Williams also performed at the March “Love Rising” benefit, and voiced her support for trans and gender-nonconforming folks while also expressing her disappointment in the state of Tennessee.
“I imagine if you’re a drag performer in this town — skilled, talented, creative, amazing — I can’t help but think that all of them wake up some mornings and are like, ‘Why the fuck did I shave my legs for this?’ You know? So here’s a Deana Carter song,” she said in the preamble to a cover of Deana Carter’s “Did I Shave My Legs For This?”
She also opened up about her complicated relationship to her home state and her love for Nashville. “When I moved here to Tennessee, it was 10 days before I turned 13,” she said, per Variety. “My mom and I fled a pretty traumatic situation in my hometown in Mississippi, and Tennessee and Franklin in 2001 were a refuge for us. It genuinely saved my mom’s life. It changed the course of my life,” she said. “. . .I have plenty to say about Nashville right now that might not be so positive. But to start, I wanted to play this song. There are good people here that are trying to continue to make this a good place to live. You are them. . .I don’t want to be a preacher, but I wanted to say first off that the creative community, the artists, the people that I’ve met here, many of who are part of the LGBTQ community, have changed my life and made me a better person.”
She later went on to address Tennessee’s new anti-drag legislation. “What they’re doing with this anti-drag bill, and how really it actually is also just a distraction from all these other horrible things that they’re trying to pass here, it feels like we’re in a relationship with our city and our state that’s all-give, no-get,” she said.
