From The Associated Press:
A jury has awarded more than $1.1 million to an Idaho drag performer who accused a far-right blogger of defaming him when she falsely claimed that he exposed himself to a crowd, including children, during a Pride event in June 2022. The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously found Friday that Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey when she posted a doctored video of his performance with a blurred spot that she claimed covered his “fully exposed genitals,” the Coeur D’Alene Press reported.
The Coeur D'Alene Press also said:
Jurors awarded Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. Because Posey proved that Bushnell knew her allegations were false when she made them or that she made the accusations with “reckless disregard” for the truth, the jury awarded additional punitive damages in the amount of $250,000.The day of Posey’s performance, June 11, 2022, Bushnell posted a video of herself discussing the mass arrest of Patriot Front members near City Park, as well as footage from Posey’s performance. “Why did no one arrest the man in a dress who flashed his genitalia to minors and people in the crowd?” she said in the video. “No one said anything about it and there’s video. I’m going to put up a blurred video to prove it.”The next day, Bushnell published an edited video she had received from local videographer Jeremy Lokken, which included a blur over Posey’s pelvis. Bushnell told others that the blur concealed “fully exposed genitals” and urged people to contact police.The edited video garnered many thousands of views, sparking national news coverage and a police investigation. City prosecutors ultimately declined to file charges and stated publicly that the unedited video showed no exposure. In reality the unedited video showed no indecent exposure, and prosecutors declined to file charges. Bushnell was expressionless as she hurried out of the courtroom Friday.
The lie told on Posey was not an isolated incident. It was a part of a wide push by conservatives and those on the far right in which they would amplify videos or pictures of drag events taken out of context, altered, or deliberately mispresented to claim that drag performers and the LGBTQ community in general were sexually grooming kids.
This has led to threats against drag performers, bomb threats against events, public protests, and even anti-drag legislation. Several state legislatures across the country passed vague legislation which purported to safeguard children but were actually mechanisms designed to ban drag public performances of any kind. This meant banning drag performances at pride events and even Drag Queen Story hour events in public libraries. However, the bans would fail with several courts declaring them unconstitutional and attacks on free speech.
This incident in Idaho, and folks please correct me if I am wrong, is the first time where someone directly making a false allegation against a drag performer was ordered to pay up.
It's a wonderful consequence which I hope will send a message to others trafficking these lies, particularly a certain person by the name of Chaya Raichik. And I hope it also sends a message to drag performers in general about what they can do to fight back.
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