The High Court: Drag performers are entitled to protection against defamation

Drag performers should be considered a group protected against ridicule under the so-called racism paragraph of the Penal Code, the Eastern High Court ruled on Friday.

A 47-year-old Facebook user has been fined ten daily fines of 500 kroner for a comment on the platform, directed at a drag event. “Paedophilia at child height...” was his comment on an article back in the spring of 2023. It is this comment that is at the centre of the case.

The three judges of the High Court and the three lay assessors agreed that because the so-called racism clause also covers the denigration of persons on the grounds of gender expression, among other things, the law has been broken.

One of the main figures in the case is drag performer Magnus Lykke Johansson.

In March 2023, he and a drag colleague performed as Disney princesses at a cultural event for children at Frederiksberg Library. This led to both demonstrations outside and numerous comments on social media.

In 2023, the comment was reported to the police and in July 2024, the prosecution brought charges under the so-called racism paragraph of the penal code.

In addition to racist remarks, the section also deals with mockery or denigration of persons on account of “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics”. And that, in the opinion of the prosecution, was the case here.

However, at the Court in Hillerød in February this year, it ended with an acquittal. The judge did not believe that drag performers could be considered a group protected by the wording found in the law and its preparatory works. But the High Court agreed with the prosecutor from the State Prosecutor's Office in Copenhagen that drag performers should be considered a group protected against scorn under the so-called racism paragraph of the Penal Code.

The High Court's ruling was, incidentally, the second of its kind that day. Earlier on Friday, the High Court had fined another man for making derogatory remarks about drag queens in a different context.