All that glitters IS sometimes gold: How I think John Stuart Mill would react to public drag performances
- Nguyen Minh Tri (they/them)
- 13 hours ago
- 5 min read
Drag culture holds a crucial part in the LGBT scene and identity in Vietnam. As of 2025, there is no official ban or regulation on drag performances. However, starting from 2025 November, there is a push to restrict public figures who have “deviant behaviors and creations” from performing. Call back to my personal experience during September, with no official statement or reasoning from government officials, many drag events of VietPride were cancelled. And as I recall a drag performance being cancelled in 2023 for “supporting the LGBT too explicitly," (Anh 2023). I really pondered whether drag/gendered performance in public increases the sum of happiness and reduces suffering, not only for me and queer people, but also for society as a whole? On Mill's utilitarian standard, blanket prohibitions on public drag fail. Narrow, content-neutral limits are allowed when they prevent concrete harms while preserving liberty for “that of all concerned”? (Mill 2017, 12).
Mill argues for pleasures to have a quality as well as quantity. Lower pleasures are fleeting and merely physical, while higher ones engage the mind and are longer-lasting. The referees for the categorization are, as Mill argues, those “who have had experience of both” and are “qualified by knowledge of both” kinds of pleasures and lives (Mill 2017, 6-7). If most or all of the competent judges prefer one good, that answers the question of quality.
If somebody who has experienced both drag and heteronormativity and still supports banning drag, Mill says that to be a "competent judge", the judge must be "capable of appreciating and enjoying both." (Mill 2017, 6). The judge who has a deep prejudice is disqualified. They are not judging between two pleasures. They are judging between one pleasure (quiet comfort) and one experience of discomfort. Mill would add that this disagreeing judge is, of course, free to prefer heteronormativity for himself. The “competent judge" is not a tool to force people to support drag. It is to establish that drag is a “higher pleasure" and banning it based on mere offense is not valid.
Drag, in Mill's view, is not mere cheap thrills, i.e., lower pleasures. Drag sits in the family of art: imagination, symbolism, satire, craft, and history. It also trains social perception. It asks the public to see and question dynamics: gender as costume, inverted power relations, beauty as play. Public drag contributes to identity affirmation and community cohesion within LGBT circles in Vietnam, which increases the net welfare for participants and allies. Under Mill, that benefit counts only alongside the interests of others affected, not above them.
The supporters of banning public drag would say otherwise. I would preface that many sentiments come from the homophobic belief that being queer, and thus doing drag, is inherently “sexual, deviant, and wrong,” which, in my opinion, is untrue in most cases. But let's suppose those aforementioned are true.
The first claim is that parents and children cannot always avoid sexualized content in public performances. For example, drag performances in Nguyen Hue walking street would have a high probability of non-consensual exposure; the harms to child welfare may outweigh the attendees' and performers' benefits. Furthermore, an outright ban could be claimed to maximize welfare by reducing enforcement costs and uncertainty, as borderline performances can have a risk of false negatives and the administrative burden of case-by-case review. Building on that, harms from a wrongly classified event are even weightier.
Assuming that concrete, non-avoidable harm to minors is likely at a given time/place, Mill would believe that targeted constraints can raise the net utility. Mill accepts smaller rules to apply utility as society “need[s] subordinate principles” to reach the end (Mill 2017, 17). But a full-on drag ban is not useful as moralized offense is not a reason, and it will hurt the happiness of drag performers and enjoyers, thus not generating the most happiness. So I think that he would believe in a stricter regulation on the outfit and content, i.e. an explicit conduct thresholds of all forms of entertainment, not just drag, especially when performing in public. Also, he would provide warning signage and opt-out routes for people who want to avoid the content. This harmonizes interests rather than sacrificing a minority’s expression, as Mill agrees: “the wrongful interference with each other’s freedom is more vital to human well-being than any maxims.” (Mill 2017, 40). The regulation would also address the claim that if drag is allowed, then it would be a slippery slope into public adultery.
Second claim: “Public drag offends shared cultural tradition; the state should protect shared morals (thuần phong mỹ tục).” Sidenote, there has been cross-dressing within Vietnamese culture for centuries in the form of traditional lottery (lô tô), so what's “cultural" is up for debate. However, focusing on Mill, this is a personal preference, as there is no scientific research to back up the claim, and what a state should do is try to cater to everyone, not just dismiss people who disagree with the state. “For the natural feeling would make us resent indiscriminately whatever anyone does that is disagreeable to us” (Mill 2017, 35). Mill distinguishes private resentment from moralized rules serving “the general good.”
What if a critic uses Mill against himself? They might argue that the majority's unhappiness from being offended is the greater harm. They could also claim that traditional gender norms are one of the things that humanity has learned by experience, and are necessary for the interest of the whole. They might argue that a drag ban is a proper use of “education and opinion” to protect the general good.
The argument fails Mill. It assumes that social rules are static. Mill believes that “corollaries from the principle of utility…can be improved indefinitely, and while the human mind is progressing they are constantly improving.” (Mill 2017, 17). The history of social improvement, he notes, "has been a series of transitions" where customs once thought necessary are later condemned as "a universally condemned injustice and tyranny." (Mill 2017, 43). Mill would see the banning of drag not as a defense for utility, but as a defense of a “supposed primary necessity” that is, in fact, an unjust assumption of gender.
In sum, broad public bans fail Mill’s standard. They rely on offense and/or tradition, not provable social harm, and they inflict damage to justice by wrongfully limiting a group’s public freedom. Targeted, neutral limits pass Mill’s standard when they prevent concrete harms and keep liberties for all. That is how to maximize happiness “of all concerned” with strict guidelines.
References
Anh, Thiên. Oct 8, 2023. “Thực hư nhóm nghệ sĩ LGBT 'bị Sở cấm diễn' trong đêm 'Rap Việt All-Star Concert'.” Thanh Nien.
Mill, John Stuart. 2017. Utilitarianism. Edited by Jonathan Bennett.
About the author:
Nguyen Minh Tri (Tonee) is a drag artist and scholar working in Vietnam. They also make art and write prose that complicates or simplifies the body as a medium and the body as the actor. They also write about the mundane things in life that interest them, like the bugs of life, and their tragic love life.