BBC article on reaction to drag queen reading stories to children in Taunton library

[Freespeecher]

Lots to pick at here, but I'm sure it's not normal to name social media posters who were unhappy with it. Borderline doxxing at another front of the Transgender War

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-46753018

I do take the point about children seeing men reading, that's important too, but I don't really have a problem with adults doing drag.
And I wonder how different this is to taking your kid to see a pantomime?

I thought the point of a dame in a pantomime was the audience being in on the joke that it's a man dressed as a woman. Much of the comedy is that it is a man playing a woman.

Would the same kind of performer-audience interaction be going on in the library?

Well if we take the pantomime dame line then libraries have been reduced to promoting pantomime dames as role models to young children. No longer a place of learning to explore our world through the written world but somewhere we gaslight our children. No thanks.

The pantomime argument is a red herring in the same way the toilets argument is.

Many people don't like the panto dame. My family doesn't. Just because it's been around for ages doesn't mean everyone is ok with it. And besides, a panto dame on stage is different to a drag queen in a small reading circle.

Boundaries are being pushed here. "You were ok with that, why aren't you ok with this? Prude/bigot/t*RF/etc."

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I’ve never liked the pantomime dame. It always feels like making fun of women - like Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters - you can be sweet Cinderella or you can be ugly and non-woman.

However I’ve never had a problem with drag because it seemed to be something that adults could enjoy if they wanted and often a very loving attitude to the women chosen, even if they were all very ‘feminine’ (Dolly Parton, Cher etc). I don’t see the place for it in a library with children - it feels like it’s normalising men appropriating a very extreme and in some ways negative version of femininity which is now suspect because of the trans agenda and women being told by trans women that they are dirty for not shaving their legs, etc. It would do nothing but confuse young children whereas actually seeing men (maybe wearing fairy wings, maybe wearing a brown jumper and jeans) reading would be a better example to children who do often only see and hear about books from women. Most of the kids wil think a very deep voiced Maleficent did the reading, from those photos, which doesn’t seem to prove anything.

I don't see the difference between this and the black and white minstrel show.
These men in drag are not women, no more that someone blacking their face is a black person.

Boundaries are being pushed here. "You were ok with that, why aren't you ok with this?

Yes. First there was a push for grown men in drag to go into educational settings to indoctrinate & influence young children. And now there's a 10 year-old drag queen dressed as Gwen Stefani dancing onstage in a NYC gay bar where adults throw dollar bills at him like he's stripper.

The child drag queen named Desmond is also hanging out with 52 year-old former NYC "club kid" & convicted murderer Michael Alig, a fan of the date-rape drug Rohypnol, & other grown men who do drag who've taught Desmond the proper technique for doing bumps of Ketamine.

I'm not linking to the footage because I don't want to participate in further exploitation of this child, but it's not hard to find.

Everything ChewyLouie said.

And there's a huge difference between a pantomime dame at the theatre and a drag act reading "LGBT acceptance" - I am Jazz is propaganda, not a story - stories up close and personal.

Pantomimes allow children to follow a fairy story and adults to enjoy a few risque jokes at the same time and all concerned are in on the joke that some of the characters are cross dressing for humorous reasons. And it's a performance on a stage. Library story times are supposed to be about the stories, not the story tellers, and are quite intimate in comparison. Children are not props for the validation of adults any more than women are.

(I say this as a "bad" feminist who thoroughly enjoys adult cabaret drag, even when it is appallingly sexist. Bad taste jokes are my addiction.)

The content presented to the kids by Drag Queen Story Time in the UK seems to be somewhat different to what's being peddled in the USA by Drag Queen Story Hour, the American group that inspired the UK group.

From what I can gather, the UK group reads children's books that are pretty standard in any library, such as "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." The US group, by contrast, presents content that they provide themselves that specifically celebrates drag, transgenderism, gender fluidity & so on - and does so in a way that's supposed to foster tolerance but actually promotes misogyny & sex role stereotypes.

My guess is that the US group might've started out reading conventional children's books to the kids, but over time they began developing & bringing in their own material. Which is why tots in the US reading hours are being taught new lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus" such as:
The hips on the drag queen go swish swish swish
The heels on the drag queen go click click click
The lips on the drag queen go smooch smooch smooch

Unfortunately, children's books promoting transgenderism - such as "I Am Jazz" (aimed at kids 4-8), "10,000 Dresses" (for kids 5-9) & "The Gender Fairy" (ages 4 & up) - & belief in an innate gender identity separate from biological sex that "only you can know" - like "Jacob's New Dress" (ages 4-8) - are now so commonplace in libraries that these groups can do their propagandizing by using materials from libraries' own collections.

It's all a bit unnecessary. Book a panto To go into school to demonstrate what acting is and get some fathers/ men to read stories (let's face it, most primary and early years teachers are female as are librarians).

When the kids are teens they can all watch Pricilla. All much more age appropriate.

Hmm. Is it the sexualised stereotypical dressing that's the problem?
What do you all think of Justin Fletcher's "Aunt Polly" character on Cbeebies?

BTW, in looking into books that promote transgenderism to young children, I learnt that for several years now there's been an annual event in the US called the "National 'I Am Jazz' Day of Reading".

(It was created by the Human Rights Campaign, the misleadingly-named USA advocacy group supposedly devoted to LGBTQ rights whose former employees have excoriated it for being "judgmental", "exclusionary", "sexist", & homogeneously "gay, white, male" in leadership.)

Now this special event is going global as the "International Day of Jazz & Friends School and Community Readings". The next one is February 28, 2019. Whoopee! Can't wait.

Are there any drag kings in this story hour team?

My kids would never have been scared of a woman they did not know in a beard and trousers- however they would have been shit scared however of a big tall man rocking up in heels and piles of extreme make up. Because big strange men - in heels or not- are actually scary to small kids (in my experience) in a way strange women just aren’t to them. Like taking them to see Father Christmas and they get scared.

And what is the educational value of all this? These traditional ‘glamour’ drag queens do the exact opposite of breaking down gender stereotypes (or whatever it is that this hard-of-thinking local council thinks they are funding.. )

Crone XX the role model aspect in particular doesn’t sit well with me at all. As I’m a woman maybe I’ll pop on a Village People costume and approach a few schools / libraries for funding to tell stories, trying to brainwash young boys they can grow up be a Village People superhero one day.

I live in a liberal part of the USA and there is a Drag Queen Story Hour at my local library. As a raging TERF, I have of course never taken my children to it . In general, I don't see the point. Drag queenery is a pretty niche and adult pursuit. Why would kids need to learn about it? It's great for kids to learn about LGBT issues and tolerance but how does seeing men in a bucketload of make-up and tacky sequins achieve that?

I think it would be useful for kids to see that men can wear dresses or have their hair long if they choose to because I hear a lot of kids coming out with gender normative statements like 'girls don't have short hair' or 'boys don't wear dresses'. But drag queens? Not all drag queens are gay anyway so how does this type of event enhance kids' understanding of LGBT issues?

I don't think it's 'wrong' as such, I just don't get the point of it.

Also, I note the absence of drag kings or any message that girls can present in a butch way without being bullied or laughed at. It's all about the menz and their feelz as usual

In response to a YT video called "Kids Meet a Drag Queen", one viewer left a comment that made me laugh:

I'm against drag queens being exposed to children. A lot could go wrong. Nails could be broken, wigs pulled off, someone could get knocked off her heels. Children are wild, irrational, and unpredictable, and their characters are still in the formative stages. Someone fabulous could get hurt.

Because this is less about benefitting little kids than about making these fabulous men in their hackneyed getups feel "valid" & admired.

That is splendid.

This article, www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/reading-sessions-children-hosted-drag-117022
lists a reader called Miss Beaver. A man in night club drag introducing himself as Miss Beaver to help young children understand misogyny and encouraging them to see this drag queen as a role model.
Miss.Beaver.
Nothing untoward to see here, move on.