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Letter: Drag Queen Story Hour – not what you may think

February 26, 2019 By David Anderson

We were crossing Death Valley and you just simply cannot do that without stopping somewhere along the road, enticing all your little family to exit the air-conditioned van leaving their water bottles behind, and belly-up a sand dune, bare feet dragging uselessly behind in a desperate search for water.

Image Source – Cover of handout to DQSH presentation at the Public Library Association National Convention, March 23, 2018

It was all fun-and-games for a photo-op.

Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is not that.

DQSH is a barren, waterless wasteland spreading across America where in libraries and schools “men dressed up as garishly adorned women read LGBTQ-themed books to young children.”

Under the guise of promoting acceptance, inclusivity and diversity, DQSH in truth is purposed “to promote deviancy” and “to groom the next generation.”

“This is going to be the grooming of the next generation,” said drag queen Dylan Pontiff in his address to the Lafayette City-Parish Council in Louisiana.

“We are trying to groom the next generation.”

Pontiff helped organize a DQSH for children as young as three at the Lafayette Public Library, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com. 

In March of 2018, the Public Library Association (PLA) hosted its biennial national conference in the City of Brotherly Love – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – and among the programs offered was one entitled “Drag Queen Story Hour: Reading Fabulously”.

Shared with attendees for titles to read in setting up their own DQSH were those that “best support a program for young children exploring gender fluidity.”

First listed on the program handout touting the spread of “The Ever Growing Queendom” was Rachel Aimee, New York City DQSH chapter founder.

Speaking of spreading, those in the audience during the DQSH presentation of that March meeting of library enthusiasts – official representatives and staff – from across the country may or may not have known that Aimee co-founded in 2005, developed and was editor-in-chief of “$pread”, a sex-workers magazine.

“$pread” was “criticized by some branches of feminism that believe that sex work is inherently degrading.”

Aimee believes otherwise.

Aimee’s “$pread” website declares of her magazine staff, “Most of us are real sex workers. Among us are street workers, pro-dommes, escorts, strippers, nude models, porn workers and pretty much anything else you can think of.”

“The assumption that sex workers are too dumb to publish a magazine really pisses us off,” Aimee wrote.

When asked what was next for “$pread”, Aimee responded “We’re looking for sex workers to paint, mutilate, or otherwise decorate sex toys” for her then-upcoming show’s special exhibit entitled “One Sex Worker Nation Under Dildo.”

If your search engine is set to filter out adult content, then you may not know what ‘dildo’ means, nor the world Aimee envisioned.

Did the members of your library association where you live attend the Rachel Aimee, NYC Director of DQSH, sponsored event at the March 2018 Public Library Association conference in Philadelphia?

And, just as important, even as political districts vet their candidates, does your library district screen for character those who would stand before your children, your grandchildren, the children of your community? 

Does it matter?

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Comments

  1. David Anderson says

    February 26, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    Just so readers understand that the sordid associations with DQSH are not isolated; and neither should such associations be summarily dismissed as if to suggest that the past does not haunt the present or that we can be one thing when around children but another after hours at night; or well, after all, New York is a long way from here and they’re not us and that wouldn’t happen here, consider what happened just this month, February 9, just down the road at Vancouver Community Library.

    “Clare Apparently” – who grew up as Kit Crosland – read to the children during DQSH.

    Vancouver library officials call DQSH “an effort to reach out and make marginalized people in our community feel safe and welcome. It’s a way to teach tolerance, teach self-acceptance and prevent bullying they said.

    “As an organization, we feel it’s an important part of our mission to look at equity, diversity and inclusion,” said Amelia Shelley, executive director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries system.

    “We want to normalize the message that everybody is different.”

    Is it not also, Shelley, an important part of your mission to look at who, exactly, you are promoting as normal? Can you in good conscience say it does not matter who you are or what you do when the sun goes down and the stage lights come on?

    Did you even look?

    Because the children who hear “Clare Apparently” read to them stories during DQSH can do what you, Shelley, should have done and that is YouTube “Clare Apparently’s” performance in “Ms. Frizzle” from one year ago.

    Fair warning to readers. Don’t do it. This individual is who the Executive Director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries system promoted for children’s story hour in her library.

  2. Joseph Boyle says

    February 27, 2019 at 9:45 am

    Mr. Anderson,

    It is my opinion there is a strong need to teach young and old alike to not bully, to be kind, to be accepting, and to understand differences.

    The people allowing and promoting Drag Queen Story Hour are using the strong need referenced above to justify a pathetic and dangerous effort to recruit our children and grandchildren to a lifestyle full of trouble and heartache. The effort appears to attempt to confuse children on what is normal.

    I watched a video of Drag Queen Story Hour where the male reader appearing as a woman, enthusiastically asked preschool children, “Who wants to be a drag queen?” Several who raised their hands, were obviously did not know what they were volunteering for.

    There is federal legislation being promoted to mandate age-appropriate sex education in our public schools. Kids are asking for this kind of education to help stop the sex abuse victimization in our schools.

    Age-appropriate sex education that teaches students about alternate life styles can be constructive, especially when they learn about abuses.

    Normalizing abnormal behavior and recruiting young children into problematic lifestyles is pathetic, dangerous, and ridiculous in my opinion.

    Do we need education? Yes, but Drag Queen Story Hour is not an intelligent way to go about it in my opinion.

    Stop the world. I want to get off.

    Thanks for informing us Mr. Anderson.

    Joseph Boyle

  3. Dandy miller says

    March 4, 2019 at 2:40 pm

    I would be more concerned with my children being around whoever wrote this article. Clearly a delusional, hate filled and blindly ignorant and insecure person.

    • Michael Cullinan says

      March 24, 2019 at 7:37 pm

      “I would be more concerned with my children being around whoever wrote this article.”

      You would rather have your children be around this charmer, then:

      “The Houston Public Library admitted Friday that one of its “Drag Queen Storytime” storytellers was a registered child sex offender….”

      “A spokesperson for the library said that Alberto Garza, 32, has posed as drag queen Tatiana Mala Nina, but was first uncovered by Mass Resistance, a Houstonian group that pledged to end the drag queen reading program.”

      www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/sex-offender-busted-drag-queen-who-read-book-children-city-library-1365384%3famp=1

      Clearly, you need to do some rethinking.

  4. Michael Cullinan says

    March 24, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    Last week it came out that one of the DQSH queens reading to children at the Houston public library had previously been convicted for sexual assault on a child.

    Like they said, they’re grooming the next generation.

    David Anderson, you are right on, sir.

    Given the lifestyle of those who use children as props for their agenda, and given what they like to do when they are not at the library, this is not random and isolated.

    The Houston library has canceled the program for now, but say they will bring it back. It’s hard to believe adults can be so astoundingly stupid.

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