Drag Queen Story Time at the British Library

[TundraDweller]

Three Drag Queen Story Times in one day -

www.bl.uk/events/family-day-young-rebels

Spotted this in Saturday’s Times.

Have all the Museum staff in the country had an invasion of the body snatchers experience?

Speaking to friends in the sector, yes. You can see, certainly if you go round all the London institutions, the path they’re being asked to take.

I don’t just mean on this. In the past, it was the type of exhibition, which poltical leanings were allowed etc.

m.facebook.com/pg/DQSTuk/posts/
There are events in libraries all over the place.
I’ve emailed my councillor but am not very hopeful.

It's the fact that it's everywhere, and libraries really ought to be better than this. I used to work in them. When I trained these kinds of issues were raised and the nuance between the DH Lawrence history with libraries and men's complete freedom of speech was fully explored, with cautionary tales from America to illustrate the conflicts. It's true things have been moving in this direction for a while as libraries become ever more allergic and downright cowardly about being seen to be in anyway exercising what they say is politics and I say is professional judgement. From the British Library itself this is disgraceful cowardice and a betrayal of our responsibility to the public.

I'll be emailing the British Library in those terms as soon as I can.

I feel a few lines to CILIP coming on too, although I haven't been a member for a while. Won't go anywhere of course. I'll do it anyway.

Who knows if they have dbs checks? A convicted sex offender was a drag queen story time reader in Houston.

I'd hope they do in the U.K. but the Houston experience has made me think that people don't put the normal checks and balances in place when queer comes into the equation.

I mean, given most paedophiles are men, and we know they will go to quite extreme lengths to abuse children, it seems a bit odd that dressing up as extreme characters of women exonerates men from those kind of proclivities.

I cannot imagine any other situation in which there is a concerted effort to find middle aged men to interact with preschool children.

With the whole dead naming thing - can a potential employer even ask?

Yy Clymene
When it comes to safeguarding we can see how so many organisations, like the NSPCC, are so punch drunk with being kind to some men that the usual child safeguarding rules do not apply.

It's absolutely not appropriate at all. In fact, I'd argue that it's grooming. Drag is a sexualised form of specifically adults-only entertainment and you'd have to be batshit to think it's in any way acceptable to use it for kids.

And now my local Museum of Liverpool is laying one on too . I'm going to have to send in a complaint. Unfortunately, Liverpool museums exhibit a level of wokeness that far outstrips the city's inhabitants.

So woke so woke brains have fallen out

Fuuuuuucking hell, Sophocles.

Well, I hope the little kiddies do ask the questions and make the comments that only a small child can.

Sophocles I can’t see the pic properly or find the event

It’s literally the accompanying pic for a kids event?

The british library mentions is in the agenda - just title and times - so I completely missed it the first time, as I imaging a few parents and nannies booking it would have too (things like this are like goldfish here so you book as soon as they are available).

I'm in Oz where libraries have not been losing funding. Conversely they've been expanding due to increased house prices meaning more revenue for local councils.
Librarians are often TRAs: I know some who retrained as librarians and FB feeds are full of chortling anecdotes about Queering the library and recruiting (not their word!) teenagers.
I also know a gay school librarian (he's very understated, not a TRA or woke) who is, in good faith, buying lots of trans YA texts to expand the "LGBTI" category. He often has these new books on the display. None are about sexuality that I've observed. Mostly "groundbreaking non-binary" blah.

Another local library does all the trans visibility stuff, lanyards etc, and very Interestingly when I surveyed the feminism section there were no second wave texts, but there were American TRA texts and quite a lot of libfem "my hijab is empoweringly feminist" type books.

It would be good to have a conversation on here to establish patterns about how TRAs have colonised libraries.

The pic is from Shay Shay’s website, so no, it’s not being used as promotional material for the show autumn. It was the first image that come up when I googled his name. This is the exhibition

www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/exhibitions-events/out-at-sea

I don’t know who the performer pictured (a mermaid) is.

sophocles phew!

I would have thought the navy was trying to shake off that old image... and that’s a merman surely? Aren’t they a thing?

terfsandwich I have tried to understand queer theory, must be thick, but got nowhere. I’m not sure what “queering the library” even means.

Reposting my post from before as MNHQ kindly withdrew it as it showed my browsing history, doh!

Here’s the first picture on the home page of Shay Shay, who will be appearing at the National Maritime Museum.

This act is clearly not for children.

Has everyone lost their damn mind? Fucking hellfire.

In a club? Fine. At a party? Fine. At a drag brunch? Fine. I wouldn’t want to see it, but other people might. At an event for children at a family oriented museum? Nope. Not fine

On DBS checks I've been told:

"Our safer staffing team do not require DBS checks to be made for any such events. This is also the case for the other story times and events"

So my understanding is because the DQ isn't alone with the children and is with the parents or an guardian then a DBS is not required.

Good isn't it that everyone is taking safeguarding so seriously?!

If I took my youngest - 8- to this he’d be completely mortified and outraged because he doesn’t want to see grown ups in underwear/scanty clothes.

This is because he knows there is no good reason for grown ups to be displaying themselves to him, semi-clad. He’s had all the “private parts” talks at school and doesn't want to see anyone’s undies.

The organisers of these events are getting away with this because it’s pushed on children who are too young to recognise and express discomfort, because they are too young to have been taught about danger from adults, and boundaries.

Which is called grooming.

Just wondered - would everybody who is so staunchly against this not take their child to a pantomime? Most family pantomimes often feature a man dressed up as a woman, don't they? I'd imagine they make a lot more risqué comments/ jokes than the drag queens who do these storytime sessions.

This isn't a new thing, is it?