OK the whole drag story time thing

Any why is a drag queen a positive role model for children?

What do they do? Do drag queens save lives or feed the poor?

Because they look all glittery and colourful and have an extravagant personality.

So actual real women aren't capable of having big personalities or wearing extravagant clothes? They are too dowdy and boring to be able to read a story engagingly to children? A grotesque parody if a woman is better? Ffs.

literally - great clip. Am definitely going to use that with some of my more woke acquaintances!

It’s entry level grooming and it has no place in schools.
Thank God it wasn’t an issue when my DC were at primary, but I’d have withdrawn them from anything like that.

Well there’s a video of a birthday girl (a girl of maybe 5?) getting a personal dance from a drag queen in tire at shorts (butt cheeks hanging out). Child has a puzzled expression on her face probably wondering when a Disney Princess is coming.

Mum (I assume) is bopping around on the sidelines and some of the blokes look on approvingly.

Why get a lap dance for your little girl? Would they have got a female lap dancer for a little boy?

Children's authors such as Phillip Pullman and Michael Murpurgo rightly won the right not to be DBS to read their own work to children.

Surely, whether the DBS is needed or not depends on whether the person will be alone with children? I don't see why there should be a loophole for writers, any more than there should be one for drag storytellers.

I like what Kitty Demure says about this.

Savoy

That made me well up, you sound like a fabulous teacher

That video is so awkward, with the mum bopping away all excited, "look at me and how right on I am!" while someone gives her child a modified version of a lap dance. I mean, great that the drag queen wasn't writhing in the child's lap, but adding a few cutesy gestures doesn't really cancel out the whole crawling across the floor to her thing.

Ok I have a few issues with drag queen storytime

1. If something is about sex/drugs you don't create a sanitised version of it and tell kids that's all it is. E.g. you wouldn't bring a porn star in to school and tell children "sometimes people like to watch our friend Lola XXX having special cuddles on video". If it's inappropriate for children just keep it away from children. If you want a man in a dress to read to children then fine, that's not the same as bringing in a "drag queen" and teaching kids about drag.

1. Drag is incredibly misogynistic. Drag queens are often referred to as sluts and whores in their act and there's a general piss-taking of older women. I resent being told that these people are there to teach kids about "gender".

1. By bringing in a man in a dress and calling him "she" I wonder how many kids walk away believing that putting on a dress and a truck-load of make up turns you into a woman.

1. By associating this with LGBT I think you also risk massively confusing kids about what being gay actually is. There's every chance little boys could walk away thinking that's what a gay man looks like.

mrs

You’re right - DBS checks are for visitors who spend time alone with children.

But schools must still engage their critical faculties when inviting visitors into schools and thinking about the messages they are giving to the children.

When DS’s school said they would be inviting the Society for Protection of Unborn Children in to give a talk to Yr9 RE students, I met with the head to explain to him what the organisation is like and the bias in their messages. They rescinded the invitation.

I think the OP should have a look at the videos of Drag Queens twerking for primary children and then come back and tell us what she thinks.

Either DQST is not what she thought it was and she’ll modify her view accordingly or she’ll find a way to accommodate this new knowledge to so that DQST remains fine and dandy and there’s nothing to complain about you silly women.

I read to different classes of children all of the time and read to them wearing a blouse from Sainsbury's and my Clark's brogues. They all listen from the second I start because I'm really good at it. If it's 'The Highway Rat' there will be gasps.

Just last week I was talking to a little girl who told me that girls can't be doctors and another that had never seen a black child in a picture book and came over after I had read the story and silently looked at every page of the book. There is still a lot of very basic prejudice that needs to be addressed.

Kids are so adept online these days.
Do you not think they will google drag queens etc after? They will then witness the adult variety of entertainment.
It’s blurring boundaries, it actually just grooming.
Who benefits? Why risk the exposure? Why risk the possibility that kids will enter this adult realm online?

Because ‘Kids like glitter’?

Ridiculous

After seeing this, possibly along with the many valid reasons above, that some children find it frightening & uncomfortable

twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1233355261622063104?s=21

That little girl is not happy

Children's authors such as Phillip Pullman and Michael Murpurgo rightly won the right not to be DBS to read their own work to children.

It would be appalling if this was being used as a loophole.

The children aren't being twerked at or anything

They are though, there was a video of an older drag queen going "this is how you twerk" and then demonstrating to the kids.

So OP would you say every Drag Queen is suitable for reading stories in schools or is there a line you would draw? What would be a red flag? I would be interested to hear on what grounds you would say a particular Drag Queen wasn't suitable or would you let anyone in?

(As far as I remember irregular visitors to schools don't need CBS checks if they are not alone with children, is this still right? So Drag Queens ST wouldn't need any official screening?)

The children aren't being twerked at or anything

Errr

www.theblaze.com/news/drag-queen-shows-children-how-to-twerk-during-story-hour

www.lifesitenews.com/news/drag-queen-in-skin-colored-leggings-flashes-kids-at-minnesota-story-hour

I’d imagine there’s a long list of positive LGBT role models to inspire children to read before you get to a drag queen.

There’s an actress I follow on social media who is a “scream queen”. In interviews she seems utterly lovely and charming. She rescues abused dogs and regimes them, raising money for neglected animals in the process. She honestly seems delightful. She’s caring, kind to animals, passionate about kindness and has been very successful for decades in her field of work. But if you look her up online you will immediately find naked pictures, sexualised images, images of her in demon make up, with realistic animatronic monsters etc.
So lovely as she seems I think there would be many more appropriate people who could come into schools. Just as there is with drag acts.

They are deliberately and consciously grotestque parodies of femininity

Absolutely agree. And telling children to call someone who is obviously male 'she?' It is if the explicit aim is to deconstruct the relationship between language and external reality.....

Speaking of the Wiggles, interesting fact: their wiggly finger thing originated from the fact they needed something to do with their hands for photos and didn’t want unfounded accusations of inappropriate touching. One or more of the original bunch has a background in early childhood education I think.

Compare that now to kids sitting on the knees of drag queens and having kids sit in a chair while one dances provocatively around them.

I have no problem with drag in itself but I draw the line at primary schools and reading books. It shouldn't like anything be thrown in someone's face. What if a child felt uncomfortable? I mean as adults if we feel uncomfortable with it we can choose not to interact with it/watch it etc but I feel it's getting forced upon children.

They are deliberately and consciously grotestque parodies of femininity.

“Children like that sort of thing”?

Good grief.