Roger Marshall and Ty Masterson quiver in fear as Kansas faces its greatest threat ever: drag queens

Posted August 17, 2026

Stefan Aldava reads from "My Shadow is Pink" while performing as Sofia Shadow during a drag story hour April 13, 2023, in the rotunda of the Montana State Capitol in Helena.

Stefan Aldava reads from "My Shadow is Pink" while performing as Sofia Shadow during a drag story hour April 13, 2023, in the rotunda of the Montana State Capitol in Helena. (Photo by Mike Clark for Daily Montanan)

Both U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall and Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson present themselves to the public as square-jawed manly men, red-blooded conservative Republicans who love the Second Amendment, juicy steaks and gargantuan American flags in equal measure.

They command the landscape. Nothing scares them.

Well, nothing except drag queens.

Then the candidates for U.S. Senate and Kansas governor shriek like little girls, flail their hands in panic and beat a hasty retreat behind the nearest piece of overstuffed furniture. Who knows what that drag queen might do to them. If their recent social media posts are any indication, Marshall and Masterson fear they’ll be read to.

We all know that reading leads to learning. Both men apparently want to avoid that at all costs.

From the evidence of the recent campaign kickoff photo Marshall posted on Facebook, Kansas Reflector attracts a much more robust turnout for our events across the state. But then, we also welcome all members of the public.

Also public: Drag shows. They’re not difficult to find, and they offer good value for money.

Just to underscore the point: Kansas Reflector staff and drag queens both draw bigger crowds than Marshall, and are braver besides. Perhaps if the senator spent more time in the state, he would draw bigger crowds. It’s worth a shot for a campaign that has otherwise adopted Torquemada’s tactics.

As for drag queen story hours specifically, I have no idea what Marshall means. I’m a gay man married to another man, we have a child, and I’ve never been to a drag queen story hour, sought one out, or even known of one near me.

Perhaps drag queens are just following Marshall around to read him U.S. Senate residency requirements.

But he’s joined in gay panic by Masterson, who hasn’t hesitated during his time in Topeka to terrorize the LGBTQ+ community for fundamentalist fun and political profit.

The important thing to understand is that Masterson’s smear of state Sen. Cindy Holscher, the Democratic nominee for governor, doesn’t come from the Kansas press. A story about a Holscher social media comment from 2023 was spread through the cable network Newsmax (the same network that paid  $67 million to settle a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems) and the Washington Examiner (motto: We’re also a newspaper in Washington, D.C.).

It’s the kind of cherrypicked statement intended to provoke righteous fury in conservatives and questions in self-professed moderates. It’s meant to make people so angry they can’t think rationally.

So if you’re feeling that way, please put this column aside and take a couple of minutes to calm down. I can wait.

Better? Now you’re ready for the craziest part of this story.

It’s not that Holscher mentioned Jesus’ sexual orientation. It’s this: Ty Masterson killed the bill she was criticizing. He didn’t support it either!

You can read the proposed legislation here. Senate Bill 149 “expand(ed) the crime of promoting obscenity to minors to include drag performances.” The legislative history page shows that it died in committee, meaning Masterson, as Senate president, didn’t want to waste time on culture war toxic waste that would have been tossed out by judges as a clear First Amendment violation.

But now that the campaign season has begun, Masterson can claim to support bills he smothered in the cradle. Because, as we remember, drag queens are the scariest bogeymen of all.

Or as the Memes of Wichita Facebook page puts it:

As we come down the stretch toward the November elections, Masterson and Marshall might want to take a deep breath and think about their actions.

Both men’s comical fixation on drag queens — their barely suppressed horror — underscores a broader panic about gay people. They appear not to understand that drag queens are simply men dressed as women. They could be straight men. They might even be women dressed up especially fantastically (not for nothing was Dolly Parton a guest on “RuPaul’s Drag Race”).

Gay men, lesbian women, bisexual people, trans folks and an array of associated others have come out of the closet and now live honestly across the U.S. and Kansas. They live as their authentic selves. The broader public welcomes and supports them doing so, with a handful of politically hyperbolic exceptions.

While Marshall’s and Masterson’s teams no doubt think they can avoid blowback by casting their criticism toward the fringes, anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear can understand their goals.

They want to exploit fear of the other. They want to turn Kansans against their gay friends and neighbors. They want to force good people back into lives of secrecy and shame.

They want the rest of us to act as afraid as they do.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. His first book, “Opinionated: Kansas Journalists Who Proved Why Commentary Matters — Then and Now,” comes out Sept. 29 from the University Press of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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