How to complain about Drag Queen Story Time

[ElizabethJaneHenchard]

I'm going to a venue tonight that is hosting the Drag Queen Story Time later this year.
How do I complain about this, without seeming like a right-wing reactionary?
Do I hand in a letter, talking about safeguarding concerns, or how should I approach it? I will obviously be boycotting the venue from now on, if they have such a weak grasp of safeguarding, but I would like to do more than that.
What would you suggest?

Because all of those things have happened.

I'm... not sure that this is really needing dignifying with an answer but... the same way you and I would? I take it you can assess, for example, the difference between a joke you'd tell only to adults and one suitable for children?

Drag performer are performers - knowing your audience is very much part of your skill set, so yes, if they are being paid to perform in different settings, I would assume they have acquired 'these additional skills' of knowing what's appropriate for young children. Story times also have quite set parameters - you read a story, you sing some children's songs, it's not rocket science not to let a strip tease or a joke about big cocks just slip in there.

Story times also have quite set parameters - you read a story, you sing some children's songs ....

Teach them how to twerk...the usual🙄

Do you not have anything to say on the incidents if visible elections , visible genitals, safguarding breech with photos uploaded to websites, of the children ?

No issues at all ?

Erections

My phone keeps auto correcting...

Come on then, what is it exactly that children get out of having stories read to them by adult men who are dressed as sexualised parodies of women (which is what drag is), that they wouldn't get from other people?

What's the specific benefit to children?

If right-wing is against the mutilation and sterilising of children then I'm more than happy to be called right wing

Teach them how to cat walk in front of a sign saying 'it won't lick itself'

Here

So telling children to open their legs, sporting a invisible erection and dancing around with a dildo attached are all very recent examples of what drag performers regard as acceptable in front of children.
Rather than assuming that they have acquired these skills of what is appropriate for children (your words) I think we are safer assuming they haven't a clue.
Let me guess, you don't have children?

I'd be careful saying things like this given some of the "alignments" on the other side..

Yes, exactly. Some people on 'the right side of history' (Peter Tatchell and Vaush for example) have some very, ahem, interesting opinions on sex with children.....

So I would be very careful talking when talking about 'allies'.

Op, in answer to your question about how to complain, I would do just that. Complain - lay out the reasons you feel it is not appropriate for children and your concerns re: child safeguarding and exposure to sexual/ sexualised content.

Is it the drag queen pictured in the rainbow onesie? You can see his penis for goodness sake, who signed that off as safe and appropriate for children? Any sexualised performance from any performer (straight, gay, LGBT, drag queen or king etc) should be for adults only.

I'm not sure what people thought would happen when we got to the point that any questioning of what was going on was deemed phobic.

That's not how things work. Behaviour escalates. This is true if vast numbers of humans . People don't go from 0-60 in a day. There are usually signs along the way of where things are heading. If sone gets away with stealing a pound from someone. Eventually it will escalate to 2 pounds. Then a fiver. Then eventually even larger amounts. We have seen that drag queen's are no different to any one else. What started off as inappropriate ( In the notion that DQs are adult entertainment) but fairly tame has now escalated to flashing children , tweaking lessons, inappropriate signs, visible erections and rainbow monkeys with dildos.

Still it's deemed phobic to object.

What has to happen? I'd like to know the bar at which even advocates of dqst will finally say " no this isn't right"

Yes, I'd like an answer to this too.

thedancingbear · Today 09:18
Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

So cross dressing/trans = not safe around kids.

Thanks for clarifying.

Non sequitur.

Who says Drag Queens are trans?
Drag Queen is a performance. The performer could be a heterosexual man, or a homosexual, man without being trans.

The whole idea of teaching ‘diversity’ to children through Drag Queens ( an excuse given by libraries when questioned) is flawed.
Not one protected characteristic is being taught.

@Apollo442 - I'm a mum of two.

I'm not going to disagree that people have a right to object to the extremes, such as the monkey costume with a phallus or stripping drag kings (the latter not being a Drag Queen Story Time, if you want to be pedantic) as those aren't suitable for kids. But they're not reasons to blanket ban DQST.

It's still a new thing and mistakes are going to be made by overenthusiastic events people, so maybe if you want to be taken seriously focus on the content, not vilifying performers. So OK, if you have concerns contact a venue and ask what they're doing to check it will be appropriate and that they're sticking to singing children's songs and reading a story and will be appropriately dressed (as most are, because there aren't news stories about all of those sessions) and you can say it's not their sexuality you care about it's that these are people who are usually adult performers. Voila - concerns voiced without vilifying a group of people.

I don't believe anyone voicing concerns is a 'bigot', but I do think people should be careful of not making themselves useful instruments of those who have an agenda to force LGBTQ+ people back into the closet 'for the sake of the children'.

As for what kids get out of it, I'm not convinced it really does much for equality at the end of the day but it should be an experienced performer who is good at making stories entertaining and memorable for kids. Do I have issues with misogyny in drag? Yes, it's a problem. Is it going to be a defining feature of a DQST session? I doubt it. I don't think young kids will see queens as 'mocking women' any more than they'd see a clown as 'mocking men'.

Well given I’m still waiting for the apologists to jump on and tell me what the actual benefits to children are, I guess you must be right.

Those defending this - I’d still love to hear what you think the specific benefits to the children are?

Maybe there's not any benefit other than a bit of fun, but then there's also no harm either?

A child might see one of these performances once in a while, I don't think it's going to have a pervasive long-term effect on them for good or ill. It's hardly forming the sole entertainment diet of any child.

No harm?

Leaving aside the documented instances other posters have left links to on this thread alone, where drag queens have acted utterly inappropriately with children, there is definitely harm when libraries are PAYING for this.

The same libraries that have been starved of cash for 12 years, and otherwise manage to put on story time and rhyme time for no extra cost by using their own staff. How can it be justified to spend scarce resources on this? For that to be the case, we would need evidence that this is of proven benefit to children over and above the usual services. Where is that?

It's still a new thing and mistakes are going to be made by overenthusiastic events people

But ... why is it a new thing? Why is it that up until now, most people have understood quite easily that entertainment created for adults, in adult venues, that has frequent sexual/risque/bawdy/offensive themes, names, costumes, was not aimed at, intended for nor suitable for children is now suddenly a thing?

What next?

Pole dancing for kids? Shibari?

What leads people to think that it is necessary, positive or desirable to repurpose adult entertainment for children?

I can see your reasoning that for the most part, a child seeing a male in an outrageously cartoonified costume with fake breasts is not the end of the world.

What interests me is the wider context, what part this plays in 'queering' childhood, and what that might mean.

Echobelly· Today 19:03
I don't believe anyone voicing concerns is a 'bigot', but I do think people should be careful of not making themselves useful instruments of those who have an agenda to force LGBTQ+ people back into the closet 'for the sake of the children'

LGBTQ+ people being swept back into the closet is never going to happen because parents say that they want children left out of an LGBTQ+ adult’s business. No one has to act apologetic for saying this (DQST) is not for children.

The people who are the ‘instruments’ are the organisers so mindlessly adopting this U S import. It is another branded, heavily pushed, market force and they are its dupes.

The "harm" comes from normalising and permeating this stuff into society. Drag is not suitable for kids end of.

Drag isn't trans.
Drag is man dressing up as woman (usually to mock stereotypical women)
Trans is man is woman he says

Mistakes?

Wearing clothing so tight children can see your penis is not a " mistake"

Is that what you'd tell a child who was upset by it? " it was a mistake Sammy he didn't mean to, you are over reacting"

Mistake completely minimises whats been going on at these story times.