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!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3945350-Leeds-Library-hosts-Drag-Queen-Story-Hour-on-June-22nd

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3948283-Pink-News-claims-Mumsnetters-threatened-Drag-Queen-with-crucifixion

I work in a library, we do have security but it's one man who mostly just sits there and does a walk around once an hour.
We hosted a show a few weeks ago, security was still the one guy and no bag checking was involved. Why would it be?
Thank god I really can't see this nonsense ever arriving at my library, especially during the summer reading challenge when we have got so many other ways of drawing kids in and including everyone with a brilliant theme.

Rochdale council have postponed (no future date booked) their story hour over fear of protests.

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/147438/rochdale-council-postpones-drag-queen-story-hour-with-no-communication-despite-positive-previous-events

Statement from DQST UK:

Rochdale Borough Council have let down every counter-protester and supporter who have attended all other libraries with thus decision. I am disappointed in them. Please email
[email protected] with your thoughts.

t.co/nH5hbnV9hY

ScreamingMeMe

Gosh, the petulant bullying in that DQST statement. It is like they have no professional skills at all and don't mind showing it to the world.

They really want to go there with ‘breach of contract’?

If the council has any sense their contract - with regards to those in contact with children - will be tighter than a fishes a*se when it comes to reputation and social media activity.

Good, thank god someone was listening to women and ignoring the TRAs.

Can't use apostrophes, either!

www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/aug/11/im-just-trying-to-make-the-world-a-little-brighter-how-the-culture-wars-hijacked-drag-queen-story-hour

About Aida H Dee

Another man calling women protesting this nonsense 'far right'

It's has no meaning anymore and is like water off a duck's back

The tone is quite disingenuous, isn't it?
While I don't doubt that some, maybe many, of the performers who do or would like to do DQST, I think this article is very one-sided. They carefully do not mention some of the instances I've read about on here where drag queens come dressed very sexually suggestively or display sexualised slogans etc.

The section about drag and blackface has got me thinking. I don't disagree with the academic who says 'Drag is an exploration of gender', but I'm not sure that's ALL it is. They say blackface was used to 'stereotype, ridicule and ostracise black communities'; can we not say similar things about drag and women? I'm not directly comparing power over enslaved Black people to power over women, but I don't think they can be completely unrelated.

Does anyone know if there's any academic writing on drag from the POV of it being comparable to blackface?

The tone is quite disingenuous, isn't it?.

I think I’d have found that article moderately convincing if all the stuff Samuels said about himself wasn’t belied by the pictures of his moose knuckle in his DQST costume.

Mentioning TW in sports was a bit of a slip up. When you start positioning obvious common sense as violent bigotry it makes the narrative fall apart. But otherwise the article was pretty well executed. Pushes hard on the “well what’s the harm?” “live and let live” buttons that most of us have.

It’s alarmingly easy to caricature opposition to DQST as hostility to gay men. Not sure what to be done about this, especially as some of those opposing it actually are hostile to gay men. If the drag queens would just tuck their dick away in front of the kids it would help a lot, but that’s clearly not going to happen. Or if more gay men would speak up against it, it might avert some potential nastiness. I have a bad feeling there’s a homophobic backlash on the horizon, especially if the monkeypox time bomb goes off.

This is an interesting article as it seems to take much more care than the Graun usually do not to blame the 't*s' for everything. There's not even a blanket dismissal of Mumsnet.

As I read it, it seemed to focus on the protesters coming with a genuine right-wing, reactionary stance, and didn't lump horrible pesky feminists in with that to the extent you could usually expect.

If it's true Piers Corbyn was really yelling 'your parents were straight', that's some horrifying homophobia in plain sight there and is a big concern as pp said.

If this had been commissioned in the WiSpa days we'd be reading a very different piece. I'm surprised at Tim Jonez's nuanced approach.

Samuel describes himself as a victim of section 28. “The teachers saw a camp boy, but couldn’t help me. I feel robbed of a childhood, in some way.” A pivotal moment came at 13, when he was cast as an evil villainess in a school play. He got a standing ovation, but, more importantly, was praised by a boy who had bullied him. It made him realise that not only could he inspire people like him, but he could also change the attitudes of those who were not.

The guy is 27. He was 7/8 when Section 28 ended 🙄 there has been no section 28 during the last 19 years.

Yeah, the s.28 bit was weird. He wouldn't even have been out of primary.

Here's a very interesting talk by lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys on the topic of drag:

And another here:

That leapt out at me too, in an article that took pains to avoid hyperbole all round.

Cherri Ontop explained themselves and the wider issues better. The quote "some drag queens have turned out to be absolute creeps so I understand why people would be somewhat on the backfoot" could have been explored more by Jonez.

From what I can make out Drag Queen Story Time is Aida H Dee. So 'we' in that statement must be used in the royal sense? (I suppose it's more impressive to imply you're speaking on behalf of a large organisation rather than your little old self and your lucrative side hustle.)

Oh, thank you!

www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/fully-grown-adult-attempts-to-stop-aida-h-dee-childrens-story-time-but-accidentally-starts-a-rave-3800447

Re the fire alarm last Saturday at the Leeds central library session

Cherri Ontop explained themselves and the wider issues better. The quote "some drag queens have turned out to be absolute creeps so I understand why people would be somewhat on the backfoot" could have been explored more by Jonez.

YY.

Wokingham Council are now advertising this event in the residents Facebook discussion Group.
It looks as though they may have received some complaints as well as mine and are trying to smooth troubled waters - the text is exactly the same as the email reply I received.
The comments are full of people not seeing why it's a problem.
I don't know if I'm brave enough to comment.

Ah Wokingham Council. Their Lib Dem councillor has been downplaying the incident with the PCSO and the sticker,and slagging off 'terfs' on twitter in the past couple of days.