NEU awards hosted by Drag Queen

[wantmorenow]

When will the message that many people find men parodying women offensive?

I have been invited to an all expenses paid NEU event " LGBT+ Educators' Awards & Conference 2022" but this is the chosen host for the event.

This is off putting and has made me feel uncomfortable and unable to attend.

Ditto their email says "This year the theme is "Defending our Communities" -
Whichever categories we fit within, there has not been, in many years, a more frightening time to be LGBT+. Our enemies are in government, in agencies tasked with building equality, the media, and more connectedly, in the far-right and alt-right." Sounds quite frightening - not sure what they intend the actual event to be about.

I’d not be going and I’d say why.

I don't really see the problem with an adult entertainer associated with LGBT settings giving awards for LGBT issues.

You can go on thinking that drag has an element of misogyny, sure. I think of it as reclaiming spaces from homophobia, and of course homophobia has a strand of misogyny in it. I've never seen why it's essential to have Drag Queen Story Hour but that isn't this.

'Our enemies' - who are they classing as 'enemies'? Lesbians who don't want to sleep with men?

I think it speaks volumes of the values held by the organising committee which don't align with my own or have relevance in teaching.

Why not a host such as Dame Kelly Holmes, Sue Perkins, Rylan Clark, to name a few. Clare Balding perhaps?

Also the weekend is family friendly - childcare on site for instance. The ceremony perhaps not so but I don'y know. A recent women's only weekend by NEU was definitely inclusive of kids for all evening activities and meals and was a great success.

This

I wouldn’t go, and I would message them a short explanation of why, ie that drag promotes misogynistic stereotypes of women and is just as offensive to women as blackface is to the black community.

The sender of the email is

Kacey de Groot (she/her)
Chair and Executive Member for LGBT+ Educators

Wonder if it's their choice of host? I hadn't heard of De Groot before - but there is loads on the internet and their beliefs are definitely not GC

I think they've written it incorrectly...should read " there has not been, in many years, a more frightening time to be a woman".

It does seem like we are being trolled on a massive scale.

I wouldn't even contemplate pandering to them by going.

"This year the theme is "Defending our Communities" -
Whichever categories we fit within, there has not been, in many years, a more frightening time to be LGBT+. Our enemies are in government, in agencies tasked with building equality, the media, and more connectedly, in the far-right and alt-right."

Sounds incredibly hostile!

And what a way to make it abundantly clear that LGB members who do not agree with the stated position are unwelcome, are counted among the 'enemies'.

Just when teachers needed to be taken seriously, we have an awards ceremony and conference hosted by a drag queen.

As if teachers didn't already have a bad image problem.

Surely if nothing else this should be hosted by and LGBT+ educational peer?

And it wouldn't surprise me to find that the Drag Queen Story Hour is nominated for an award.

MNHQ maybe this should be moved to staffroom with hindsight. Not sure what would get most views?

This

@wantmorenow

Did you go?

Because whoever wrote the blurb for this event used deliberately polarised wording that should be robustly questioned. ‘Enemies’? Government? Media? I take it that they meant the EHRC as the agencies meant to be building equality?

This positioning is meant to isolate and alienate people from others, to make them fearful for their future that all government and media is bad and watch out for that far right here in the UK!!! It was not promoting an event to celebrate diversity !

My thoughts too. And even the word 'community' pisses me off. First, straights don't have to care about the LGBT community. Second, there is no such thing as an LGBT community - a disparate and divided group full of colonising men, pandering and uncritical woman, and spicy straights is not somewhere I feel at home.