On July 6 I cross posted an exposé
from MassResistance.org on Drag
Queen Story Hour taking place at Public Libraries across America. MassResistance exposed that LGBTQ
promoters were doing more than just reading stories in Drag to kids ranging in
ages 9 to 19. These promoters were handed out how-to materials to the kids
including demonstrations showing the children how to operate sex devices and
sex methods.
NOW from The Federalist
I am reading males dressed in Drag are fondling children as part of the Story
Hour process. AND the Public Library in question covered it up.
JRH 7/22/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
*******************
Public Library
Deletes Pictures Of Drag Queens Fondling Children At Story Hour
Parents complained
about the event, showing the photos of children lounging atop of the costumed
queens on the floor, grabbing at false breasts, and burying their faces in
their bodies.
By Libby Emmons
JULY 22, 2019
The new trend of hosting “drag queen story hour” at
children’s libraries has been touted as part of diversification efforts. The
practice of librarians bringing drag queens to read to children has come under
fire for sexualizing children. Librarians came to the defense of this
programming, touting it as innocent and family oriented, but new photographs
have emerged to belie that claim, of children obscenely draped over drag queens
in a way that would be obviously disgusting if they were female beauty queens.
Such photos taken at a Drag Queen Story Hour event at St.
John’s Library in Portland, Oregon circulated on Facebook. Parents complained
about the event, showing the photos of children lounging atop of the costumed
queens on the floor, grabbing at false breasts, and burying their faces in
their bodies.
The library had uploaded the photos to their Flickr feed,
but they’re not available there anymore. Lifesite News archived them.
Multnomah County Library took the photos down, without a
word.
If the photos are innocent, showing inclusion and queer
diversity, then why take them down? Even assuming these story hours were
concocted with the best intentions, it seems crazy that librarians could be so
blind to the reality that drag, as entertaining and culturally campy as it is
for adult audiences, is not sex ed but sex entertainment, and not for kids.
There’s a push to rebrand sex ed as gender and sexuality ed,
programmed for younger and younger audiences. The idea is that divergent gender
identities are so prevalent that kids need to be informed about them so that if
they feel they fall outside of the gendered identity of their biological bodies
they have ways to talk about it.
This spring, Lindsay Amer, the host of YouTube channel Queer
Kid Stuff, gave a TED talk called “Why kids need
to learn about gender and sexuality.” In it, Amer offered what’s becoming
a standard rationale for exposing children as young as toddlers to inherently
sexual knowledge.
“Most parents want their children to become kind, empathetic
self-confident adults, and exposure to diversity is an important part of that
social and emotional development,” Amer said. “And gender non-conforming kids,
and trans kids, and kids with trans and non-binary and queer parents are
everywhere.”
Couched in the language of diversity, empathy, and kindness,
which parents typically get behind, is how ideologues manipulate parental
compassion because they see children as full participants in concepts of adult
sexuality. If parents don’t get on board, they imply, then parents are doing
their children a disservice. This is how ideas that feminists had been fighting
to do away with come back in full force.
Take, for example, the drag story hours and associated
events at the Brooklyn Public Library. “Drag
Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is just what it sounds like—drag queens reading stories
to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the
imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids
glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models,” says a library
writeup.
Associated events include makeup tutorials, like this one at
the Brighton Beach branch: “Kids and teens are welcome to learn how to apply
eye makeup in a fabulous way during this one-hour workshop with Drag Queen
Story Hour. Participants will learn techniques for applying eye makeup and then
have the opportunity to practice on themselves! All genders welcome. This
workshop will: Provide a safe space for kids to express their gender however
they like. Provide a positive queer role model and affirmation for teens of all
genders and identities. Teach a skill that kids can learn and practice on their
own. All makeup and supplies will be provided.”
Makeup tutorials, photos of kids laying atop grown men who
are wearing sexualized female costumes, and encouraging gender fluidity gives
truth to the lie that drag story hour isn’t about sexuality or sexualizing
children. Children are drawn to sparkles and glitter, and using those things to
make sexuality seem like mere play is nothing more than grooming kids to be
sexual objects, not participants.
Kids experience sexuality, but it is not for adult
interference. Parents need to teach their children about their bodies, help
them understand their emotions, and make sure they know that adult involvement
in their sexuality is completely wrong and unacceptable, without exception.
Sexuality can be play for consenting adults. But sex play
for kids opens the door to predatory behavior by adults and much confusion for
kids. Sexuality is not glitter and rainbows, it’s not about unicorns, puppets,
and makeup tutorials. It is serious, and children are too young to understand
how serious.
When sexuality becomes sold to children as dress up, it
glosses over the seriousness of the topic, the social, emotional,
psychological, and physical consequences, putting kids at risk. Kids don’t have
to be taught shame for their bodies or their sexual feelings, but there’s no
reason to teach them that these things are the forefront of who they are.
Amer says: “Gender is about how we feel and how express
ourselves. Sexuality is about love and gender and family, not about sex. These
are all ideas children can grasp.”
Yes, they are all ideas children can grasp, because children
can grasp any idea that you tell them to grasp. They have no frame of reference
outside the one provided by authority figures and people singing songs with
puppets.
But that doesn’t make these ideas correct. That’s why the
Multnomah County Library took down their photos. Children laying on the floor
with adult men dressed up in sexually provocative and fetish clothing looks
like what it is: grooming kids for participation in adult sexual life.
Amer ends with a directive to her viewers: “Talk to a kid
about gender. Talk to a kid about sexuality. Teach them about consent. Tell
them it is okay for boys to wear dresses and for girls to speak up. Let’s
spread radical queer joy.”
Drag story hour lets boys know they can wear dresses, but
what does queer sexual liberation have to do with girls speaking up? Girls
speaking up is not queer, it is feminist, and it is not even a little bit
sexual.
Besides, this standard is never equally applied in this
context. The moms who are speaking up around the country against drag story
hour and the sexualizing of children in a queer context are being shouted down
by men in dresses and librarians, and being told that sexuality is about
rainbows and unicorns, not about real bodies, emotions, and responsibility.
Moms know better, and they know how to use their words.
Sexuality is about sex. Children’s sexuality isn’t about
makeup tutorials, and their bodies are not inclusive. Children need to know not
about sexuality first, but about sex first, their rights, their privacy, and
their responsibility to protect themselves from predators. That’s why the
library took down the photos: men in dresses cavorting intimately with children
is very obviously pedophilia in action, and it’s a horror that it’s being
presented as education.
Libby Emmons is a writer and theatre maker in Brooklyn,
New York. She is co-founder of the Sticky short play series, and blogs the
story of her life at li88yinc.com.
________________________
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