On the day of a drag storytime show hosted by the City of Perth Library earlier this month, 6PR Mornings host Gary Adshead took calls from listeners about the event.
He welcomed a caller “Dennis” who said it was “complete child exploitation”. He breathlessly ranted down the phone: “The fact that there’s even an argument that something like this has any validity shows just how far as a society we’ve gone. These people are child groomers.”
The caller was Dennis Huts, a well-known former member of the far-right extremist group United Patriots Front. He went on to gleefully share a clip of the interview on his Telegram account, and was later captured repeatedly making a Nazi salute at a protest against the drag storytime show later that day.
Huts is one of the many extreme figures and groups who use both traditional and social media to seed anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment around the country. Beyond breadcrumbing — “where a person drops nibbles of interest with the aim of engaging with someone else” as a recruitment tool — neo-Nazi figures and groups have emerged as a major instigator and promoter of drag show protests across Australia. The far right has not only been an organising force behind these protests but crucial to their spread.
Crikey has seen more than 10 examples of protests launched or promoted by online neo-Nazi figures and groups, who are not named here so as to avoid unnecessarily amplifying their reach.
In some cases, these protests were the brainchild of these far-right figures. One such example was at Newcastle Library’s monthly Rainbow Storytime which has been held repeatedly without issue.
Earlier this month, a member of the National Socialist Network posted a picture of the online event listing to Telegram with the caption “Share far and wide. This sick agenda has to be stopped”. This message was shared across Telegram, including a channel popular with the freedom movement, and across other social media channels. This resulted in a protest against the event (albeit one that was drastically outnumbered by counter-protesters).
Another post about drag show protests from a fringe, extreme account spread across less extreme and unaffiliated groups. In another example a single Telegram post from an Australian far-right “pseudo-news” website about the Perth protest was forwarded at least 17 times through other conspiracy Telegram channels.
The far right is open about its motivation for these protests. Online, it posts about how it believes its attacks on drag shows — which are based on unfounded smears that associate drag and the LGBTQIA+ community with paedophilia — are more popular with the general public than its other views.
“This week represents a swing of 98% of the population towards an openly ‘Nazi’ position,” National Socialist Network leader Thomas Sewell celebrated on Telegram after the Monash Council cancelled its event in response to threats of violence.
But ironically these far-right groups have also shown themselves to tolerate the views they claim to be campaigning against. Late last week, an anonymous anti-fascist researcher Alternative Media Watchers posted clips of an Australian neo-Nazi, who has been actively promoting drag show protests online, arguing, on a Twitter Space, in favour of having relationships with underage women.
“Well I don’t give a shit about the laws of this country, according to Catholic canon law, a woman can marry at 14 and a man can marry at 16, so, to me that’s reasonable,” he said.
Who even knew libraries had drag storytelling for kids? Seems harmless enough to me. I thank the homophobic, anti trans fruitloops for bringing it to my attention.
Exactly, most Australians would have no idea, but from social media it’s clear that much of the anti-LGBT, anti-woke, anti Net Zero etc. agitprop is imported from the UK &/or US where content has been originally curated, then reshared by local influencers & accounts with large numbers of followers (on Twitter no doubt helped by algorithm changes).
Good example is UK’s Toby Young who contributes to Spectator & Spiked, linked to CPACs, Free Speech Union, Daily Sceptic etc. with oligarch support; absolutely prolific on Twitter …..
Yet another import from the that strange land across the pond, the so called USA.
A nation in which thanks to the now GQP and The Radge Orange Bampot’s mendacity and exhibition of a Neo Führerprinzip enabled homophobic, misogynistic and racist behaviour and language to be regarded as the way to conduct what is believed to be “civil discourse”
A nation that has turned to complaining about drag shows and drag queen story telling , all the while running very strange almost toddler aged so called “beauty pageant”with girls as young as 5 parading around.
Often such pageants encourage contestants to emulate grown women, applying heavy makeup to create full lips, long eyelashes, and flushed cheeks, wearing high heels and revealing “evening gowns”, and doing provocative dance steps, poses or facial expressions. These things are not only preferred but expected if a child is to win the contest.
In 2013, France banned pageants for children under age of 13 years, on the grounds that they promote the “hyper-sexualisation” of minors.
France has also voted to regulate pageants for children aged 13–15. France is the first western country to ban child pageants.
grâce à Guardian, NYT, WaPo , Wikipedia et al.
Thanks for making that point about child beauty pageants which are very popular in conservative parts of the US, I’ve always found them extremely creepy, I doubt the proud boys will be protesting such events.
Oh it’s worse than that. Attempts to ban men marrying girls have been thwarted by Evangelicals in multiple US states.. See the group Unchained At Last
Late last week, an anonymous anti-fascist researcher Alternative Media Watchers posted clips of an Australian neo-Nazi, who has been actively promoting drag show protests online, arguing, on a Twitter Space, in favour of having relationships with underage women.
Though not surprising, the hypocrisy is breath-taking.
So there might be a bit of projection going on with these anti drag queen story time folk?
Do children still go to pantomimes? If so who plays the Dame character nowadays?
That’s entirely different because reasons.
Someone NOT attempting to indoctrinate children presumably.