Michelle Goldberg: "Leave Drag Queen Story Hour Alone"

Sometimes one quote tells you all you need to know about a story:

Rather than a plot to corrupt children, Drag Queen Story Hour, which started in San Francisco and has spread to cities across the country, is another sign that the cultural left has been domesticated. Instead of performing in seedy bars, drag queens are using their love of music, theatricality and elaborate costumes to help caregivers entertain little kids. It’s a way, said Jonathan Hamilt, a co-founder of the program, for the performers “to get out of the night life and into their communities, their neighborhoods, their towns where they live, and give back.”[My emphasis]

Thank God this thing from seedy bars is now a thing for kids! Talk about wholesome! And: it's all about "helping caregivers entertain little kids"! It's about "giving back"!

   Look. I have no sympathy for the conservatives Goldberg cites who want to ban such things. But that borders on a straw man. The reasonable question isn't Should this be banned? It's: WTF? And: Why do you think this is a good idea? And: In the public library? Really? That something shouldn't be banned doesn't mean that it isn't gross and creepy. This is how the loony left and the loony right help each other out.

   The idea that this is about "helping caregivers" isn't particularly what we call "plausible" here on Earth... This is--or certainly appears to be--about exposing little kids to a sexual fetish. If it isn't part of the general initiative by the cultural left to indoctrinate kids about sex and gender...well...why on Earth would it seem to be masquerading as that?  (A commonly-available video shows one such dude singing "the hips on the drag queen go swish, swish, swish," and then asking the little kids "who wants to be a drag queen when they grow up?" (And if you haven't been informed about "Desmond Is Amazing" and "Lactatia"...well..I envy you. Don't Google them at work. Or just don't Google them. You'll be happier if you don't.)) I simply don't believe that this is some purely innocent bit of public service. Sorry! Guess I'm a bigot! There are only about a thousand other things these dudes could have done if public service were the aim--things that don't, y'know, involve kids. And that don't specifically involve encouraging kids to become transvestites. Pick up litter or something.

   Is this the arc we're on now?: 

Is there anything inherently wrong with x? 

Uh...well...no. I mean...it's your life, bro...you should be free to live as you like. 

OK THEN LET US DO IT TO YOUR KIDS...

   Hell, man, I don't even have kids... Seems like I shouldn't have to be the one to pull the alarm on this one. I mean--you want to expose your kids to such stuff, that's on you. I'm mostly objecting to pretending that it isn't what it obviously is. I doubt that it's some Earth-shattering trauma for your average kid...but be honest about what it is and what you're doing.

  It's not like I have some big problem with drag queens. I've been around them now and then, and I view them with the same indifference I view other people doing harmless and weird shit. One of the local bars used to have occasional drag nights--you'd know when it was because you'd be sitting there drinking...and the clientele would start gradually changing... So what? Who's business is it? Involving little kids and public libraries, however...well...that raises real questions that deserve serious consideration. Though I have to say...not every drag queen is just a perfectly ordinary dude in a dress...

   Look, I'm absolutely all for an open and sexually liberated society. I'm no prude by any freaking stretch of the imagination. But I'm also not stupid. It's absurd to expect us to believe that this is some entirely innocent bit of public service. That claim would be incredible even if it weren't set against the backdrop of a massive push to force transgender ideology onto society--oh and: especially kids. This is a part of a widespread political project that aims to upset gender norms. To which I'm not necessarily opposed if it doesn't involve weird shit directed at kids. I mean, when you think about it, the "sex/gender system" is itself (largely, anyway) a kind of brainwashing of kids. And I've got my objections to that. I'm not actually conservative about this stuff. I'm just not moronically gullible about it, either.