Drag Queens and Libraries Radio 4 discussion

[BoreOfWhabylon]

12:04 today
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019rrf

Antisocial, with Adam Fleming
Drag queens and libraries
AntiSocial

The row over drag queens reading stories to children.

A spate of protests outside libraries has focused attention on the idea of drag queen story hours - drag queens reading stories to young children in libraries and other public spaces. For some, it’s the perfect way to build acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities, plus it’s fun and fabulous for the children. For others, it risks exposing young minds to adult entertainment and complex themes of sex and gender.

Hmm... I'll be interested to see how this goes

[Arcadia]

Mockery of women. Exactly Jo.

[Helleofabore]

Fuck!!! This guy, miss hope springs is a misogynist. There is no doubt.

[Chrysanthemum5]

BBC disinformation person is hardly unbiased- pretty much the level of intellect I've come to expect from the BBC

[Arcadia]

Feminine energy?! WTF

[Arcadia]

Why give him the last word?

[Chrysanthemum5]

Oh and BBC implying protestors against this are all right wing, anti vaccine conspirators

[Sunshineona]

Drag = sexualised.

Drag = promotes offensive stereotypes of women.

Drag = acting out a fantasy for the performer’s own thrill.

Why do they want to perform to children? What are they getting out of it, psychologically?

[Cismyfatarse]

They are using Shakespeare etc (when women were not allowed on the stage) to justify men continuing to parody women.

[Skyvemind]

OMG that was an infuriating listen.
Jo Bartosch making her points extremely clearly and lucidly as usual.
And the male contributors - (including Adam Fleming) nothing but minimising women’s concerns and centring male viewpoints on why we should see being the butt of their jokes and the subject of their fetishization and objectification only as a COMPLIMENT.

[PomegranateOfPersephone]

Did the question get asked about when we’ll have lap dancer story hour or stripper story hour? If/when we do will it be marketed as somehow promoting women’s rights and helping children to feel comfortable with their sexual orientations in the same way that men in drag is supposed to promote LGBT rights and help children feel comfortable with their sexual orientations?

I think we were better off when encouraging children to think about who they are attracted to when it comes to physical intimacy was taboo due to being age inappropriate and/or criminal.

[Sunshineona]

@Skyvemind . ‘If women don’t appreciate this, there’s something wrong with them.’ Sounds like a frustrated male teenager with an ego problem.

[Chrysanthemum5]

The drag queen is so inconsistent (shocking I know). One one hand telling children that if he's wearing his drag outfit he's a girl, but then claiming DQST is all about showing children your clothes don't define you

[BoreOfWhabylon]

It's good that the BBC is starting to have these discussions and Jo was great, but all the other voices were pretty much "Nothing to see here" I thought.

I'll have to go back and listen to theTrans episode.

[Chrysanthemum5]

I think that was very biased- the host is supposed to be impartial but clearly wasn't. No did well but I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down so I will say no more

[Chrysanthemum5]

Jo did well I meant to say

[JulesJules]

Jo was good, very calm. I cannot see how anyone doesn't see the problem with a man in drag telling a little girl 'I'm a girl' FFS. And yes, why was Jo the only woman - it was all very male centric.

[elainesometimes]

If a bloke turned up to do storytime wearing a normal work skirt and a bit of lipstick, I'd have no problem with that at all, especially if he was good at engaging the kids with the stories he was reading.

Drag is different from this and also different from a costumed children's entertainer. It's a highly sexualised parody of womanhood, which is totally inappropriate for a setting with children, and in most workplaces. I can't imagine the female library staff would be allowed to dress like drag queens for work.

[nettie434]

I thought it was ok and at least the topic was being discussed (and Mumsnet given credit for raising it). I thought the safeguarding person was actually quite critical of the safeguarding policy, implying it was just copied from somewhere else and not thought out.

Jo Bartosch made a very good point that even if a drag queen tones down their drag name for a library story hour (eg Blow for Blow Job) then that doesn't stop children looking them up on social media and finding more adult content.

[MidsomerMurmurs]

That’s a misrepresentation. He’s not saying that protestors against DQST are “all right wing, anti vaccine conspirators“ at all. He said that last week’s protest specifically was upsetting for the children present and that it’s not helpful for legitimate arguments against DQST to be co-opted by antivaxers and conspiracy theorists.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Just listened to both the drag queen episode and the gender episode. Milli Hill appears on the latter, with Steph of Steph's Place website representing the TRA viewpoint. Steph is not very bright and sees the whole world through the lens of Steph so it wasn't very well matched. Milli was excellent.

There was a segment in the gender episode where a cheery pollster came on to talk about the findings of some polling and focus groups they'd been doing. As ever, before taking what they found at face value, I'd want to know how it was phrased. Like every other survey I've ever seen on this issue, people's views apparently changed markedly as soon as the pollster said something on the lines of 'And would you feel differently if the transwoman, i.e. a male-bodied person who identifies as female, hasn't had sexual reassignment surgery?' At that point they usually say 'Oh! No, not appropriate for pre-op transwomen to be put on a women's hospital ward' etc .

How often are the general public being polled told that in fact almost no transwomen have sexual reassignment surgery?

I wish somebody had pointed out on air that the drag queen episode had almost no female voices at all. Jo did a sterling job but she could have done with back up.

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Adam Fleming's Twitter
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[Skyvemind]

Agree. It was an overwhelmingly male dominated programme.
3 to 1 by my count.

[mumda]

No definition of drag as it's evolving so fast.

The whole thing is just not needed.

[RhannionKPSS]

@Skyvemind

Agree. It was an overwhelmingly male dominated programme.
3 to 1 by my count.

4 to 1 but at least the safeguarding man was obviously aware of how crap the checks have been.