Just about all LGBTQ people have a story about something that confirmed for them that they were LGBTQ. For me, it was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. That is, you might say, my root.
For the next generation of LGBTQ folks, their root will be Drag Queen Storytime at their local library.
A whole host of kids who would have otherwise been 100 percent heterosexual and have a rigidly traditional masculine or feminine gender identity that matches 100 percent with their genitals will now grow up to be some variety of gender-nonconforming homo. Ugh, and they’ll probably love books and reading, too.
Thankfully, a group that calls itself MassResistance is rising from the depths to defeat the drag-queen, story-hour menace and make sure children are trained up to be bigots just like them.
Yes, I used the “B” word, which I know MassResistance would take offense to. As the group writes on its website, “It’s becoming common for the media or left-wing public officials to attempt to marginalize any group of people who oppose the liberal agenda and support religious values by publicly calling them a ‘hate group.’”
Well, I call MassResistance a hate group. And I’d love to attend a Drag Queen Storytime.
MassResistance’s latest focus is on Michigan, my home state, where they are forming a chapter. And MR has a pretty interesting view of how LGBTQ-friendly Michigan is.
“The LGBT movement has been plowing ahead at the local level, and even the state level, in Michigan,” the MR website reads. “Republican Party members have developed a pro-gay attitude and even reach out to ‘gay’ groups, we’ve been told. Sadly, this even includes former Michigan GOP chair and current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.”
So Michigan Republicans are on some kind of pro-equality mission? I’ve lived in Michigan my whole life and I can tell you that the GOP isn’t pro-LGBTQ, and Betsy DeVos sure isn’t leading any Pride parades.
“Thankfully,” the MR website continues, “Michigan pro-family activists have held back most of these changes, but as is happening across the country, the homosexual-transgender ideology is still making headway on the Wolverine State.”
Case in point: Mass Resistance’s first target: shutting down Drag Queen Storytime at the Huntington Woods Library.
“Drag Queen Storytime captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models,” the library’s website reads. “In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress-up is real.”
Now, to me, this sounds amazing. But to the hateful folks at MassResistance, it sounds downright apocalyptic.
“Drag Queen Story Hour is nothing more than a subtle push of the harmful and immoral LGBT ideas,” MR warns in a poorly written message. “This agenda is anti-family, anti-life, anti-biology, and it is coming for your children!”
That doesn’t appear to bother the parents who bring their kids to the Storytime. As one parent told the local news about his 2- and 3-year-olds, “We just wanted them to have these early memories of experiencing diversity as a social norm.”
MassResistance believes that this parent is committing child abuse. Its members also have no idea what the difference is between being transgender and drag-queen performance. They are very confused.
In an email to the library, MR Organization Director Arthur Schaper wrote, “The very idea of allowing adult, perverse entertainment into a public library and offering it to preschoolers — it is beyond outrageous.”
I’d have to agree, if that’s what was happening. Drag shows can definitely get pretty raunchy. But this isn’t a drag show. This is a person in a costume reading a kids’ book to kids.
In a local news story about the library event, there is a photo of a child with fairly long hair who is wearing pajamas with footballs on them. No doubt someone is holding this picture up at a MassResistance chapter meeting screaming, “Is this a boy or a girl? How can we know for sure? CURSE YOU DRAG QUEENS!”
And hey, I didn’t even know that there was a Drag Queen Storytime at a library near me, so I thank MR for letting me know. My son’s a little too old for it, but you can bet your Mass that we’re going to be at the next one.
Because you know what’s a real drag? Hatred and illiteracy. Drag queens reading to kids combats both.
D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.