OK the whole drag story time thing

[Qcng]

I've seen posts on this board before basically completely denouncing drag story time, but I've never really gone along with the perspective that it's such an oh so terrible thing. So I don't join in on those threads. As GC as anyone I actually think, dressing up is fine for girls and boys, these people aren't trying to send a message to children that it's big hair and fake lashes that actually make you a woman, (unlike say, someone like Caitlyn Jenner would send that message). They're sending a message that boys can do dress up too, that being gay is ok, and being a man in makeup is ok.

Anyway, I came across an article (posted by a GC feminist who was rather sarcastic and not at all sympathetic) where the drag queen received online abuse after attending a school for drag story time. So that's what got me thinking really, I don't think anyone should be on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse over something like drag.

I know drag itself is for adults, sexually charged, drugs involved etc and I am completely against "Desmond" and "Lactasia" (sp?) I would never in a million years want children to be encouraged to do drag or be in that scene at all under the age of 18.
Drag story time isn't encouraging that though surely? Like having a clown do tricks in a school, they aren't there saying "you should all start learning to juggle and paint your face now".

In the school setting the drag queens are literally just reading a story, usually with a positive LGB message. They aren't making crude jokes and won't use their same stage name (EG "Flow Job" is just "Flow" and "Popping Cherry" is just "Cherry" etc etc)

Am I being unreasonable in thinking that DQ story time isn't actually that bad, and in fact does send children a positive message particularly to the gender non confirming/LGB/those with LGB family members?

There's a lot to unravel really.

Latest posts have focussed on famous child drag acts I'm sure most here agree that only someone with a personality disorder or mental illness would push their child into being an underage drag queen and be ok with "ketamin on a couch" etc. Obviously there are lines that should never be crossed wrt child protection.

I didn't want to focus on Desmond or Lactacia specifically bc it's not fair to scrutinize these children when they're clearly victims of bad parenting and probably haven't been influenced by DQ Story time or even been to one.

DQ story time is very popular right now, you can't blame DQs themselves for going along with the trend. They certainly shouldn't be abused for it.

Anyway thanks for your replies and questions! Will read more tomorrow

No one is abusing anyone. They're criticising drag queens and the people who employ them, for having children lie on top of them, post photos on their social media of them, flash their genitalia, twerk at them and say elsewhere on social media that they'd like to punch a kid.

All this is DQST.

And a demonstration of why adult sexual performers aren't appropriate for children.

If people are determined to pretend there is no safeguarding risk, then that's their stance.

DQ story time is very popular right now, you can't blame DQs themselves for going along with the trend. They certainly shouldn't be abused for it.

That’s a pretty damning view of drag queens - do you honestly believe they can’t help but be sucked into a trend that’s having a moment right now because they have no critical faculties of their own?

I'm sure most here agree that only someone with a personality disorder or mental illness would push their child

No I don't agree. the vast majority of people who groom, abuse or rape are normal people like you and I. They aren't monsters, they don't have a mental health problem or a personality disorder.
That's why they get sent to prison when they are caught, not a psychiatric unit. It may even be one reason why so many people including you have so much trouble spotting them or accepting they exist.

“she was spreading that you don’t have to be a girl to do boy things, you can be transgender,” said Lucia McCulloch, 8, who was with her mother. “It doesn’t matter what your gender is, it matters what you want it to be.”

Thanks for the link, NotBadConsidering. The not-so-subtle message of drag storytime. But doesn't that just break your heart. Fifty years of women's liberation, and now we're telling girls that if they don't want to do pink-frilly things, they can have the drugs and surgery.

Linked stories show drag storytime is being promoted as part of diversity training.

I can see the point of story tellers from Africa, Asia and other parts of the world with their wealth of traditional tales and legends. Disabled people and others who have faced challenges and found creative ways of overcoming them. Workers in all kinds of occupations giving kids a glimpse of their experiences. Adventurers telling their traveller's tales.

But men embodying, or parodying, a highly sexualised version of femininity? And the sad quote above, by a little girl who now knows she doesn't have to do girly things because she can be transgender? What the hell is that meant to do for children?

The thing is for me, even f the performer is a perfectly nice person who likes kids, and is careful to make things PC for the story time, it really makes no sense.

Someone on another thread compared it to an actor who does adult stuff in films coming to read. So, say someone like Natalie Dormer who seems o be in her birthday suit pretending to have sex a fair amount of the time.

Well, sure, she might do a very nice job reading a story and I am sure the kids would love to meet an actress and ask her questions about acting or whatever. What would not make sense however would be for her to come acting as if she is one of the characters from her films that are only appropriate for adults. What would be the point, the kids won't have any frame of reference for those characters, and you'd hardly want them asking to see the films.

The added difficulty with a drag queen, even out of make-up, if they are advertised as a drag queen, is the claim to fame is actually sexualised entertainment. Dormer and most other actors have some roles kids might have seen or at least which aren't inappropriate, they know what actors do and can talk about it. But what are you going to tell them about working as a drag queen, or if they ask to see a performance?

And for that matter, would it not be odd to ask an actor who might have roles kids could see, but which were so uninteresting to them they would not want to?

It's just very difficult to see why this would be relevant from the perspective of children, which raises the question, why has it caught on to such a degree. it's not like its just one person who misjudged what kids are interested in, there are a lot of adults pushing this idea. That is, it's really about the adults, not the kids.

I will say, as someone who works in schools with primary aged kids, I think there is a lot that goes on in schools that is more about what adults want and like than what kids need or like.

Won’t anyone think of the many, many little boys who dream of growing up to be drag queens but have only ever been told by schools they can be doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, SAHDs, business owners, politicians, carers, dancers....

As Michael Jackson so eloquently put- Ignorant!

I do not want my children being taught that this is what it is like to be gay.

I do not trust any adult entertainer who would choose to come into a school, in their professional persona, to read to children.

I do not want the school encouraging my children to believe that adult entertainers, in their work outfits, are nice safe people.

No one is abusing anyone the DQ I read about just sat there reading a story, and woke up to thousands of abusive messages including accusations of being a paedo.

Ok I get some of the DQ gave done some highly inappropriate things around the children so while I'd assume those things like flashing and twerking are quite rare, there does seem to be a risk of it!

people who groom, abuse or rape are normal people like you and I. They aren't monsters, they don't have a mental health problem or a personality disorder.
That's why they get sent to prison when they are caught, not a psychiatric unit
Pushing your child to be a drag queen is far from normal, and the prison population is full of psychopaths and narcissists actually.

drag storytime is being promoted as part of diversity training

Yes, it's not like DQs are knocking on doors of schools and libraries demanding to read to children. It's a woke liberal / identity politics / diversity promoting fad being pushed on children from top down, the decisions are being made by people who seem to have completely overlooked the suitability of inviting ppl who perform for adults.
I think the best analogy made was comparing it to inviting a burlesque dancer or porn actress, that makes sense, children do ask questions and can access content online regardless of whether or not the DQ brings that into story time, so you risk exposing them to explicit adult content.

So it's all making much more sense Thank you!

It’s also about role models. Kids look up to adults they are presented with - they (being kids) will look for them in the media and social media.

So what will they learn from a young, immature adult entertainer?

You can insult people, be rude and name call.
Post embarrassing and sexualised photos of yourself, and make crude jokes about people.
Get into SM spats.

All the things we teach our kids not to do.

I think it’s unfortunate that many people will see DQs and think pantomime dame. I’ve seen that said many times. These things are not the same.

I think the best analogy made was comparing it to inviting a burlesque dancer or porn actress

Exactly this. But also... these are men. Statistically they are more likely than women to be sexual predators. The vast majority are presumably innocent, but due to the current fad for drag, safeguarding is being bypassed in a way that is inherently putting children at risk.

These are sold as LGBT role models, but that’s not what they really are, is it? It’s a trend and that is the wedge that’s being used to promote that trend as something good, when the reality is that it isn’t inherently a good thing at all.

Flip it around and think about what would be the best ways to explain LGBT to children. My me it’s when they ask questions having seen or heard something on the news and I explain it. We are watching Dr Who a lot at the moment and gay and lesbian characters appear as part of the story and are in loving, ‘dull’ relationships.

Now try to explain drag queens in the same way.
‘It’s a man dressing up a woman’
‘Why?’ ‘But you don’t dress like that’ ‘Look I can now twerk’

Agree with the Natalie Dormer comparison above - I disagreed with the comparison to actors that had been used as an argument but couldn’t qypjite articulate it. Thank you

DQ story time is very popular right now, you can't blame DQs themselves for going along with the trend. They certainly shouldn't be abused for it.

I certainly blame drag queens like the one I posted on the first page. That is grooming in plain sight. It’s going in with an agenda of propaganda to teach kids that if you’re not happy with society’s gender stereotypes that makes you transgender. It’s deliberate, and entirely the fault of that particular drag queen.

And the drag queen in Texas who is a convicted sex offender. I blame that person directly. But I also blame the blindness of those who enable the whole DQST with their inability to see that if you lower safeguarding practices people will take advantage of that “sacred caste” blind spot.

Won’t anyone think of the many, many little boys who dream of growing up to be drag queens but have only ever been told by schools they can be doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, SAHDs, business owners, politicians, carers, dancers

I expect an adult entertainer to be more aware than anyone that his/her adult entertainment persona is totally inappropriate for school.

Drag Queen Story Time aren't 'going along with a trend' tho. They invented it. They are it.

Yes -don’t forget it’s a business created and named DWST.

OP

I recently posted about an Australian drag queen who goes by the name of Frock Hudson

please find some of the photos on his twitter account

Do you believe that this is in any way appropriate?

The elephant in the room here is how various nations and territories that lack human rights and are known for the oppression of women, lesbians and gay man and other minorities are covering the trans issue and DQST in their media as evidence that the UK and other "woke" nations are controlled by elite networks of paedophiles.

This is one more way in which the conspiracies of VIP paedophile rings and satanic ritual abuse and the extreme ends of the trans rights movements are linked.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend against such conspiracy theories when the very obvious child safeguarding issues re DQST and the associated stuff are ignored by the authorites

I'm on the fence with this one. Thanks for posting it, OP.

Generally pretty GC, and I agree wholeheartedly that drag shouldn't be privileged above other things in selecting story tellers (and it's a pretty strange thing to seek out specifically for kids). But one argument which made me think was the parallel with letting kids watch Strictly. There's some definite sexuality in the dancing there, but because it's heteronormative we think about it less. And would we mind a Strictly star coming to tell stories? Having said that, it would be a bit strange to prioritise Strictly stars in the same way drag seems to be... unsure...

I became aware of this some time ago

Just for context, some wild, unsubstantiated claims made by someone who appropriated massive amounts of public funds whilst portraying themselves as a heroic champion of victims whilst portraying the UK as a nation of people who do not love our children

MuffinMittens One is dance with a hint of sex, the other is sex with a hint of dance.

Just read some more posts, and I agree that actually this is more akin to seeking out porn stars, or - on the milder end of things - burlesque stars, to read to children. Better analogy than Strictly stars

I only read page 1, which had comments like ‘sexual kicks’ making people ‘uncomfortable’ etc.

Kids don’t read much anymore, they’re trying to make it interesting. Things like dressing up for world book day and the related activities are trying to encourage this love for reading. Kids will see the drag queen as similar to a panto dame reading, it’s interesting, it’s exciting.

And let’s be honest, schools could Do with some diversity at the forefront. Kids spend so much time there and the teaching population is hardly representative of the real world around us so I welcome some diversity in the classroom.

As long as anyone in the classroom remains age appropriate for children, to have an issue with them is your problem and not theirs.