Anyone know the truth about the protests against Drag storytime at the Honor Oak Pub?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

WHY DO CHILDREN NEED STORIES READ TO THEM BY DRAG QUEENS?

This is the pressing question above all!

Anyway, does anyone local know what actually happened. There was a police presence and organised protests apparently. I would love to hear the full story from someone directly involved.

It has become an unbecoming row on our local Facebook page (SE23 Mums). The hectoring posts have been created by the pro drag side.

I agree with you. I thought the same ‘drop off your kids with a drag queen and go and get sloshed’ presumably in a different room?? And I say that as a person who would enjoy a bottomless brunch event!

@RichardBarrister I know what drag queens are.

There is a whole spectrum and variety in drag and a lot of the mainstream British "pantomime dame" tradition is very vanilla and embedded across all of our entertainment culture.

But as you say there is also a strong very adult, caberet tradition in drag culture as well. As I said I am not a massive fan, I personally do not find much entertaining or trangressive about men in make up and dresses and find the current mainstream obsession with it a bit cringe and basic. But also I don't find drag inherently problematic per se.

Surely if there is a concern about the appropropriatness of an individual event or performer then a complaint to the venue or authorities would be more reasonable than a protest.

I suspect this current fad for mainstreaming drag will pass.

You have to be a particularly bad drag queen if you need to read books to children to make a living.

If you were any good as a drag queen you'd be making a living from doing evening shows etc.

DQST seems to attract a certain type of men who want access to children, and don't seem particularly interested in the traditional aspects of drag.

Titania McGrath has some views on how drag queens are essential for teaching children vital lessons and has some creative ideas about how they can spread their influence into the depressingly DQST free maternity care....:

thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2022/drag-queens-teach-vital-lessons/

😉

@ReunitedThorns that is a bit of a reach, do you have the same "suspicions" about other men involved in delivering activies for children?

I suspect for many queens it is simpley thr case of an easy additional income stream as you can take on these events without impinging on the more lucrative evening commitments.

thedancingbear· Today 08:30
This was the far right picketing an event for kids.

It is true these awful groups use awful events like this to pick up sympathy ( like ‘Diversity’ ‘LGB’ and “ Oh, just like Section 28” are used by TQ+ to pick up sympathy, and promote TQ as DQST to very young children).

I do not agree though that these DQSHs are “Events for kids”, rather they are events for a peculiar kind of right-on virtue signalling adult who thinks they are a good liberal educating their child in diversity in a fun way; and events to gain an income for drag queens while also soothing their narcissism.

After his stint at the Tate Aida H.Dee may consider himself to be not only a fine children’s writer, but a true Artist.

When there is a campaign to remove the requirement for enhanced DBS checks for drag queens to be able to perform in front of children, what else I am supposed to believe?

Unless the venue makes a strict distinction between the DQ hosted bottomless brunch and other DQ events they are hosting, what difference does it make? This is all part of persuading parents to push their boundaries in what they will protect their children from. Please see my post above with a very enlightening video link.

I think part of the approach with DQST is plausible deniability. Reading stories to kids is fine, right? What could possibly be an issue with that? But when we look at who these people are, if they didn’t have their wigs on, would we think they were suitable to hang out with children? And why are they so keen on reading them stories?

My understanding of it is that the HO pub have two events on the same day - the DQST in the morning (10/11ish), followed by a Drag brunch from 1-4ish. The former is described by the pub as being PG and the latter as "more adult in nature". I think the pub is open to the general public though while the drag brunch is on - that's the event we've seen videos from (the drag queen performing the splits watched by a small child) and that's the event that prompted a "concerned parent" to alert Turning Point - she'd apparently been in the pub with her kids having a burger when the drag acts for the drag brunch came on. The DQs perform in the downstairs bit of the pub (it's not in a separate room or anything) so feasibly will be families in there on a Saturday who aren't there for the drag or even aware of it.

The way the issue is presented as so binary by so many of those on the left - have concerns or reservations about DQST or drag in general ergo you are a fascist / transphobe / homophobic / racist - is so depressing and symptomatic of where we have got to as a society. Everything is polarised now - there are two sides and you have to pick one. Never mind that these things are complex and nuanced and it is possible to think A without thinking B. But it seems there's no place for you on the left now if your views on every subject don't align perfectly with what's been deemed the "correct" thing to think.

I'm (very) local to the pub and the whole thing has left me feeling very depressed and despondent about the state of local community and the "group think" that now seems to be the accepted norm. The level of abuse thrown at anyone who has dared to express a contrary view on local forums basically makes me feel like an outsider who isn't welcome here anymore.

Yes the storytelling event and the brunch are two separate events. However, I don’t think the drag brunch is adult-only - it says the content is more ‘adult orientated’ but it’s from 1pm and there have been children in the pub during the drag brunch previously. Realistically, if the family have gone to the storytelling at 11am it’s not unreasonable to think they’ll stay for the brunch. But I guess that’s the parent’s decision whether they mind their children seeing a drag artist performing more ‘adult content’.

I guess from the drag queen’s point of view the storytelling is an extra income stream - I don’t think they are particularly interested in children’s literacy …. Personally I’d rather see the money the parents have spent on the drag story time going into their local libraries who are strapped for cash, but I guess that’s a bit boring (and doesn’t offer bottomless brunch while your kids are being entertained!)

I can see why the pub are doing it, it brings in a wide range of punters. But I think when you are hosting children’s events you have to think very carefully about how it’s going to work. I used to organise family events and work for a charity, and we had to be extremely clear who our audience was, was it age-appropriate, whether the content was likely to be controversial. Risk assessments, safeguarding. Alcohol and kids events was generally a big no-no. It’s far more than just doing a DBS check! But because this is an event in a pub, none of that applies.

Surely if there is a concern about the appropropriatness of an individual event or performer then a complaint to the venue or authorities would be more reasonable than a protest.

Unfortunately, at the minting, many public funded organisations like schools and library that are hosting these events for children are fully captured by the rainbows and glitter and are wholly resistant to complaints from the public.

Sheffield Library’s response to complaints about their event hosting a talk by a self professed ‘furry’ and ‘diaper art’ producer Sophie Labelle was to hide the online advertising for the event. It was apparently advertised as family friendly.

That is not normal or rational behaviour from a public body that has all sorts of responsibilities for safeguarding etc.

Btw, I’m sure most if you are already aware but Sophie produces cartoons that are traced from pictures of real life babies /toddlers for use of men with a nappy fetish to masturbate over (apologies for the grim image and language).

The Scummy Mummies have shot themselves in the foot with this one. I live close by and there are a LOT of women who don’t like the idea of drag full stop, let alone drag for kids.

It’s so deeply misogynistic in origins. I mean I wouldn’t protest to stop it I just don’t go, but by labelling all women who don’t want to cheer for men dressed up a sexist caricatures of women as fascist is stupid and has lost them a lot of respect.

it would have been a lot better to just ignore the 20 - actual fascist - protesters rather than show their ignorance around women’s genuine issues with this kind of portrayal of them.

Ginmonkeyagain · Today 11:28
@ReunitedThorns that is a bit of a reach, do you have the same "suspicions" about other men involved in delivering activies for children?

I certainly do, unless they have enhanced DBS checks, and even then would want plenty of other people around.

Even if DQs had DBS checks though I don’t want little children getting confused ideas about sex (men and women male and female). Or muddled ideas that a person who is not a typical man must therefore be a sexualised woman. ( Conforming to some men’s ideas of the stereotype of glamour and porny womanhood.)

It’s not about just having ‘suspicions about men’ - it’s that any adult (man or woman) who is working with children has to monitor their behaviour accordingly and not behave inappropriately.

If they aren’t - then it’s suspicious.

As anyone who has done safeguarding training knows, a DBS (even an enhanced one) is only one level of safeguarding of children. There’s much more to it than that.

For avoidance of doubt I am very pro DBS checks for anyone working with children (Indeed I have had one for occasional work mentoring work I do).

As for drag confusing children about sex I am not reallt sure that is an issue. You as a parent can have those coversario s about it being an act. I recall as a cbild watching things like thr Krankies and Dame Edna and being a little perplexed - I knew that Dame Edna and Jimmie Krankie were not a womam and a boy respectively bit I could not quite work out what they were. However as I got older and saw more pantomine etc.. it became clear to me it was just an act.

TBH for very young children I think the make up and sparkly costumes of most queens involved is more akin to clowns than women. Now obviously that is a whole other debate about mocking and stereotyping women!

As an aside it is interesting the two firms of drag we are discussing here mock women in different ways - the highly sexualised, adult cabaret version tjay rpresrnt women as a sexualised stereotype - all make up, heels and revealing clothes. However the more traditional music hall type common in the UK tends to mock older women as unattractive, nagging, de sexualised and ridiculous. For pantomome dames you know it is a man in badly applied make up and that is part of the joke against older women.

I need to know who these local women are!! Feeling very much in the minority round here, but maybe it's because so many people are scared of being decried as a bigot and/or fascist to be open about how they really feel about some of this stuff.

Pantomime is a red herring, though. Traditionally, the principal boy would be played by an attractive young woman who would fall in love with another attractive young woman, played by a woman. The Dame would end up romantically involved with an older man, played by a man. It's all about turning expectations on their heads and makes fun of everyone, not just older women.

Oh I agree there. As commented above these debates suffer from a lack of nuance. To my mind there is nothing wrong, per se, with children being entertained by someone dressed in drag. It has happened for decades, if not centuries.

The nuance is in how these performers behave in terms of dress and content?

As I said I think this fad will fade. For many venues it is nothing more than an easy way to increase footfall. Many queens are good performers and free during the day, pubs will have contacts to organise it easily and they know it is something that is currently popular.

The only serious issue here for me is ensuring that orgnanisers have carried out proper safeguarding checks, as you should for any event for children or vulnerable people.

I terms of whether drag is good or appropriate for children in and of itself is for me a decision for individual parents to make.

@Ginmonkeyagain the bottomless drag brunch has loads of kids there. One of the school mums was organising a visit there recently for parents and kids…..

@BrightAngel yes we’re all in hiding! No way would I comment on the SE23 posts and be vilified within the community. These convos happen between friends over a glass of wine. Everyone is scared of being labelled ‘fascist’ and ‘homophobic’ when we’re as far as we can be from that!

So parents were happy to take their kids there? Presumably they were happy with that? Parents do all sorts of things with their kids I would not - let them watch Love Island for example. Unless the pub says no kids then I am not sure what you suggest is done?

Listening to a the stories of a lot of MtF transsexuals there is usually a childhood story about gender being messed around with which activates a switch. Some have referenced watching people like Dame Edna as triggering.

Whilst I wouldn't say that drag is the cause, there does appear to be cases where it activates something in these children.

AGP derives from childhood experiences. Queering gender for children will lead to more problems.

@BrightAngel - I'm one of these local women! My children are adults now so I don't mix with local primary school parents any more. But I instinctively feel there are many of us who find these performances pretty odious and toxic, whether for children OR adults, and I just hate that it's impossible to object without being labelled as some sort of fascist. Nothing could be further from the truth in my case! I don't want to be associated with TPUK in anyway shape or form.

But that's what was happening on the SE23 Mums Facebook page last night. Some group members expressed their dislike, instant response was you are a Daily Mail reading Nazi! It's pathetic, but horribly sinister.

Barry Humphries makes people trans? .....backs slowly away from the thread.

Is there any research on why males are so much more likely to have paraphilias than women? Also, what effect, if any, has it had on women that for over a century it's been almost impossible to cross-dress in most Western countries once it was socially aceptable to wear trousers and have short hair?