(PM.) Americans do not have an irrational fear of drag queens, yet GLAAD had announced that the root of the concerns over the preponderance of drag events geared toward kids and families is a result of fear. This assertion was made on NPR podcast The Takeaway, in which a drag queen and GLAAD President l were interviewed by Melissa Harris Perry in the context of what they termed rising “dragphobia” across the US.
“Why dragphobia?” Perry asked, “Why in this moment? You started to give us this kind of legislative context, the baseless attacks on LGBTQ adults and particularly on young people. What political motivation is served in this kind of stoking of fear?”
This irrational fear of drag queens was used to condemn conservatives, GOP lawmakers, and parents who oppose sexually explicit content or performances being presented to children and teens. Instead of hearing concerns that drag is not a children’s medium, that kids don’t need to see grown men in a clown costume of femininity, emulating stereotypes, complete with sexually explicit stage names, GLAAD and NPR direct listeners to understand that not wanting kids exposed to drag is actually a means to “target” and “attack” the LGBTQ community.
GLAAD notably does not prop up sexually explicit female performers as socially acceptable entertainment for kids, such as strippers, burlesque performers, or exotic dancers, instead saying that it is the men in woman face that are sacred examples of the LGBTQ community who must be praised, supported, and allowed to dance for kids.
We know from academic literature on the subject that embedding drag performance and sensibilities into American classrooms is part of the intentional “queering” of education. The founders of Drag Queen Story Hour speak about the importance of “positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education.” We know that drag pedagogy is part of a program to break down children’s barriers and to open them to accepting gender identity as fact, while diminishing their understanding of biological sex.
Drag performances in schools and libraries focus on gender identity. The books that are typically read at Drag Queen Story Hour focus on stories of “trans kids,” boys who want to wear dresses and girls who always knew they were different, who don’t relate to feminine stereotypes. If the drag shows for kids were ideologically innocent, then why is their entire focus on gender identity?
Replying to Perry, Ellis said, “extremists on the right wing have found a way to continue to target our community and really have been able to amp up that targeting using right-wing media and social media.”
She claimed that this is a means to engender fear, and that is “creates hostility and hatred against our community.” To her, concerns expressed over the indoctrination of children into gender identity ideology, including the idea that a baby could be born in the wrong body, is the intentional targeting of “a very marginalized community, the LGBTQ community.”
This is the same “marginalized” community that has the ear of the President of the United States, has dozens of designated holidays throughout the year— from Pride Month to Coming Out Day to Trans Day of Remembrance, all of which are celebrated in government-funded public schools, whose representatives are routinely invited to White House events to tell the President and his administration about their experience, and whose community colors painted the White House in light, broadcasting a message of deference to the LGBTQ community across the world.
Nice to see the White House glowing in the colors of its national flag, the gay pride flag. This administration has worked hard to represent the country of LGBTistan. It has no interest in representing the United States, on the other hand. pic.twitter.com/iKIFpYutXA
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) December 14, 2022
