Far-right protests against drag queen storytimes are spreading across Australia in an effort to “silence us and create fear within the community”.
Youth-friendly events featuring drag performers have become a fixation of far-right politics across the world. Right-wing figures and groups falsely accuse these performers of “grooming” or “indoctrinating” children by exposing them to sexually explicit content. These attacks are typically based in anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment as the drag art form, while not limited to LGBTQIA+ communities, subverts gender terms through costume, makeup and performance.
While protests over drag events for children go back to at least 2020 in Australia, the frequency and intensity has reached a fever pitch in the past six months. The anti-drag event cause has drawn support from mainstream politicians like Liberal Senator Alex Antic and United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet.
Victoria has emerged as a hotspot for these protests. At least 10 LGBTQIA+ events have been cancelled or postponed over that period, largely due to fears over violence or threats levelled against organisers. Victorian councils met on Thursday to discuss how to respond to these attacks while the Andrews government hosted a drag storytime event at Victorian Parliament House to celebrate International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
While focused in Victoria, many of the same online figures and groups are also trying to drum up opposition to drag youth events in other states. Recent examples include:
- Launceston Library’s Drag Storytime that went ahead in February despite the Australian Christian Lobby calling for its cancellation.
- A monthly Rainbow Storytime at Newcastle Library that went ahead in April with the support of counter-protesters.
- The Drag Tag Comedy Show put on for Gympie Youth Week in Queensland that went ahead in April.
- Rainbow Storytime at Goulburn Library in NSW that was scheduled for June but has been cancelled by the council over safety concerns.
- The City of Perth’s Drag Storytime event, that went ahead on Wednesday in spite of protests.
These groups have also targeted other youth-focused LGBTQIA+ events such as social mixers and sex education events.
Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said these protests represent a “rising tide of hate” against LGBTQIA+ Australians.
“These extremist groups are being increasingly emboldened and it’s concerning to see their online abuse escalate to threats of violence against performers, families and, in some cases, councillors,” she said.
Brown called on politicians to denounce the protests and to take action to prevent acts of hate against the LGBTQIA+ community.
“With attacks on the rise, especially against the trans community, there is also an urgent need for laws at a national level, and in some states, to protect the LGBTQIA+ community from hate speech and vilification,” she said.
I have recently met with 2 academics, both Australian, with PHD’s from Princeton in Social Sciences. They have been studying the rise of the far-right groups in Australia. They consider it is alarming, far more than the powers that be, would have us believe. Most are clones of the US lunatic fringe such as Proud Boys, and are gaining a foothold in unis and political groups. They have a long term view.
Which is pathetic. No original cause of their own so they import Qanon style degeneracy from the US. Remind me again why they have a tendency to call people sheeple?
Projection
And to think we’ve hitched our security wagon to this lot.
You ever had one of those moments when one upvote just isn’t enough, WW?
There’s only one thing more terrifying than the US itself.
Sounds like they’d make good sub crew.
Not clones, you will find in the background direct links, shared content and tactics in the Anglosphere and parts of Europe, inc. old Soviet/Russian backed global Christian groups…..
One example is the UK based Free Speech Union of Spiked, Spectator & Daily Sceptic contributor Toby Young & Koch supported, which is one networked fulcrum of various RW conspiracies whether around LGBT, freedom of speech, climate/Covid science denial etc., then appears in legacy &/or social media globally for further propagation and revving up voters…..
Yes, very ‘unAustralian’ to protest what may be an Australian invention, if Mrs Flowerpots in Adventure Island (late 60s-early 70s ABC kids tv show) was the trail-blazer I think she may have been..?
(If you don’t count the extensive history of cross-dressing in theatre globally referred to below, that is)
I’ll rip yabluddy arms off.. me liddle luvly..
most kids find blokes dressed up as fairy princesses far less frightening than blokes dressed up as clowns – which goes to show most kids are smarter than the assorted pearl-clutchers out there
Or blokes carry an assault rifle or concealed handgun…
or murdering all your classmates
No, that’s merely the everyday expression of the national pastime………….
My home town had a Dolly Parton Festival last year. Why is unclear, but it was fun after 3 years of drought and a pandemic and then flooding. Kids loved it. There was music and dances and later, karaoke. There was also a “Mistress” of Ceremonies, a Dolly in drag. The kids in the choir and dance found it hugely amusing “isn’t funny? Dolly’s a man dressed up. Shakespeare depended on cross dressing, see Twelfth Night. Female parts were often done by boys. Pantomimes of course. There is no evidence that I can find to suggest that such a performer is likely to harm children and in any case if they want to perform they can always get a Working With Children Check. I just find it bizarre.
I don’t particularly like having people’s sexuality shoved up my nose eg Mardi Gras, but the few people I know who are gay, mainly lesbians seem to be just folks gettin on with it and walking to a different drum and given that such people have always been with us, we should get used to the fact.
That’s the thing. The performers do have Working with Children checks.
Female parts were done by boys and men for millennia. It started with the ancient Greeks and was still going strong in Shakespeare’s time. Pretty boys for the innocent ingenue parts and not so pretty men for the female characters the playwright wanted to mock, which was a lot of them in ancient times.
Interestingly, it was the same side of the political fence who were up in arms when actual women and girls started strutting their stuff on the boards. They’re never happy on that side of the fence. Must be all the knee pain from all that wear and tear from all that jerking. .
Chinese opera too has a tradition of men playing womens’ parts and vice versa.
If you’re shoving things up your nose then you aren’t doing it right.
The fundamental causes here are Conservatives’ general obsession with other people’s sex lives, and particular when they do not conform to “normal”. This is why you see little to no pushback from even moderates, except when things get physically violent.
A non-trivial fraction of them see little to no difference between homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, paedophilia, bestiality, etc.
And yet the biggest danger to children, statistically, has been almost entirely straight men, some of them married.
Not to mention the clergy
And straight men with lots of access to the child in the child’s own home, such as fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins and close family friends.
But the country’s still not ready to face up to that fact, it seems. Still pushing the “stranger danger” bit inspite of all the evidence to the contrary.
Unless we’re talking about First Nations communities, of course. We were quite happy to call all those males child abusers and back the Intervention.
And the biggest danger to women and children has always been at home, despite all those messages about stranger danger. I’d be surprised if public libraries rank in the top 100 of most dangerous locations – though the contents of many of their books no doubt express radical ideas that these protestors would oppose.
It amused me that during the Pandemic, the vanishingly small likelihood of an adverse reaction to a Vaccine was being blown up by these same people into a “Clear and present danger”………………
…….yet the chances of a woman being murdered by her partner were 10,000 times more likely.
Ah, the ‘normal’, sexually-conservative, church-going, mum & dad and two kids brigade. How often is it these folks who finally come tumbling out of closets that used to have firmly shut doors.
Surely there must be a mathematical expression for the inverse relationship between “Overt Piousness” and “Covert Perversion”……
…………..just look at the number of American TV Evangelists who have been sprung doing distasteful things to small furry animals and the like.
Every Conservative accusation is an admission of guilt, intent, or desire.
I agree, except that it’s not conservatives, it’s a far-right fringe.
We hosted drag story time with Frock Hudson in the front courtyard of Eltham Library — Rainbow Community Angels supported the event with marshals and Angels.
The cookers have almost no on the ground power unless the Police and other institutions create and maintain it for them. They had 40 people, we had 300.
This was a huge victory for the community, and showed we’re much better prepared to handle these situations than VicPol.
More power to you, the staff of Eltham Library and the Community Angels, Rohan. And, THANK-YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
Seen some really fantastic pix and videos of your action , Rohan. great work.