Drag Queen Story Hour in Scottish Primary School

Just Mhairi reading to children I would have been all for, as long as she managed to restrain her urge to call anyone who disagrees with her a c*nt, as shouting that at a 7 year old would be a bit uncalled for.

I think it’s really sad that Mhairi Black thinks a male who dresses as a highly sexualised caricature of a woman and has a highly sexualised social media presence, including abusive messages towards women, is a better role model worthy of reading to children than herself, a young lesbian who’s (somehow ) managed to get herself elected as a Member of Parliament, a male-dominated career.

I watched Courtney act on bb. Although there were some sexist comments and beliefs, he did show a great respect for women and girls and awareness of misogyny. I sensed certain opinions that he never voiced around IW. I do think some / (all?) drag is offensive. I'm on the fence a bit there, but I didn't find Courtney's act anything like some of these drag queens doing story time. He appeared to have a clear distinction of it being adult entertainment. I also watched a film he made about misogyny once and he had a deeper understanding of it than Mhairi displays.

At the very least, he appears to be someone who listens and is aware of oppression of females. Pisses me off that these drag queens have no self awareness nor ability to listen to women.

Their arrogance is what's most offensive.

Maybe it's the Aussie in him but I placed him in the camp of Priscilla queen of the desert, which is very much about being gay men, adult performers. I feel the pronoun policing and blurring of boundaries such as marching into female loos when in drag which Flowjob is displaying is a different kettle of fish.

In what universe is that ok for 10 year olds?

Absolutely no idea Bellini it is bonkers. I would have thought it would be more useful to try to challenge the dominance of porn and its stereotypes. Not reinforce them. It requires industrial quantities of kool aid to think this is okay.

Pantomime Dames are not really drag culture. And I don't really like Dames.
The name FlowJob is some kind of weird play on BlowJobs, Periods and Poo (jobbies being my Scottish in-laws word for poo when their kids were little).
Drag is adult entertainment with caricatures of highly sexualised women.
In what universe is that ok for 10 year olds?

Mhairi Black's defence of this spectacularly inappropriate event inevitably includes accusations of homophobia.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/24/snp-mp-defends-primary-school-visit-sexually-explicit-drag-act/

Lol not!

You just know that Mhairi Black, Frankie Boyle and Owen Jones are never going to apologise for defending this, and the BBC and SNP will let them all get away with it

I’m sure Sara Pascoe will probably be along shortly too.

Mhairi Black thinks it’s misogynistic to call women “hen”. Awkward...

‚Once the children are indoctrinated the rest will be easy, they'll be subjected to more years of brainwashing and grooming. I'm struggling to believe that adults are unable to see what's happening in plain sight.
This is so fucked up.’

What those comments show is the extent to which people — the commenters who think it is fine — are already indoctrinated to regard pornified behaviour and presentation as normal.

@Tombakersscarf ok, fair point. Sometimes it's difficult to get the nuance in the written word.

Once the children are indoctrinated the rest will be easy, they'll be subjected to more years of brainwashing and grooming. I'm struggling to believe that adults are unable to see what's happening in plain sight.
This is so fucked up.

@Absolutepowercorrupts I don't agree with any of those comments, I was paraphrasing the ones on the news article. I would have expected them to be far more outraged, so many thinking it was all fine and dandy for primary kids.

I am still giggling at this Lordfrontpaw which made me double take: "Some people are dead - learn how to speak to them clearly and a few words in sign..."

More to the point - one thing I noticed (but then couldn't remember where I saw it) was a comment I think from the head teacher, saying something along the lines that they had invited FJ in to talk about their experiences growing up and about their job. So not only inviting an adult entertainer, but (if this was correct) specifically asking them to talk about their work as an adult entertainer to 4- and 5-year-olds.

I suppose the difference is that Courtney Act is an intelligent and thoughtful performer who talks intelligently and thoughtfully whether in costume or not.

Having watched some of Celebrity Big Brother I dispute that. Courtney Act has some very sexist views on gender and thinks he falls somewhere on a spectrum of womanhood.

It’s sad - when you used to see the rainbow flag it felt a bit subversive - it meant a safe place for anyone who needed it, no judgements or hassle.

Now when I see it I am wary - especially the ‘rainbow railroad’ twaddle on the window of a gym near me. (Seriously are they using the Underground Railroad to sell bloody gym memberships to the rainbow generation?).

My dad stumbled onto a trans parade and got it mixed up with a more general Pride parade, which brought on a bunch of angry muttering about tolerance going too far, etc. When I tried gently unpicking his reasoning it became clear that he wasn't making any distinction between gay men who know they're men and just want to be left in peace to live their lives, the sort of hypersexualized culture that drag represents, and activist-y transwomen (complete with placard about "sex workers rights" etc). Now, did he reach that conflation of rather different groups by himself? Possibly, but I very much got the impression that the fact that both the media and organizations such as Stonewall have been conflating them for years was the main reason he was thinking that way.

That conflation does not benefit most gay men at all, much less lesbians.

Oops, was replying to Kittens post about social acceptance.

Exactly. Years ago, my mum was concerned that gay men were paedophiles. I realised that this came from PIE attaching themselves to gay rights in the 70s.

I feel sorry for any "normal" gay men now, because it feels like we are going back to those days but it's Stonewall, Pink News and Pride that are doing so.

Whereas Flowjob has a personality, or persona, that seems to consist entirely of rather dull sex jokes and talking down to people far more intelligent than Flowjobself.

I had a look at Courtney Act's Twitter feed. Apart from one dodgy song about Christmas turkeys there is almost no sexualised content.

I suppose the difference is that Courtney Act is an intelligent and thoughtful performer who talks intelligently and thoughtfully whether in costume or not.

And the thing is, this makes the gay community look terrible to those people.

There was a survey in the US a year or two ago that showed support for LGBT people dropping among the young for the first time in decades, and stuff like this is part of the reason why. Most people are fine with gay people, but expect the gay community to abide by the same reasonable social boundaries as everyone else, so if you wouldn't have a Dominatrix Story Time then you shouldn't have a Drag Queen Story Time either.

Even my mum knew the difference between widow twanky and tiddo wanky.

@Aesop — I think a lot of older, less woke, more ‚innocent’ Scots might genuinely think drag is somehow akin to pantomime dame.

the sexual nature of Mullen’s stage persona

Isn’t that a fundamental part of drag?