The new stunt of staging “family friendly” drag queen reviews and readings for children illustrates the apparent weakening of one of the few remaining points of consensus in the increasingly bitter culture wars: “Kids are off limits.”
For example, one small positive point in our political warfare is that, while first ladies have been fair game, the minor children of the president have been generally left alone. Obama’s daughters, George W. Bush’s daughters, and Chelsea Clinton, all received minimal and generally favorable media coverage. Biden, Reagan, and Bush Sr. had no minor children while in office. Other than Rosie O’Donnell’s shameless suggestion that Baron Trump must be autistic, he was pretty much left alone. This restraint must have taken a lot of self-control on the part of the rabid partisans.
But recent years have seen the shameful use of children as “props” in political demonstrations in both conservative and liberal causes. We have all seen young children at demonstrations with their rabidly partisan parents carrying signs that they were unable to either read or understand, and joining in scripted chants for the TV cameras. Still, taking kids to drag reviews is a new low.
Why do it in the first place? What’s the objective? Drag has always been an adult thing involving the sexually suggestive. What possible interest of the child is being served? While I have heard many children demanding a trip to Disneyland or to Chuck E. Cheese, I have never heard even one express an interest in going to see men dressed as women, whether reading or in a cabaret act. If you are just trying to engage kids in reading, what makes a drag queen an especially suitable person to read to children? Why not, say, superheroes? This stunt is being done by parents trying to demonstrate how progressive they are, not for the benefit of their kids.
If your objective is merely to expose kids to different lifestyles, why drag queens? They don’t represent the LGBTQ community, most of whom dress in gender-appropriate clothing and don’t affect the exaggerated mannerism of drag queens. How much “training” can a small child grasp? At an early age, the most intellectually digestible and useful lesson can be easily distilled down to, “Some people are different than you. Don’t mess with them.”
Want to stop the bullying of LGBTQ kids? Start enforcing the rules and suspend bullies, although the educational establishment seems allergic to the idea of suspending problem kids. It is unfortunate that teachers have been hamstrung in maintaining control by laws such as the California statute forbidding the suspension of disruptive students.
It is obvious that one of the objectives is to taunt those with traditional values. It is easy to visualize the free-associational thought process that produced this tactic. Some confrontational activists were searching for something they could do that would really outrage middle America, but without getting them arrested. “Hey! Drag queens! Why not take kids to drag reviews and readings by drag queens? It’s not illegal, but it will really piss those people off … .” And then, after provoking the intended outcry, they can launch into the predictable display of performative victimization.
It is pretty obvious from stunts like these that the unstated agenda is to not only provoke middle America, but to normalize gender fluidity and sexual exploration. These kids are being “weaponized” for the “war on gender.” But is this helpful? Like it or not, these kids will be growing up in a conventionally gendered world determined by biology, so why confuse them? Kids will get the message that their existing gender is “wrong” and that they should be something else. Plus, the rest of the LBGTQ community, most of whom are happy with their gender, will be impacted by association with the public reaction to these tactics. Provoking and offending the rest of society seem like poor methods to achieving the goal of societal acceptance.
Nearly everyone feels protective toward children, so why exploit them in a way that offends and polarizes people? Politically, it will not win over any of the centrist voters that the Democrats need to win elections, and playing to the progressive fringe and those who like to challenge all convention is a losing strategy. Are Democrats in such thrall to the herd instincts of their liberal tribe that they are willing to figuratively swarm, lemming-like, off of the cliff in solidarity with the relatively small portion of the the Democratic constituency who just want to outrage moderates and conservatives? Δ
John Donegan is a retired attorney in Pismo Beach, who would look fetching in a skirt, but who doesn’t have the legs for it and lacks the musical talent to do cabaret. Send a response to letters@newtimesslo.com and New Times just might publish it.
This article appears in Spring Arts Annual 2023.
I’m curious, John, if you feel the same sense of outrage at the congressmen who post Christmas cards showing their children holding AR15s.
Steve, I like guns but they are pretty inappropriate for a Christmas card.
Yeah! The Republican Party wants to make it illegal to be trans in public. So why are these wokes actively trying to suggest that it’s ok to be trans in public! Seems like performative nonsense to me! Best to just keep those people hidden. Another good one John. Keep ’em coming.
“Self constraint on the part of rabid partisans” obviously did not apply to right wing hero Rush Limbaugh, who derided Amy Carter as the “most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of our country” and who called Chelsea Clinton a dog, twice. Didn’t seem to apply to the GOP communications specialist who attacked Obama’s daughters–then 13 and 16–implying that they dressed like prostitutes. Didn’t apply to the NRA when they invoked a threat to Obama’s daughters in an ad that prompted former GOP Congressmember Joe Scarborough to ask, “What’s WRONG with these people?” When Malia Obama was admitted to Harvard, commenters on the Fox News site expressed hope that she would “get cancer or AIDS or one of those colored diseases.” And yes, some idiots went after W’s daughters, because tastelessness is way too common.
But those corrections notwithstanding, Donegan is correct in noting that Drag Queens are not representative of “all” gay men and obviously not of gay women, some of whom have been especially critical of drag culture for engaging in stereotypes of female behavior. That’s all fair. But the real point of exposing children to drag queens is to provide counterplay to the scurrilous narrative that drag queens are predators, and by extension that gay men tend toward pedophilia. I worked in Child Welfare for (yikes) 40 years, and can count on one hand the incidents of child sexual abuse perpetrated by gay men, while it would take a stadium’s cumulative hands to count the sexual abuse perpetrated upon children by opposite sex stepparents, boyfriends, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers—the list goes on. And we didn’t even investigate all the child sex crimes perpetrated by “youth pastors,” scout leaders, coaches, and others who hang around kids for the same reason that Willie Sutton hung around banks, because Child Welfare only investigates familial abuse.
Drag can be naughty and even vulgar, but not often. There is no nudity. There is a great deal of over-the-top silliness and play-acting, but much of it goes “over the head” of younger viewers. It is less sexual and certainly less violent than many video games and movies. As someone recently noted, if I were given a choice between leaving my minor children alone in a room full of drag queens or a room full of straight businessmen, I would not hesitate to leave them with the queens. Not only would they be safe, they would be entertained.
“the apparent weakening of one of the few remaining points of consensus in the increasingly bitter culture wars: “Kids are off limits.”
This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I have ever read. Kids have never been off limits, in any culture, anywhere, at anytime. Want proof, just visit a church on sunday morning, or a school on a weekday, and you will see children being taught all kinds of political and cultural ideas, lots of simplified ideas about a complicated world.
“Like it or not, these kids will be growing up in a conventionally gendered world determined by biology, so why confuse them?”
Wrong again. The world is changing, slower than I would like, much faster than you seem to want.
Ian: The world may be changing, but most are not buying your brave, new genderless world. You are sort of like the guy who thinks he is leading a parade, and hasn’t turned around to notice that he is marching alone. There is a lot more to the country than the reliably liberal community of SLO.
Tsankawi: If you are trying to fight the narrative that LGBTQ people are predators, this fixation on performing drag for kids is hardly an effective tactic, and in fact, reinforces that narrative. Using drag queens, with their flamboyant, over-the-top dress and antics. as the representatives of LGBTQ people, does little to reassure society that the LGBTQ community are just regular folks like everyone else.
Neighborhood: “Illegal to be trans in public”? Really? Ridiculous hyperbole is hardly convincing, and not likely to get anyone to buy into your victimhood narrative. Keeping kids out of drag reviews, just like we already keep them out of bars, is hardly an assault on anyone’s rights.
Alt-Right commentators have no business professing to care about children.They celebrate mass shootings by wearing AR-15 lapel pins and revile, threaten and terrorize school massacre survivors and parents of slain first graders.
I find it hilarious that John Donegan presumes himself to be a great arbiter of the extremes of both sides, yet is so stuck in his Fox News bubble that he isn’t aware of the very real anti-trans legislation being passed in Republican state leglislatures across the country. John, if I wanted your level of analysis, I could just turn on the tv. Please, find some friends or talk about something more interesting, for both of our sakes.
I don’t watch Fox or any conservative news channel. I get my news from liberal sources like Yahoo and Newsy, whose earnest reporting of lefty lunacy gives me plenty to mock.
Yahoo and Newsy?!? Sheesh, so that is this guys problem.
Well, Newsy is admittedly pretty weak, but Yahoo just compiles pieces from other publications, like your sainted NY Times and Washington Post (although they’re about as credible as the National Enquirer). I also watch the SLO and Santa Barbara news, as well as PBS.
John is right of course….love to read libby’s response….very entertaining
John Donegan – you comment here, “I don’t watch Fox News or any conservative channel. I get my news from liberal sources like Yahoo and Newsy, whose earnest reporting of lefty lunacy gives me plenty to mock.” So your only purpose in keeping yourself up to date on current events and what’s going on around you, in this country and the world is because it enables you to better mock people? Sad.