Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Conservatives everywhere are very upset by the idea of people dressing up and entertaining kids.
No, they aren’t talking about clowns, mall Santas, mascots or characters at theme parks. They’re talking about drag performers who read, sing and do crafts with children.
Family-friendly drag events across the country have become targets for right-wing harassment and vitriol, part of a larger wave of anti-LGBTQ backlash across the country.
A Drag Queen Story Hour in a Charlotte, N.C., park last weekend attracted protesters after Tyler Lee, a GOP congressional candidate, unsuccessfully tried to have the event canceled. Lee derisively labeled the event “Pedos in the Park.”
Lee then took it upon himself to write to the North Carolina General Assembly, urging legislators to protect children from the “very real predators looking for opportunities to traumatize them.”
Protesters also gathered at Union County’s first-ever Pride festival, which held its own Drag Queen Story Hour. Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., whose district includes Union County, took to Twitter to denounce the “perverse activity.”
Their argument seems to be that drag performers — many of whom are gay men — prey on innocent children and are therefore inherently dangerous. Tucker Carlson recently suggested on Fox News that taking children to drag shows is a form of child molestation, because it makes children “props in the sexual fantasies of adults.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis even threatened to use child protective services to investigate parents who take their children to these events.
None of this foul rhetoric is even close to true. Children who attend Drag Queen Story Hour hear stories like “I Am Enough,” which teaches self-confidence, or “Harriet Gets Carried Away,” a story about a girl who loves penguins (and just happens to have two dads). They sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”
“We are helping promote the fact that not everybody looks the same,” Joshua Jernigan, co-founder of the Charlotte chapter of Drag Queen Story Hour, told me.
As with most culture wars these days, though, the right’s purported concern for children is really just a feeble disguise for bigotry. Associating the LGBTQ community with pedophilia and sexual deviance is an ugly trope that has been used to stigmatize and oppress gay and trans people for decades, and Republicans just keep recycling it.
In some cases, it’s also about exploiting bigotry for political gain. It’s interesting that Lee is tapping into his public outrage about drag queens now, as a longshot U.S. House candidate running against incumbent Democrat Alma Adams. He didn’t mention the topic once in our Editorial Board interview this year. He would be far from the only Republican who uses others — be it drag queens, babies or migrants — as a prop to earn political points.
We saw the same bigotry in now-infamous laws rooted in the baseless myth that letting people use the bathroom that matched their gender identity would subject everybody else to voyeurism and sexual assault. We see it now, as Republicans try to silence the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity inside the classroom and accuse teachers of “grooming” children. It’s not true, and it’s harmful.
Conservatives often insist that they don’t have a problem with drag shows if they’re for adults, or if they’re held out of the public eye. But drag is not inherently sexual or adult themed. Putting self-expression in the same category as strip clubs and R-rated movies implies that some people can only truly exist in the shadows.
If there’s one thing we do need to shield children from, it’s the notion that it’s only OK to be yourself behind closed doors. That’s exactly the kind of twisted narrative that makes LGBTQ youths more likely to be victims of bullying, and why they experience much higher rates of depression and suicide. Drag queens will not traumatize a child by reading them a story — but LGBTQ people are traumatized every day by rhetoric that makes them feel like they have to hide.
“We celebrate our differences, and a lot of people who are protesting celebrate the conformity of their particular ideologies,” Jernigan said. “So I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”
Paige Masten is a columnist for The Charlotte Observer.