In regards to the story about local businesses being intimidated about having family drag shows (“SLO businesses receive intimidating messages about drag performances,” Dec. 1), here’s support from another local business owner:
Hi, my name is Namu. I’m the owner of Namu.Love and I want to make this abundantly clear: I live and work in SLO County, and if you’re a business or business owner who supports, encourages, or spews anti-LGBTQ-plus rhetoric like “family drag shows are grooming kids,” then you will never have my business, I will caution my network not to use you, and I will do everything legally within my power to make sure the general public knows about your homophobic stances. It’s 2022, and there is no place in our world for that kind of hate.
And for the unnamed aggressor in the article? I’m not like you. I don’t hide online, I stand by my words publicly—you know why? Because I choose love. You choose hate, so of course you don’t want your name or your businesses name attached to your hateful beliefs. That’s what failure as a human looks like.
To the LGBTQ-plus/drag community in SLO and surrounding areas: You are an important and valuable part of our community, and you are welcome here. All the love, y’all.
Namu Williams
Pismo Beach
This article appears in Last-Minute Gift Guide 2022.
What is the point of drag shows for kids? Why do it in the first place? I have never heard kids clamoring to go see a drag review, so I am pretty sure it isn’t their idea. It appears that they are merely being used as props in a larger campaign.
“It appears that they are merely being used as props in a larger campaign.”
That’s basically true. The goal is to teach children to understand that everyone is not like them and that diversity is perfectly normal. You and I grew up in a world that ridiculed and shunned gay men. We made fun of cross-dressers and they were often the butt of jokes.
Unfortunately, this mentality has led to violence against the gay community such as the Pulse nightclub shootings that killed 49 people or the recent shootings at an LGBTQ club in Colorado that killed five. These shooters were driven by their hatred of what they thought was abnormal.
If children are able to accept differences and not be blinded by bigotry or homophobic feelings, maybe these shootings won’t be so commonplace in the future. I sincerely doubt that children will be traumatized by hearing a gay man dressed like a woman read a story. They might actually be entertained.
@michael Smith: You are aware that the shooter in Colorado Springs was a member of the LGBTQ community? Whatever was going on in his twisted, hateful mind is hard to blame on conservative views.
While seeing a man dressed as a woman might not “traumatize” a child, why do it in the first place? Is it necessary to expose kids to everything which is unconventional? That can cover a lot which may not be beneficial. And, as we are often reminded, drag is not synonymous with gay, nor does it provide an accurate representation of the gay community, most of whom do not dress or present as women, so how does it fight homophobia? It is just a political stunt designed to shock people, using children as pawns.
Good retort Mr. Donegan.
So, my question would be how do we “fight homophobia” or racism for that matter, if not by exposing children to people who are not like them so that they may understand the humanity in all people. After all, drag queens are people, too. They have families and loved ones, etc.
I also wonder how it is a “political stunt”? What, gay people might vote Democratic because of it? I have news for you, those folks already vote Democratic. In fact, The Hill reports that more than 80% of people who are in the LGBTQ community voted for Democrats in the Midterm elections.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3740…
No, exposing children to diversity is the smart thing to do and will produce a better nation in the long run. Sitting through a drag queen story hour is about the same as listening to a recital of Shakespeare for most kids. I would argue that both are essential.
The idea of the benefits of merely “exposing children to diversity” might be more problematic than “essential”. For example, taking kids to a fundamentalist revival meeting, with snake handling, talking in tongues, etc, would certainly expose them to the sort of diversity they are not likely encounter otherwise, but would you want to do it? Or, taking kids to hear a lecture by an extreme Muslim cleric, detailing their thoughts on the status of women, etc.? Both represent large segments of society in a world which the child must live, but which they are otherwise probably not exposed to. Both would help eliminate religious intolerance against those groups. Would taking the child of liberal parents to a Trump rally be beneficial? Most of us are selective about the experiences we want children to have, and I am unable to see how listening to a man dressed as a woman read a book, provides a special benefit to kids.
No objection to any of those scenarios, Mr. Donegan.
I was exposed to a Pentecostal meeting when I was 10 in 1950. Talking in tongues, all the nonsense. My grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado and he would often show off his robes. Quite proud of them. I remember lectures about how blacks were different from “us.” He had a particular beef with Willie Mays, whom he described as a monkey. My father campaigned for Strom Thurmond in 1948 and later for George Wallace.
I can’t imagine that seeing a man in drag reading a story could be quite as horrific for a child.
You’re comparing gradients of harm. Why subject a child to any of them?