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Tavish Forsyth, founder of Bird City Improv and the associate artistic lead for the Kennedy Center's Opera Institute, is seen here delivering a nude monologue against Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's takeover of the Washington, D.C. performing arts center.
(Photo: ImproVision/YouTube/screen grab)
Naked Kennedy Center Staffer Rips 'Villainous Liar' Trump and 'Nazi Wannabe' Musk
"I have called Trump out on his bullshit and dare him to fire me for being unapologetically queer, and critical, for showing up everyday in my best red lip and woke gender ideology that says don't fuck with me."
Mar 20, 2025
"Walk away or fight?"
That's what one program director at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. asked in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's bigoted attacks on racial, religious, and sexual minorities—and the artist literally bared all of himself while mulling the question.
"Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center, and that's a place where I work. He has banned drag performers from its stages. And as the saying goes, 'we're all born naked and the rest is drag," Tavish Forsyth, the associate artistic lead for the Kennedy Center's Opera Institute, said in a YouTube video, wearing nothing but an 8-bit rainbow-striped heart digitally superimposed over his groin.
Trump recently took over the Kennedy Center, firing its board, appointing himself chair of the body, and
replacing its members with loyalists in what many critics believe is a bid to remake the venerable institution in his own image.
Washington Post associate editor Marc Fischer wrote Wednesday that "there has been much worry in the anti-Trump world that the president will turn the Kennedy Center into an easy-listening temple, a reliquary for washed-up middlebrow acts, a refuge for the few artists who wave the MAGA flag. Kid Rock in the Opera House, Jason Aldean in the Concert Hall."
Reflecting his administration's attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Trump has canceled or proscribed performances deemed "woke," including a concert featuring the Gay Men's Chorus and the National Symphony Orchestra's A Peacock Among Pigeons: Celebrating 50 Years of Pride.
Calling Trump a "villainous liar," Forsyth asked: "Does staying make me a collaborator or somehow complicit in a hostile government takeover that is systematically targeting the rights, livelihood and liberty of poor people, queer people, Black, brown people, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, victims in war-torn countries, ethnic cleansing, women... Gosh when I put it like that, it seems kind of obvious: Fuck Donald Trump and fuck the Kennedy Center. But, on the other hand, is staying holding the line and living to fight another day?"
Forsyth called Trump's move to install himself as the head of Kennedy Center's board "surprising, because he seemed so busy draining dams, damning alliances, siding with killers, endorsing genocide, erasing trans and queer people from history, deporting people who have every right to live in a land of immigrants—a stolen land—and doing everything in his goddam power to seem like a big tough man while Nazi wannabe [Elon] Musk, systematically erodes the government while selling Cybertrucks to the next generation of American war criminals."
"And now that I've said all this shit, people will name me radical, crazy, Antifa, terrorist, pot-smoking, faggot, hippie, whatever the fuck," Forsyth continued. "I also fear that I make myself unemployable. To which I also say, 'Fuck it!' If I'm unemployable, then let it be because I chose to be unrulable. Let it be because I choose me, my beloved family, and stand in solidarity with communities that equally deserve to be free."
"Every bone in my body says run," Forsyth confessed. "And I haven't been sleeping well for over a week. My heart says love one another. My ego says don't let them win. Don't give up. Don't abandon a worthy cause... I have called Trump out on his bullshit and dare him to fire me for being unapologetically queer, and critical, for showing up everyday in my best red lip and woke gender ideology that says don't fuck with me. I threaten him to arrest me for breaking his unjust laws that threaten diversity."
"Shoot your shot, Donald," he added. "The rest of you, should I quit the Kennedy Center or wait to be crucified for this man's sins?"
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"Walk away or fight?"
That's what one program director at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. asked in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's bigoted attacks on racial, religious, and sexual minorities—and the artist literally bared all of himself while mulling the question.
"Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center, and that's a place where I work. He has banned drag performers from its stages. And as the saying goes, 'we're all born naked and the rest is drag," Tavish Forsyth, the associate artistic lead for the Kennedy Center's Opera Institute, said in a YouTube video, wearing nothing but an 8-bit rainbow-striped heart digitally superimposed over his groin.
Trump recently took over the Kennedy Center, firing its board, appointing himself chair of the body, and
replacing its members with loyalists in what many critics believe is a bid to remake the venerable institution in his own image.
Washington Post associate editor Marc Fischer wrote Wednesday that "there has been much worry in the anti-Trump world that the president will turn the Kennedy Center into an easy-listening temple, a reliquary for washed-up middlebrow acts, a refuge for the few artists who wave the MAGA flag. Kid Rock in the Opera House, Jason Aldean in the Concert Hall."
Reflecting his administration's attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Trump has canceled or proscribed performances deemed "woke," including a concert featuring the Gay Men's Chorus and the National Symphony Orchestra's A Peacock Among Pigeons: Celebrating 50 Years of Pride.
Calling Trump a "villainous liar," Forsyth asked: "Does staying make me a collaborator or somehow complicit in a hostile government takeover that is systematically targeting the rights, livelihood and liberty of poor people, queer people, Black, brown people, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, victims in war-torn countries, ethnic cleansing, women... Gosh when I put it like that, it seems kind of obvious: Fuck Donald Trump and fuck the Kennedy Center. But, on the other hand, is staying holding the line and living to fight another day?"
Forsyth called Trump's move to install himself as the head of Kennedy Center's board "surprising, because he seemed so busy draining dams, damning alliances, siding with killers, endorsing genocide, erasing trans and queer people from history, deporting people who have every right to live in a land of immigrants—a stolen land—and doing everything in his goddam power to seem like a big tough man while Nazi wannabe [Elon] Musk, systematically erodes the government while selling Cybertrucks to the next generation of American war criminals."
"And now that I've said all this shit, people will name me radical, crazy, Antifa, terrorist, pot-smoking, faggot, hippie, whatever the fuck," Forsyth continued. "I also fear that I make myself unemployable. To which I also say, 'Fuck it!' If I'm unemployable, then let it be because I chose to be unrulable. Let it be because I choose me, my beloved family, and stand in solidarity with communities that equally deserve to be free."
"Every bone in my body says run," Forsyth confessed. "And I haven't been sleeping well for over a week. My heart says love one another. My ego says don't let them win. Don't give up. Don't abandon a worthy cause... I have called Trump out on his bullshit and dare him to fire me for being unapologetically queer, and critical, for showing up everyday in my best red lip and woke gender ideology that says don't fuck with me. I threaten him to arrest me for breaking his unjust laws that threaten diversity."
"Shoot your shot, Donald," he added. "The rest of you, should I quit the Kennedy Center or wait to be crucified for this man's sins?"
"Walk away or fight?"
That's what one program director at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. asked in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's bigoted attacks on racial, religious, and sexual minorities—and the artist literally bared all of himself while mulling the question.
"Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center, and that's a place where I work. He has banned drag performers from its stages. And as the saying goes, 'we're all born naked and the rest is drag," Tavish Forsyth, the associate artistic lead for the Kennedy Center's Opera Institute, said in a YouTube video, wearing nothing but an 8-bit rainbow-striped heart digitally superimposed over his groin.
Trump recently took over the Kennedy Center, firing its board, appointing himself chair of the body, and
replacing its members with loyalists in what many critics believe is a bid to remake the venerable institution in his own image.
Washington Post associate editor Marc Fischer wrote Wednesday that "there has been much worry in the anti-Trump world that the president will turn the Kennedy Center into an easy-listening temple, a reliquary for washed-up middlebrow acts, a refuge for the few artists who wave the MAGA flag. Kid Rock in the Opera House, Jason Aldean in the Concert Hall."
Reflecting his administration's attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Trump has canceled or proscribed performances deemed "woke," including a concert featuring the Gay Men's Chorus and the National Symphony Orchestra's A Peacock Among Pigeons: Celebrating 50 Years of Pride.
Calling Trump a "villainous liar," Forsyth asked: "Does staying make me a collaborator or somehow complicit in a hostile government takeover that is systematically targeting the rights, livelihood and liberty of poor people, queer people, Black, brown people, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, victims in war-torn countries, ethnic cleansing, women... Gosh when I put it like that, it seems kind of obvious: Fuck Donald Trump and fuck the Kennedy Center. But, on the other hand, is staying holding the line and living to fight another day?"
Forsyth called Trump's move to install himself as the head of Kennedy Center's board "surprising, because he seemed so busy draining dams, damning alliances, siding with killers, endorsing genocide, erasing trans and queer people from history, deporting people who have every right to live in a land of immigrants—a stolen land—and doing everything in his goddam power to seem like a big tough man while Nazi wannabe [Elon] Musk, systematically erodes the government while selling Cybertrucks to the next generation of American war criminals."
"And now that I've said all this shit, people will name me radical, crazy, Antifa, terrorist, pot-smoking, faggot, hippie, whatever the fuck," Forsyth continued. "I also fear that I make myself unemployable. To which I also say, 'Fuck it!' If I'm unemployable, then let it be because I chose to be unrulable. Let it be because I choose me, my beloved family, and stand in solidarity with communities that equally deserve to be free."
"Every bone in my body says run," Forsyth confessed. "And I haven't been sleeping well for over a week. My heart says love one another. My ego says don't let them win. Don't give up. Don't abandon a worthy cause... I have called Trump out on his bullshit and dare him to fire me for being unapologetically queer, and critical, for showing up everyday in my best red lip and woke gender ideology that says don't fuck with me. I threaten him to arrest me for breaking his unjust laws that threaten diversity."
"Shoot your shot, Donald," he added. "The rest of you, should I quit the Kennedy Center or wait to be crucified for this man's sins?"
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