Depp outside the courthouse on Friday.Craig Hudson/Associated PressUltimately, the jury must consider the veracity and reputational impact of a narrow set of statements. But the six-week trial has encompassed testimony about a vast array of alleged incidents from Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard’s marriage.Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp of repeated physical abuse that she said often coincided with drug and alcohol use and began with his accusing her of infidelity. She has also alleged several instances of sexual assault — including an accusation that he assaulted her with a bottle in Australia in 2015.Amber Heard, talking to one of her lawyers during the proceedings on Friday.Pool Photo via Steve Helber/ReutersMr. Depp has denied ever hitting or sexually assaulting Ms. Heard and has portrayed her as the aggressor in the relationship, recalling violence from her throughout their relationship, as well as angry tirades and demeaning name-calling. Ms. Heard has denied hitting Mr. Depp except in defense of herself or her sister.Testimony about the incidents often involved sensational details: disputed affairs with celebrities, graffiti written in blood and a missing chunk of Mr. Depp’s finger that forced the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie to pause production.In laying out the highlights of their evidence, Mr. Depp’s lawyers reminded the jury of witnesses who said they did not see injuries on Ms. Heard around the times she reported having them, showed a photo of him with a “shiner” that he said she gave him and replayed audio of arguments between the estranged couple in which Ms. Heard admits to having hit Mr. Depp. In one audio clip, Ms. Heard can be heard saying, “I did start a physical fight,” challenging her claim that she only hit Mr. Depp as a defense. (Ms. Heard testified that in those instances, she hit him in response to his own aggression.)His team also pointed to instances where there were no medical records or photographs to corroborate her allegations of abuse.“The ‘mountain of evidence’ that Mr. Depp abused Ms. Heard is simply not there,” Ms. Vasquez argued. “What we have is a mountain of unproven allegations that are wild, over the top and implausible.”Ms. Heard’s lawyers described witnesses who said she had told them about the abuse. Mr. Rottenborn played a video of Mr. Depp angrily slamming kitchen cabinets and showed jurors a text in which the actor told Ms. Heard’s father he had gone “too far in our fight.” He then showed the jury a photo of Ms. Heard with a red mark on her face after, she said, Mr. Depp hurled a phone at her. Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, another of her lawyers, reminded the jury about a forensic psychologist who testified to reviewing a therapist’s notes — which were not entered into evidence — that reflect contemporaneous reports from Ms. Heard where she complained of sexual abuse.“A ruling against Amber here sends a message that no matter what you do, as an abuse victim, you always have to do more,” Mr. Rottenborn said. “No matter what you document, you always have to document more. No matter whom you tell, you always have to tell more people.”Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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    Depp’s $22.5 Million ‘Pirates’ Deal Collapsed After Op-Ed, Manager Testifies

    Mr. Depp’s talent manager said the actor had been up to play Captain Jack Sparrow again until his ex-wife, Amber Heard, wrote an op-ed saying she was a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”Johnny Depp’s talent manager testified on Monday in the actor’s defamation trial that Mr. Depp lost a $22.5 million deal to star in a sixth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie after his ex-wife, Amber Heard, published an op-ed in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”The exact timing of when Mr. Depp was cut from the “Pirates” franchise has become a pertinent question in the trial because Mr. Depp’s lawsuit against Ms. Heard claims that her op-ed, published by The Washington Post in December 2018, “devastated” his reputation and career.Although the op-ed does not mention Mr. Depp by name, he has argued that it clearly referred to their relationship. Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp of assaulting her repeatedly during their relationship, which Mr. Depp denies.At Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia, the talent manager, Jack Whigham, testified that the actor had a verbal agreement with Disney to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a proposed sixth film, but that in early 2019, it became clear that Disney was “going in a different direction.”“After the op-ed, it was impossible to get him a studio film,” testified Mr. Whigham, who has represented Mr. Depp since 2016.Lawyers for Ms. Heard have argued that it was not the actress’s op-ed that undermined Mr. Depp’s career but rather his own actions that led to bad publicity, seeking to prove during cross-examination of Mr. Whigham that Mr. Depp had, in fact, lost the “Pirates” job before the article was published.Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, a lawyer for Ms. Heard, pointed to a previous deposition by Mr. Whigham in which he said that it had been the fall of 2018 — before the op-ed was published — when he came to understand that it was becoming unlikely that Mr. Depp would appear in the next “Pirates” movie.Mr. Whigham testified that around that time, Disney had not yet made a decision about whether Mr. Depp would appear in the movie and it was “trending badly,” but he and the film producer Jerry Bruckheimer were still seeking to convince the company to keep Mr. Depp in the franchise.“We had hope,” Mr. Whigham said, “and it became clear to me in early 2019 that it was over.”In the op-ed, Ms. Heard asserted that her own career had been affected by becoming a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” saying that she was dropped as the face of a fashion brand and a movie had recast her role.The idea for the op-ed came from the American Civil Liberties Union, and a communications department employee from the nonprofit organization drafted the article, according to earlier testimony from Terence Dougherty, general counsel for the A.C.L.U. Initially, the op-ed draft referenced Ms. Heard’s relationship with Mr. Depp directly. But those references were later edited out after back-and-forth between A.C.L.U. personnel and Ms. Heard’s lawyers about a nondisclosure agreement associated with the couple’s divorce, Mr. Dougherty testified.Aside from discussions about the op-ed on which Mr. Depp’s lawsuit is based, much of the trial has focused on diverging accounts of physical abuse in Ms. Heard and Mr. Depp’s relationship. Mr. Depp testified that he has never hit Ms. Heard and that she was the aggressor, accusing her of punching him in the face and kicking a bathroom door into his head. Ms. Heard, who has not yet testified in the trial, has said in court papers that she never hit Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister, and that Mr. Depp tended to perpetrate violence against her when he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.Amber Heard has countersued Mr. Depp, asserting that his former lawyer defamed her by referring to her allegations as a hoax.Pool photo by Steve Helber/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Monday, Ms. Heard’s lawyers sought to undermine Mr. Whigham’s claim that Mr. Depp had a formal deal for the sixth “Pirates” movie at all.“Do you have any explanation for why there exists nothing — no piece of paper — nothing suggesting that Mr. Depp ever had a deal with Disney for ‘Pirates 6’?” Ms. Bredehoft asked.Mr. Whigham said it was not unusual for an actor to have a verbal agreement for a movie that is later put into writing.Ms. Bredehoft also pointed to other possible precursors to Mr. Depp’s reputational decline other than the op-ed, citing a headline from The Sun newspaper in Britain that called Mr. Depp a “wife beater.” That article was published in April 2018, she pointed out, and Mr. Depp sued the newspaper for it in June 2018 — both months before Mr. Whigham’s recollection of Disney’s declining interest in Mr. Depp for “Pirates.”(Ms. Heard’s potential witness list includes Tina Newman, a Disney executive.)Ms. Heard’s legal team has referred repeatedly to the defamation trial in Britain that arose from that lawsuit. But it appears that the team has been restricted from mentioning the outcome of the case, in which a judge in London ruled against Mr. Depp and found that there was “overwhelming evidence” that he had assaulted Ms. Heard repeatedly during their marriage. More

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    Experts Say It's Unusual to End a Conservatorship Without an Evaluation

    Several experts said Friday that while they personally supported ending Britney Spears’s conservatorship, they thought it unusual that the Los Angeles probate court did so without requiring the pop star to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.“I’m surprised,” said Robert Dinerstein, a disability rights law professor at American University. He said that persuading judges to overturn a conservatorship in the first place is unusual.But when they do, he said, they typically require a psychological evaluation.“Within the relatively rare number of cases where a conservatorship is terminated, it’s even more unusual to do that without proof they had capacity,” Professor Dinerstein said.Judge Brenda Penny, who terminated the conservatorship, said that further psychological assessments of Ms. Spears were unnecessary, because the conservatorship was technically voluntary.Victoria Haneman, a trusts and estates law professor at Creighton University, said California probate code does not require a mental health evaluation for the conservatorship to be terminated. She said the underlying diagnosis explaining why Ms. Spears was put in conservatorship is unavailable because the record is sealed, making it tough to determine what sort of evaluation might have been required to show that the guardianship was no longer needed.Nevertheless, mental issues seemed to be a part of the reason, and so she had expected that an assessment would have been required to answer whether those problems were now in the past, she said.“I am extremely surprised that this conservatorship is ended without an evaluation,” she said.The experts stressed that they were not commenting on Ms. Spears’s mental health status, of which they are not informed — only on the process as they have experienced it.Typically in deciding whether to end a conservatorship, the experts said, a judge will consider whether the conservatee has regained “capacity,” using a psychological assessment and other factors to determine cognitive ability and decision making.This includes whether they can weigh risks and benefits regarding things like medical care, marriage and contracts. The person’s ability to feed, clothe and shelter themselves may also be examined.The purpose of an assessment is to determine whether the conditions that led to the imposition of the conservatorship in the first place have now stabilized or are in the past.Ms. Spears’s case has been considered extremely unusual because while viewed as unable to care for herself by the court, she continued to work extensively as a performing musician and global celebrity, bringing in millions of dollars.The singer herself had insisted that the arrangement end without her having to undergo an additional mental evaluation, and her lawyer had noted that lawyers for her father had agreed that no mental or psychological evaluation was required under California probate court.Zoe Brennan-Kohn, a disabilities rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said though typically some kind of psychological evaluation is part of the process of ending a conservatorship, it “makes sense that there would be no evaluation because everyone agreed.”“If everyone in the picture thinks this person does not need to be in this invasive situation,” she said, “we don’t want courts to be second-guessing that. Everyone said you should end this. I think it’s appropriate that the judge said, ‘Let’s end this.’” More