Drag Queen Story Hour

June 13, 2017 12:24 PM

"Well, I guess I was born a boy,” she replied. “But I like to dress like a girl. It’s for fun."
posted by dfm500 (21 comments total)

“Apparently, people around the country are interested in having their tax dollars spent paying for drag queens to read to their children,”

YES PLEASE
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:41 PM on June 13, 2017 [43 favorites]

ThePinkSuperhero: YES PLEASE

I second this.
posted by SansPoint at 12:44 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think we should have drag queens read the Constitution to Congress every week or so.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:52 PM on June 13, 2017 [47 favorites]

The drag queens are volunteering, so really the bit people are offended by is either libraries being funded or drag queens being able to use them.
posted by Artw at 2:43 PM on June 13, 2017 [23 favorites]

What sort of outcry would there be if there were a children’s event promoting American exceptionalism...

If he were to stop right there, that exceptionalism includes the freedom to dress up like a woman for fun, unless you're against freedom, Mr. "we need more kid's story books about buying guns to prepare for the eventual time you feel the need to shoot another person."
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:57 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

And least you think this is only happening in NY and SF, we just had a very successful Drag Queen Story Time here in Indianapolis. More than 100 attendees!
posted by headspace at 2:58 PM on June 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

“Apparently, people around the country are interested in having their tax dollars spent paying for drag queens to read to their children,”

I don't have kids but I am all for drag queens reading stories to other people's children (especially if I can listen too!).
posted by mcduff at 3:10 PM on June 13, 2017

Friends of mine are doing a drag queen story hour in Chicago! It started at a bookstore, but it got so popular that it will now be held at the Center on Halsted, an LGBT community center.
posted by merriment at 3:17 PM on June 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

In the interest of balance, I would like to see children read stories to drag queens.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:42 PM on June 13, 2017 [32 favorites]

In the interest of balance, I would like to see the children drag race queens.

Librarian: How do we smash the patriarchy?

Children/royalty: A QUARTER MILE AT A TIME!
posted by stet at 4:01 PM on June 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Also children racing on dragons in Queens.
posted by Artw at 4:56 PM on June 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

As every drag queen knows, reading IS fundamental.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:23 PM on June 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

It should be happening at Pride in Seattle again this year, (it's on the schedule,) but Pride is so huge... I tried to take my daughter to it last year and we couldn't find the storytime.

This just seems so fun. I still remember, as a child at Pride, meeting the real-life Glinda the Good Witch. It was so magical. I was super into Oz and it pretty much made my year. (I didn't figure out she was a drag queen or not actually Glinda for years, though.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 5:48 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The way some of the detractors are talking, it's like these activities are compulsory for every child in the vicinity. Hmm.

MANDATORY DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR

I'm not opposed to this. Pls use my tax dollars, where can I give you some more?
posted by ananci at 6:00 PM on June 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

This thread gives me hope.
posted by greermahoney at 6:47 PM on June 13, 2017

Speaking of children's stories and gender nonconformity, have you heard about Red?
posted by ikea_femme at 6:59 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Drag should be scary and subversive and wild...i worry about it being cutefied, but then I think about Max, and Sendak and---you know, introducing kids to monsters at a young age, that's not a bad thing.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:46 PM on June 13, 2017

You're worried they might form some kind of island cult?
posted by Artw at 8:58 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Drag should be scary and subversive and wild...i worry about it being cutefied, but then...

Yes definitely. This is wonderfully subversive. It reminds me so much of when I started presenting femme, dropping my kids off at childcare, and having the other kids ask "are you a boy or a girl?"

Perhaps it's the very counterculture neighbourhood I live in, but it was really lovely seeing how the kids really don't find gender nonconformity at all weird. They're totally obsessed with the AMAB/AFAB distinction, but utterly chill about how that maps onto masc/femme.

I wonder if I can arrange​ something like this at my kids childcare centre. I think they'd love it. Especially if we could get some drag kings involved!
posted by scarlet starlet at 10:48 PM on June 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

I giggle at some of the writing here, like how it suggests that San Francisco has one public library.

Honey Mahogany, a drag queen in San Francisco, reads stories to children at a local Drag Queen Story Hour event at the city’s public library

Honey has been to several SFPLs, including the one that's a block from my house. Our kids are 16--21, but the middle kid in that range still went with us to that story hour.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:44 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was so pleased to see this when I went to the SF Main to do paperwork for returning to work at SFPL after many years. I was like "Go Team!". Also, they've always had really cool exhibits and events like punk ephemera and rare SF punk and experimental music videos, videos of Survival Research Labs, exhibits on underground gay and lesbian bars in the 1940s and 1950s (the butch women looked so cool back then) and all kinds of little-known local history.

Nice to see that this is a national thing that extends beyond the Bay Area; I didn't know that.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 8:39 PM on June 14, 2017