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

Is the face real or prosthetic? It doesn’t look like it could move very much.

And to be honest - wrangling a room full of toddlers is a fine art. Are they likely to be trained or parents themselves?

I'm not sure if anyone has spotted this yet which gives more information:

dragqueenstorytime.com/diary/the-british-library

Ring around your local nursing homes. Ask if they have any drag queen bingo planned ? When they say no, ask yourself why this "entertainment" is solely aimed at pre schoolers

Yes, this is the question that needs to be asked. Why do they have such a laser focus on small children? For something which is a sexualised act.

‘Drag queen bingo’ - that sounds like a drinking game. One shot every time:

Bats eyelids
Gives acid stare
Mentions ‘fish’
Says ‘darling’
Every double/single entendres...

Your be drunk in under 2 mins...

The DQST near me had a space theme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the mood landing.

For the life of me I can't understanding why you wouldn't have, anyone frankly, man or woman, in an astronauts space suit read a book about travelling through space, like Whatever Next by Jill Murphy.

The space suit could be cardboard boxes and tin foil, but nooooo instead it was wig, make up and heels and songs about farting glitter and twerking.

*moon

I think the difference between pantomime and library story telling is that in pantomime the dames/ugly sisters are a figure of fun, there's an element of 'ooh get her', where the audience laughs at them usually for their over blown sense of entitlement. Pantomime has the female Prince Charming which provides a balance. In the library setting it's just ME up close in my garish frock!

I know British municipal libraries have been gutted. However might British school libraries be getting Queered by arts graduates? Therefore they become a place where the trusted academy endorses online cult thinking.

I think the Australian municipal library's position of being cushioned from funding acquisition means they become used to spending other people's money, seeing themselves as a sort of cultural vanguard. It breeds a sense of entitlement to do whatever they like.
Or maybe I'm conjecturung too much. I say all this as an arts graduate and a Marxism-veerer.

On another note, I want to discuss an underlying consequence of drag storytime.

We often talk on here that teaching children that if they like particular toys, their body may need fixing, has the unintended consequence of sexist and homophobic thinking.

On this matter, if we accept that the overwhelming majority of storytime librarians, childcarers and early childhood teachers are female, children unconsciously absorb the idea that this sort of thing is women's work or more suited to women.

Then along comes a man to do storytime, but he is dressed up as a woman: he's emphasising and exaggerating womanliness.

An unintended consequence of this is that very young children think that in order to do storytime, to read a book, a man needs to don makeup and a frock.

Therefore drag storytime is not breaking down gender binaries, or teaching that it's okay for men to wear frocks. It's teaching that if men want to do feminine childcaring roles, if they want to enter what young children perceive as a women's domain, they must dress up like a woman.

So we find that like many things to do with transgender ideology, drag queen storytime does the opposite of feminism and women's liberation.

Perhaps they should get rid of all those boring books and spend the money on bad wigs and glitter.

The fact that drag Queens are so ugly reinforces their power: children are frightened and male authority is asserted.

I don't know many school librarians but I don't believe that either. School libraries used to be the Cinderellas of the library world - very hit and miss in terms of employment. Some paid and viewed their staff as professionals. Others paid library assistant wages - at the poor end - and called them librarians, still others did neither. It tells you how bad things are that they now provide the most secure and stable form of employment left in libraries. My experience is that only well-off people with family wealth (whether they see it as that or not) to fall back on can afford to work in libraries now. I've also heard of a few teachers moving into libraries as less stressful options. There are a lot of people still looking for library work, employers can ask for the moon and get it, and I just can't see any a new group being able to take over an entire sector in such demand like that, where older management are clinging on for all they're worth. People simply have other worries. One school library here or there might be taken over, more likely as a naive well-meaning burst of diversity, but most will not.
Most public-facing library staff are indeed female, with management predominantly male, as usual.

Oh, and perhaps most importantly as you might work out from the payment rates, they are not a homogenous block. Each school library will be pretty much independent, unlike the state public system where we (used to) back each other up.

Another one here (London):
www.thealbany.org.uk/shows/drag-queen-story-time/
At least this one seems to have a Drag King for balance.

Not something I would want to take my kids to though - I don’t like that very hyper-made-up-fake look. (Not a fan of Love Island either!)

It’s strange because a lot of the liberal parents I have come across seemed to be all about avoiding gender stereotyping, no Barbies, kids dressed in neutral colours, long complaints about pink & blue toys etc etc. But then how come this type of gender stereotyping is ok?

Actually looking at the video link in the Albany made understand more...till he talked about being a woman.

I’m not sure how this helps kids understand anything useful tbh and surely the last message the trans element of the community want to be picked up is “some men like to dress up and take the piss out of women”.

If they won’t listen to actual drag queens explaining why this is a terrible idea, I’m not sure who they will listen to.

I have known camp men who sometimes wear skirts and makeup who I'd be happy to have read a story to a child I was responsible for. If they turned up to do so in an overtly sexualized costume that showed an inappropriate amount of skin and then proceeded to teak the kids to twerk and then laid down on the floor and invited children to roll around on them (while still in overly sexualized costume and scary makeup) then I'd be having words with them about that.

Men who're camp, effeminate, not very macho, however you want to describe it - totally fine, and have in some cases been very good friends to me over the years. Men who want to perform a highly sexualized performance style aimed at an adult audience in front of children, in a public library - nope, that's not appropriate and I'm side eyeing the shit out of any man who doesn't realize that all by himself, without a woman having to point it out to him.

Pretty sure Rhymetime and other story sessions are run by people with DBS checks (or I noticed it was regularly mentioned in relation to toddler events when mine was little) so why would this be different?

It’s strange because a lot of the liberal parents I have come across seemed to be all about avoiding gender stereotyping, no Barbies, kids dressed in neutral colours, long complaints about pink & blue toys etc etc.

But a lot of these people are also extremely invested in gender ideology. I think they are actually connected for them.

I think some people have a view of how sex and gender roles work that's so rigid that they honestly don't believe that there's any way for, say, a boy to want to wear flounces and makeup or a girl to have no interest in self adornment whatsoever without them adopting a special gender. They think creating 57 flavors of gender is the solution to either the problem of some people not conforming to gender roles (for those who're more conservative) or the problem of society not always being accepting towards people who don't conform to gender roles (for those who're more liberal). I'm never sure if the latter group don't think society can be changed, or if deep down they believe in the gender roles too but recognize that those roles make some people miserable and therefore some form of escape must be offered (for those specific individuals, while leaving the larger social framework intact).

Radical feminists think the societal imposition of gender roles is the problem and therefore that's what needs to be fixed. For those who for whatever reason feel a deep sense of attachment to gender roles (and I'm both people who see themselves as trans and people who don't in that grouping) this seems to be perceived as an existential threat, as if society no longer imposing gender roles would prevent them personally from continuing to act out whatever role they feel a sense of attachment to.

Prodigal excellent post that puts it in a nutshell. Thanks.

Meant to add, all of which are arguments for absolutely not putting limited stereotypes around masculinity or femininity (like drag) in front of young children who (obviously!) have no sense of critical thinking, parody or social context and critique and will just take them at face value.

So why are these cultural institutions patting themselves on the back for serving up sexualised, sexist visual (or spoken) barbs demeaning women, for the consumption of two and three year olds and their parents? It’s the opposite of inclusivity and positivity , which seems to be what they’re aiming for. They wouldn’t do this to any other social group in a million years. And women are just over half of society. WTF.

Women who protested about sexist MIL jokes and references to rape/groping etc in ‘entertainment’ have always been shut down as ‘miserable lesbians with no sense of humour’ and Millie Tant types.

And while we are in the subject... there’s a ‘win x from x company’ in the site. It’s one of those companies that seek lingerie, sex toys etc. I had a look - there is a ‘dress up’ section - most of them are ‘sexy schoolgirls’. It really made me feel queasy.

I suspect women were lulled into a false sense of security that things were getting better. It’s not - it’s worse.

I don't get why this has become such a big thing. It's so inappropriate.

Do children even realise they are men? In my experience even pantomime dames are confusing for young children. I suspect most children will just think it's a rather weird looking woman and it does nothing for the LGBT cause at all.