 Trade it and upgrade it now at Appalachian Wireless and receive up to $700 off when you trade your old eligible device in and upgrade to a new iPhone 14 Pro Max or Samsung S23 Ultra on an unlimited Appalachian advantage plan because we are you. We are Appalachian Wireless. Due to threats of extreme violence the Come As You Are drag show has been canceled. We received many threats. There were death threats and people were saying that they were going to bring guns, they were going to bring loaded weapons, they were going to bring armed you know they're going to come armed and so there was even a group starting to organize to show up armed and so we believed that the risk was too great. It was you know too legitimate and we didn't now want to put people's lives in danger by continuing with the show. It really well first of all it opened my eyes to really understand and realize how behind the times Kentucky is in their thinking and to see that so much of the rural population is filled with hatred. The funds being raised at the drag show were going towards starting Rainbow Bridge a gender affirming resource bank and due to the increase in anti-drag legislation may had anticipated a large turnout to support the event. This population needs it the most because if they are fighting back and saying all of these hateful comments then they clearly have no understanding of what drag is about. They only see what is promoted on TV, what is promoted through the media, through Facebook, but they have not been able to see the genuine connections that people can have through drag and the art of expression and how we use our drag to show people that you can continue to march on and be that genuine person that you want to be because you matter no matter what anybody says you matter and it's like that's why the comments are hateful and we have to be diligent and we have to be safe. While no charges have been filed the owner of open doors counseling stated it's something they are still discussing. I feel like it's necessary to share that there are threats because I feel like I have a responsibility knowing this information that the community should know that there are legitimate threats around and if I kept that to myself I would feel somewhat responsible if something happened so. Despite the cancellation open doors counseling plans to organize another event for the LGBTQ plus community. I always believe in trying to make a positive out of a negative so we are hoping to be able to talk about ways to pivot and to come up with something even bigger and better than what we had originally planned. We hope to be able to offer maybe a virtual space for this event because quite frankly we thought we were going to have to turn people away at this event so this gives us a chance to pivot and to give another option to where we can actually have hundreds if not thousands of people showing up to support this. I matter and I use my platform to advocate to show others that they matter and I will not stop fighting until everyone matters. Reporting from Mountain Top News, I'm Ethan Miller.