Is it the policy of the Department of Defense to not fund drag shows on military bases or not? There seems to be some confusion. A drag show was scheduled to take place at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada today. At the last minute, it was cancelled. The reason for the cancellation is that the Pentagon officials found out about it and shut it down.

Pride Month begins today and the drag show was to be in celebration of it. The show was approved by Air Force leaders, but Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told the Air Force that it is not Defense Department policy to fund drag shows on bases. So, the show in Nevada has been canceled. Perhaps it has been moved off base. This is an issue that has become a hot topic in recent months as drag shows have popped up. Conservatives argue that the Defense Department should not be spending taxpayer money on them.

Austin and Milley have to save face quickly because they both told a congressional committee recently that the Department of Defense does not fund drag shows on military bases. That doesn’t track with reports that drag queen story hours on bases around the world, including in Montana, Nevada, Virginia and Germany have been held.

“Drag queen story hours is not something that the Department funds,” Austin told the committee.

Milley chimed in by asking to see the flyers for the events Gaetz was referring to and saying he is not aware of such events and does not support them being held on military bases.

“I’d like to take a look at those because I don’t agree with those,” Milley said.

When Milley was informed about the event this week, he was visibly angry about the decision to host the event on base, according to a U.S. official and a defense official.

“Consistent with Secretary Austin’s congressional testimony, the Air Force will not host drag events at its installations or facilities. Commanders have been directed to either cancel or relocate these events to an off-base location,” an Air Force official said when asked about the Nellis event.

Somebody is in trouble.

The base commander was informed in the past few days that the drag show must either be canceled or moved off base.

“Per DoD Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), certain criteria must be met for persons or organizations acting in non-Federal capacity to use DoD facilities and equipment. As Secretary Austin has said, the DOD will not host drag events at U.S. military installations or facilities. Hosting these types of events in federally funded facilities is not a suitable use of DOD resources,” deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement.

Is it a breakdown in communication to military base leaders or are the bases scheduling drag shows and hoping to get away with it?

Two events in the summer of 2022 brought attention to drag shows on military bases.

One was a scheduled June event at which a drag queen with the stage name Stacey Teed would read stories to children at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The event was canceled after a backlash.

Another was a planned July event at which a sailor, under the drag queen alter ego Harpy Daniels, was slated to perform at a ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summer Festival’ held at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. Ultimately, the act did not perform at the event.

If the name Harpy Daniels sounds familiar, I wrote about him in May when he was hired as a digital ambassador for the Navy and it’s recruitment efforts. Yes. In the name of promoting diversity in the Navy, a drag queen was hired to help boost recruitment numbers.

The first drag queen show on a U.S. military base may have been in 2014 at Kadena Air Base in Japan.

A bill was introduced in Congress in August 2022 that “prohibits Department of Defense funding from being obligated or expended to organize, promote, or host drag shows as a means of implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.” That was during a Democrat-majority House and it didn’t move forward.

In 2021, Nellis Air Force Base was in the news over a drag queen show.

“Ensuring our ranks reflect and are inclusive of the American people is essential to the morale, cohesion, and readiness of the military,” Nellis Air Force Base said in a 2021 statement to Breitbart after the Nevada base hosted its first drag queen show. “[We are] committed to providing and championing an environment that is characterized by equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion.”

“Diversity is one of our military’s greatest strengths and works best when our force represents all Americans,” a Pentagon spokesperson similarly told Task & Purpose. “Our people’s experience, professionalism, and commitment have always been our decisive advantage. Diverse backgrounds and experiences contribute to the innovative thought, creative adaptation, and cultural understanding necessary for us to successfully operate in today’s complex, asymmetric environments.”

In May, House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Matt Gaetz sent a letter to Austin and Milley about drag shows on military bases. He sent details of six other events on bases approved by the military. He asked for information on whether any punitive action has been taken against anyone using taxpayer money on them.