Paschal Donohue, the Minister for Finance, took to Twitter at the weekend in support of Panti Bliss who was promoting drag queen story time at a bookshop in Westport, Co. Mayo and denouncing those concerned about this event as ‘fascists’. The Minister should know better.
No matter which way you look at it, it is a bit strange. Grown men, dressed as women, reading stories to young children in libraries and bookshops. According to Paschal, supporting them is a stand against division.
As journalist Éílis O’Hanlon tweeted, with the raft of concerns facing hard-pressed parents regarding housing, health and the cost of living, it didn’t seem like Drag Story Hour should be top of the agenda.
The event that caused the latest controversy occurred in Mayo, in a Westport bookshop, where a drag performer called Aunt Annie read stories to children.
For many observers there is much confusion about these events. It isn’t a philanthropic effort. There wasn’t a group of children with no one to read them stories. There were parents in attendance who could easily have read the books to the kids if a shortage of readers was at issue.
Nor is it a case that it is just a coincidence that a whole lot of cross-dressing men suddenly realised they had a calling to read stories to children, all at the same time.
Drag Queen Story Hour started in 2015 in San Francisco and has spread across the United States and elsewhere. On the website, the happening is described as “drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.”
It isn’t a neutral event. The objective of DQSH, according to its supporters and its organisers is to “encourage children to look beyond gender stereotypes and embrace unfettered exploration of self.”
According to Lil Miss Hot Mess, author of the children’s books “If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It”, drag “activates creativity and play, expanding traditional ways of thinking. Drag offers a textbook example of imagination: transforming society by making a new image of ourselves and the world around us. Drag queens and kings turn trash into treasure, taking our inner spark and allowing it to shine on the outside. And we invite respect through the audacity of being our most fabulous selves, holding our heads high even against the toughest critics.”
Its toughest critics are concerned that these types of events are not suitable for children. For some, these events are akin to grooming of children into the drag lifestyle, one that they see gratuitously displayed at Pride marches and this idea has been reinforced by behaviour of some DQSH performers mimicking striptease amongst other forms of sexualised behaviour.
The conviction of some participants in story hour, such as Albert Alfonso Garza in Houston (TX), of being involved in child abuse does little to quell the fears that there is something less than wholesome involved in these events. Stories and videos of performers in plastic buttocks and revealing clothing at these events abound. They may be only a small proportion of the performers, it may be claimed that they are not representative of the wider movement, but they exist. Yet, the wider movement does not acknowledge these.
Perhaps they are collateral damage to the greater evangelising aims of DQSH that are not being denied. DQSH is an evangelising movement. It is designed to generate wider acceptance of cross-dressing (nearly always males) by children from an early age. It is rare that the drag queens arrive to read in smart-casual office dress. Nearly always it is in flamboyant, colourful, exaggerated attire. Should this aim (whether you find it laudable or not) trump the rights of children to not be exposed to ideological conflict manifest in this manner?
For many, this is undoubtedly creepy. They may or may not have a view on the lifestyle itself but there is something off about actively seeking out children to ‘perform’ to in this type of dress. Attempts to obfuscate the issue by claiming it is altruistic, that is educational, or that it is equivalent to pantomime are disingenuous at best but really dishonest.
The objective is to evangelise, propagandise and break down children’s natural understanding of male and female, to introduce them to the notion that gender is fluid, that pronouns are subjective and optional, and create a lot of confusion in the minds of children at an age when they are just trying to figure out the world.
Accusations that these events sexualise children are mocked and denied; but they cannot be denied. Grown men, calling themselves ‘she’, dressed in exaggerated costumes, are doing just. They may not think it is sinister but grown men seeking to spend time with children that they do not know is likely to raise some red flags irrespective of how they are dressed.
In fact, drag queen Kitty Demure has compared DQSH to having ‘a stripper or a porn star to influence your child’ and feels that DQSH is doing the gay community no favours but rather hurting them.
The NSPCC advises that groomers can use tactics like: pretending to be younger, giving advice or showing understanding, buying gifts, giving attention, taking them on trips, outings or holidays. Parents and other adults are advised to always be vigilant in looking out for these signs. It may be true that the vast majority of drag queen readers have no intent or interest in grooming children but the nature of events like these is that they attract people with less virtuous ideas and the wall of noise that defenders of DQSH create rather than listening to the concerns of other adults gives cover to those that seek to take advantage.
Nonetheless, DQSH advocates admit that there is a form of grooming taking place – instructing children in an adult ideology to break down ideas that are born in nature but advocates claim are social constructs. Dragging children into this debate, making them pawns in what should be an adult conversation, is child abuse, and if the drag queens do not know better, then the parents that bring their children to such places, should.
David Reynolds