Drag Queen Storytime at my local library (photo attached)

[Carla786]

I had a lovely trip to my local library yesterday. Spent a long time there choosing books, basically the whole time there was a very noisy toddler event going on in the next room. I didn't mind, they host a lot of stuff for various people & that's good.

As I left, I looked at the posters of various things they were advertising. I saw one for 'Mama G', clearly a drag queen, which I photographed for identification purposes. I thought this nonsense of drag story hours might be quietening down, but clearly not at my library. I'd never seen them advertise anything like that before 🤦‍♀️

Checking the photo when I got home, I saw the event had taken place that day, while I was choosing my books. I wasn't listening particularly hard, but from what I heard it sounded more like a 'panto dame' style event than anything sexualised. It still seems odd and inadvisable though. If a drag Queen wants to do panto style entertainment for kids too, he should have a separate line in that, rather than mixing it up. 'Drag queen shows ' are by nature sexual and adult, so 'drag queen' shows blur boundaries whatever the content/intention.

There are no drag queens or pantomime dames in the Epstein files

Ooooo yes I started with a random clown phobia about 10 years ago I would have screamed the library down if a bloody clown was doing story time.
We actually went to a storytime yesterday at one of our libraries . Two members of staff running the session one was lovely the other was quite child unfriendly and snippy.
She made me feel so on edge. Nearly 2 year old took a glue stick to DH who was just in another part of the 'museum' as we couldn't get the lid off it and she "sharply said to GS "no we don't go in there with the glue stick."
I don't know how we were supposed to know the boundaries given we were on a carpet 4 feet away from where my DH was in the same room and the lid was stuck firmly even he struggled getting it off. It incidentally had no glue in it when the lid finally came off.
I heard her say to a dad and a Polish mum that certain parts of parenting are so boring she's glad she hasn't had children.

Then I was putting bricks away at one end of this carpet and the 2 year old and 3 year old were still playing with the train set and she said "
I said it's tidying time now not time to play!
They go to nursery so know about tidying up it was seconds after she had said it was tidying up time.
As we left DH said she wasn't very nice was she. So I wasn't just being over sensitive The child unfriendly vibe I got from her was awful and will ensure we don't bother going back. And if I'd been a young mum with pnd or anxiety, instead of ancient gran, I would have been really upset and felt more isolated.
I bet Mama G didn't make anyone feel like that in her session.

Who gives a shit? What's that got to do with the topic? Or is it desperate whataboutery?

I had the images and names of them saved somewhere, I will have a look.

Ha ha there's an ex Prince very uncharming!
Who strangely in his role as business envoy met both my daughters one in her role as supervisor of the apprentice academy in her workplace she was 18 and the other in her y11 college placement and neither had any idea really why he was visiting.

I had it wrong, it was Anna Bortion: https://www.instagram.com/itstimeforannabortion/?hl=en

I can't find the Molestia Child, but I came across a 9 year old child is a drag queen called 'Lactatia' - charming. And they say this isn't grooming! www.sbs.com.au/voices/article/9-year-old-drag-queen-lactatia-inundated-with-abuse-after-modelling-for-lgbtqi-label/x9beow18r

"the normalisation of cross dressing"

Ah yes, just like every time women put on a pair of trousers.

Oh wait, that's different. Remind me, how do women cross dress?

I imagine there's far less demand?

My grandma loves reading but would hate being read to in a group in this way. She sometimes uses audiobooks if she's struggling to read herself. Some elderly people might enjoy it I suppose. Why don't you suggest it 🤷‍♀️

A man dressing up in a wig and colourful clothes to play a character only bothers me when he makes misogynistic and sexual jokes. This act wouldn't bother anymore than a pantomime dame.

But he's not dressing up 'in a wig and colourful clothes', he's deliberately dressing up like a parody of a woman, and insisting on being referred to by female pronouns - he's a man who is making a joke out of being a woman.

Women would 'cross dress' by being drag kings, I suppose - putting on clothes that have a masculine cut, binding their breasts, and putting on fake facial hair.

Day to day, women wearing trousers is just practical, which is why trouser-wearing was adopted, and adapted for female body types - 'feminised' essentially. Women also don't put on a fake persona, assume a fake name, and insist on being called 'sir' when they wear trousers. I don't think that's the same thing as men wearing bras they don't need and stuffing them, or wearing sexualised women's items of clothing, often ill-fitting for the male body.
Besides, men may wear lavalavas or kilts, and they don't get accused of cross dressing.

TL;Dr - Women wearing trousers is driven by practicality, and men wearing women's clothes is driven by fetishistic desires.

I have to say, the act made people laugh and I thought it was in a way, refreshing to see people laughing out loud where wakes are usually somber and sad but it wasn't really appropriate for the kiddies

This. Yuck. I'd avoid.

Wonder if you are local to me, the photos look like a central library. I love mama g, a big part of the town, goes into local schools. Kids love the act

Was it billed as a 'Drag Queen Story Hour' or similar on his posters?

I've just had a look online and all I can see is 'Story Time with Mama G'. All his socials refer to his act being a 'Panto Dame'.

My only concern would be the content of the performance to be honest.

Ooooo I've just looked it up and it seems he tours. Maybe councils are paying for it out of their LGBTQ pot and not the library pots as my experience yesterday those pots are empty sadly.

Her?! Do men who just stick on a dress for an act even get called her and she now?
He = male
She = male/female/object
Lovely.

I always referred to Dame Edna as ‘she’ because I understood the character was a woman.

And I always referred to minstrels as black people, because I understood the character was black...oh wait, no, I didn't, because that would be massively racist.

Men pantomiming women or dressing up in drag and parodying women is just as misogynistic as minstrel shows were racist. I don't know why one is accepted as horrifically unacceptable, and the other is considered a big laugh (actually, I do - because the oppression of women is baked into the fabric of practically every culture in a way racism isn't).

And I always referred to minstrels as black people, because I understood the character was black

Yeah it does make you sound massively racist.

I’m curious which pronoun you think people would used to refer to them as black?

Yes, it would be massively racist if I said, "yes, that black guy over there has the stage next," to refer to a minstrel.

Just as it's massively misogynistic to say, "yes, it's her over there who has the stage next" about a drag queen or panto dame.

But then, I don't do either of those things.

Yeah I think ‘she’ is the most appropriate while someone is playing the character. I suppose in a way drag is parodying a woman but it’s evolved so far from that that it’s very much in a category of its own now. Drag kings parody men far more than drag queens parody women. Drag kings’ acts are full of jokes & acts about fragile masculinity and men doing stupid things in the name of trying to look manly. I also know a few drag queens who are women. Some are butch lesbians and their acts are an expression of hyper femininity. Not all are though, some are straight, feminine women who just love dressing up and performing- I’m sure some people will say well it’s not drag if it’s a woman performing as a “woman” but the fact it’s seen and advertised as a drag show just goes to show it’s not really about parodying women, it’s about performing as a drag queen - something that is neither male or female but a character in its own right

What’s a minstrel??

There's nothing wrong with referring to a character by the appropriate pronouns. "Join Mrs Brown and her family for Christmas, what will she get up to this time" etc

Brendan O'Carroll - he is the actor that plays her.

From what I know (they were long before my time) they were white men who wore blackface, and did song and dance routines, much like drag queens.

It was horrifically racist, and happily is no longer tolerated, although I do know a few celebs in the 00s who did blackface, and didn't get a major backlash (I think Matt Lucas did it?) 😣

Captain Ben Dant!?

(Niche S4C reference which could fall flat)