Drag Queen Story Time

[LizzyStrata]

First time posting here, so not sure of the etiquette. My apologies if this is the wrong place to raise these concerns.

Reading Borough Council is planning to hold Drag Queen Story Hour events in our libraries during the summer holidays. I’ve written to my MP, my councillors, and the Head of the Library Service to raise concerns. I think drag is entirely inappropriate for children, as it is a form of adult entertainment, highly sexualised and misogynistic, that blurs boundaries and undermines safeguarding.

The response Ive had is simply that they have received very few complaints so no reason to cancel.

Has anyone had any experience of tackling their local library over this issue? Grateful for any tips.

Also, if you live in Berkshire ,would you be willing to write and share your concerns?

thanks!

[845672AKD]

Just a couple of years older and they can make a decision on their ID, that the Scots are trying to push forward? Doesn't sound right.

[NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision]

@DerekFaker

TRAs are saying it was statutory rape and the boy was his boyfriend and he was only a cpuple of years older. I can't see any evidence to back this up. Sounds like they're trying to downplay it anyway.

They would say that. "Statutory rape" is an American term, which we don't have. It cannot have been that. I'm sure they'll claim it though.

There has always been limited appetite on the part of public prosecutions or jurors to convict clear-cut rape cases, so we simply don't prosecute teenagers for relationships with each other where the younger partner would be a hostile witness.

The most similar legislation we have is legislation relating to children "under 13" which is phrased that way to make it clear that the victim isn't supposed to be on trial. The child witness isn't supposed to have to convince a jury that he or she didn't "consent" as adult women do, but simply to convince a jury that the acts happened.

I do not believe anyone in 1999 would have conducted a trial because a 14 year old had consensual sexual experimentation with a close in age peer. Not even if they were both male. We were under a Labour government that had made it clear that they intended to drop the age of consent for same-sex relationships to match the age of consent for heterosexual sexual activity. The other child was either very much younger, or it was plainly abusive.

[Lucyam1]

The boy was 14 and he got sent to a young offenders institution for three years because of it and a lifetime ban on contact with children, which he then breached and had a to attend a three year sex offender's treatment programme and had a curfew and electronic tag for six months

[TheClogLady]

Must have been about 16 when convicted (born in approx 1983, as The Sun reports him being 39 )

Convicted in 1999, served 3 years (so released approx 2002) made to sign lifetime sexual harm prevention order but was convicted of breaching that order 9 years later (non custodial sentence given in 2011).

Obvs whatever Sewell/Moore was convicted of he’d completed both his sentences, it wasn’t a capital offence and we don’t have a death penalty so he certainly didn’t deserve to die prematurely (just making that clear for the inevitable screenshotters).

Not that we know anything about the circumstances of his death - news reports only say ‘unexplained’, with no mention of criminal acts.
For all we know he could’ve just tottered off drunkenly in his giant drag heels, fallen and hit his head on the curb. Weird/sad/unlucky shit happens to people all the time.

[Helleofabore]

@DerekFaker

TRAs are saying it was statutory rape and the boy was his boyfriend and he was only a cpuple of years older. I can't see any evidence to back this up. Sounds like they're trying to downplay it anyway.

So, a young boy who was not able to consent then? Under 14. 'just a couple of years older'.....

Oh.... yes.... that makes all the difference.

For what it is worth, I have seen this rhetoric discussed in public before by gay men. A few of these men really don't seem to see the issue....

[Lockheart]

See transcrimeuk.com/2017/10/30/darren-sewell/

Convicted in 1999 and three years in a young offenders institute.

[TheClogLady]

@DerekFaker

TRAs are saying it was statutory rape and the boy was his boyfriend and he was only a cpuple of years older. I can't see any evidence to back this up. Sounds like they're trying to downplay it anyway.

I might’ve bought that if he didn’t then put himself in a position of working with kids/teens, knowing it was a breech of his post conviction conditions.

A person on the sex offenders register doesn’t accidentally end up working as childrens gymnastics coach!

Besides, can you really see a teenage boy getting a 3 year custodial sentence for a slightly age-imbalanced but otherwise consensual teen romance?

There is no way that would be considerate proportionate/appropriate or a good use of public funds.
We generally try to avoid incarcerating young offenders because it sets them up for long term repercussions/recidivism/introduces them to other offenders.

[Lockheart]

@DerekFaker

TRAs are saying it was statutory rape and the boy was his boyfriend and he was only a cpuple of years older. I can't see any evidence to back this up. Sounds like they're trying to downplay it anyway.

The Daily Mail reports it happened as a teenager.

Several other places report that he was convicted in 1999, which as he was 39 when he died would have made him ~15-16 at the time. I think it checks out.

[DerekFaker]

TRAs are saying it was statutory rape and the boy was his boyfriend and he was only a cpuple of years older. I can't see any evidence to back this up. Sounds like they're trying to downplay it anyway.

[BabyStopCryin]

Oh gosh this came up on me newsfeed (the death) and it sounded like it was a suspicious death that the police were looking into - somehow that small fact omitted would have suggested a bit of a motive…

[VenetiaHallMasham]

Have you seen the latest?

reduxx.info/rest-in-power-drag-queen-story-hour-uk-founder-fundraising-for-convicted-child-sex-offenders-funeral/

[845672AKD]

I don't have access to that parenting app - what is the latest?

[Lucyam1]

Has anyone seen Drag Queen Story Hour content on the parenting app My Babbu? Apparently they have teamed up but I can't see anything on it as yet

[MrsJamin]

I think he's just using being a victim of homophobia as a way to garner support?! I still remain dubious of any evidence at all that a drag queen reading stories to children counteracts homophobia. Especially when they are ticketed opt-in events, parents with homophobia surely wouldn't take their children along? I JUST DON'T GET IT!

[TheClogLady]

The few interesting bits of drag (the subversiveness, the filthy puns, the terrifyingly over the top costumes) are completely lost when you water it down enough for 5 year olds in a municipal library in the middle of the day.

(I once came second in a ‘celebrity car crash’ themed drag queen beauty pageant, not as a ‘bio queen’ but as a double bluff, larping as a man parodying a woman.
Deffo don’t need my kids to know about that until they are old enough to be in a nightclub themselves)

[Musomama1]

Being gay should by now be seen as just as boring as being straight so it's shitty that people are still getting hassled.

But dressing as a Drag Queen as a way to normalise LGBT - I just can't see the argument here. Be honest, performers do the Drag Queen thing because they enjoy it and there are performance opportunities.

[KatVonlabonk]

"How exactly do you get acceptance of two men holding hands by dressing up as a pornified weird looking woman?"

I honestly don't know.
What happened to him was illegal and should be reported to the police.

He's not one to miss the chance to publicise his "work" though....

[MrsJamin]

This is "Aida H Dee's" post on facebook saying how he was harassed in the street just for holding his boyfriend's hand - which should totally not be happening in this day and age, of course. What bugs me is this is why he said he does DQST - to get acceptance! How exactly do you get acceptance of two men holding hands by dressing up as a pornified weird looking woman??? It is beyond me how these things are connected - and they TOTALLY won't be by the children who go to the storytime - why would it be?

[TheBiologyStupid]

And as for Q theory. Where to start - the word itself is an insult to those who remember it as a hideous insult to gay people (mostly men) and not a shiny new label for spicy straights desperate to look interesting.

Nicely said, Kitten.

[KittenKong]

Under 6s don’t get sarcasm? You haven’t met many Glaswegian kids I’ve you?

[ArabellaScott]

Sophisticated in the sense that children under 6 can't get sarcasm or irony. At all. Anything more comes then a fart joke is too sophisticated for most young kids.

[KittenKong]

Drag sophisticated? 😂 nope. Its as sophisticated as a bacon butty.

[KittenKong]

Ach. I was a teen in the 80s, a kid in the 70s. The glam rock years, the New Romantics, gender bending culture club and Marilyn, Annie Lennox and the New York dolls.

Todays ‘diversity’ is absolutely pathetic in comparison. Trot off and buy some clothing designed for men but looks a bit ‘feminine’? Gimme a break. No imagination or creativity. At least back in the day they may have been up their own backsides but never were threatening.

And as for Q theory. Where to start - the word itself is an insult to those who remember it as a hideous insult to gay people (mostly men) and not a shiny new label for spicy straights desperate to look interesting.

[ArabellaScott]

I don't have an issue with drag for adults. (Though I mostly fond it a bit tired these days). It's too sophisticated for choldren to understand and there have been far too many instances of blurred boundaries and poor understanding of safeguarding to think it's a good idea. Aida HD is an activist overtly attempting to bring 'queer' to children.

By 'queer'of course we are not talking about his sexuality but about queer theory.

[ArabellaScott]

Okay. If we don't have any suggestions I'll play devils advocate:

People think drag helps people who are gender non conforming be openly non conforming. Men wear clothes associated with women and this is seen as a way to subvert gender norms.

The trouble is that these queens aren't wearing what women actually wear. They're wearing a hugely exaggerated cartoon of femininity. Enormous breasts, grotesque make up that any woman would be mocked for, and stage clothing that underlines.their status as.something decorative, entertaining, and useless.

Feminists have been questioning stereotypes of femininity for a long time. Queens take it to an absurd extreme.

The line is that queens are subverting masculinity but it seems to me that they are just skewering femininity and by extension females.