Drag Shows!!

[Thermal]

Because it's fun for the kids.

And as I have pointed several times it is only an odd pairing from your own cultural perspective. From mine it is common, almost clichéd to have men in dressed entertaining children via pantomime.

Your cultural perspective isn't the world. It's not even the mainstream.

Please take a moment to examine the subforum this is posted in. Do you see the words USA Politics? What do those words mean to you? To many here, it means that the history and traditions of the UK, Indonesia, or New Guinea are ******* irrelevant.

British Pantomime, as has been repeatedly explained, has nothing to do with drag queens either. Pantomime is an interactive role play, primarily for children. A drag queen is a man presenting as a usually flamboyant woman as standalone entertainment for a primarily adult audience. The only thing they have in common is that performers will wear clothing normally associated with the opposite gender. By that ridiculous standard, a girl wearing a T-shirt and jeans could be said to be in drag, or be pantomiming. Trivial similarities do not mean they are comparable.

 

[Thermal]

I find this extremely ironic coming from someone who is leaning so heavily into the strawman, slippery slope, false generalisation and well-poisoning fallacies. I know, I know. Argument by naming logical fallacies. But still.

[imgw=400]https://i.imgur.com/Jm0RRBd.jpg[/imgw]

Is there a name for a fallacy that when you are so emotionally invested in a position, you can only insist that any different perspective is fallacious?

 

[Thermal]

In case anyone hasn't noticed, hating on drag queens is extremely trendy on the right at the moment.

Really trendy. All around the world.

However I'm not accusing anyone here of being trendy.

Quick sidebar: "accuse"? You seem to think being trendy is a bad thing? I thought it meant something that got sudden wide popularity, like a popular fashion. That's not a bad thing.

Just of being unclear about what the actual objections are to children having stories told to them by drag queens with the consent of their parents or guardians and with parents or guardians present.

Good news! There are a couple dozen pages of posts here that go into that in detail, from multiple posters and different perspectives! Have at it.

 

[wareyin]

Quick sidebar: "accuse"? You seem to think being trendy is a bad thing? I thought it meant something that got sudden wide popularity, like a popular fashion. That's not a bad thing.

Yes, when you posted how people were only taking their kids to DSH because it was trendy not because they thought it would be good for the kids, you were clearly trying to say being trendy is a good thing.

Good news! There are a couple dozen pages of posts here that go into that in detail, from multiple posters and different perspectives! Have at it.

Ah, yes, the different perspectives! So much detail! What detail? What perspectives, you say? Uhhh...because it's icky, because they've taught their children to mock people that are different from them so the kids will mock the drag story reader, and because they think drag story hour is full of pedophiles. Annnnd that's it.

 

[Robin]

Good news! There are a couple dozen pages of posts here that go into that in detail, from multiple posters and different perspectives! Have at it.

I've read the whole thread.

There are a number of posters who have expressed some personal dislike for the phenomenon of drag, there are some who tried to smear gay activists which were both dishonest and irrelevant.

There are people who find it weird without saying exactly why.

Then there were the objections which would apply to any activity involving children.

There haven't been any actual objections to the concepts of drag queens telling stories to children.

 

[Robin]

British Pantomime, as has been repeatedly explained, has nothing to do with drag queens either.

And as I have repeatedly pointed out, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Drag queens and pantomime dames are part of the same tradition. In fact drag queens, over the years, have become more and more like pantomime dames.

Pantomime dames perform for children and adults, often making lewd jokes for the benefit of the adults which are supposed to go over the heads of the children.

Drag queens have been family entertainment, appearing on family television shows both in the UK and in the USA from the sixties and seventies. Obviously those who perform in pubs and clubs where there aren't any children will have more adult oriented material, the same as happens with comedians.

 

[Thermal]

I've read the whole thread.

There are a number of posters who have expressed some personal dislike for the phenomenon of drag, there are some who tried to smear gay activists which were both dishonest and irrelevant.

There are people who find it weird without saying exactly why.

Then there were the objections which would apply to any activity involving children.

There haven't been any actual objections to the concepts of drag queens telling stories to children.

That's probably because there actually aren't any.

 

[Thermal]

And as I have repeatedly pointed out, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Drag queens and pantomime dames are part of the same tradition. In fact drag queens, over the years, have become more and more like pantomime dames.

Pantomime dames perform for children and adults, often making lewd jokes for the benefit of the adults which are supposed to go over the heads of the children.

Drag queens have been family entertainment, appearing on family television shows both in the UK and in the USA from the sixties and seventies. Obviously those who perform in pubs and clubs where there aren't any children will have more adult oriented material, the same as happens with comedians.

Here's the thing: pantomime (as I'm gathering from your posts and Wikipedia) is a holiday tradition, done as a spoof. We have things like that here, too. Hell, around Halloween, I make oversized costumes to match in parades.

Being a drag queen, though, is an identity. A queer gender expression, as the DHS founder asserts. It's real, not a once-a-year dress up act.

Remember earlier in the thread, where posters asserted that drag story hours were no different than superheros or princesses? It was BS. The guy dressed up as Iron Man doesn't actually identify as Tiny Stark. The lady dressed up as Cinderella doesn't actually think she is royalty. They are actors playing a role, just like the pantomimers. But a drag queen is an actual identity. That's a few steps away from the Pythons or Benny Hill slapping on a wig and frock for a laugh.

Anyway, we are clearly not going to agree on this, so I vote we stop beating the dead horse and give it a rest? British pantomime will continue to be a holiday tradition for generations to come, and the drag story hour will have fallen into obscurity by next year.

Stumbling back to the actual OP, does anyone know what Rah-Rah Gonzo was doing with these reports of drag shows? Was she tweeting them to put them on blast, so she could get the credit for legwork her contributors did? Is she organizing pitchfork protests somewhere else? Is she doing anything at all, or does her Defend the Kids TX site just kind of sit there?

 

[Upchurch]

Stumbling back to the actual OP, does anyone know what Rah-Rah Gonzo was doing with these reports of drag shows? Was she tweeting them to put them on blast, so she could get the credit for legwork her contributors did? Is she organizing pitchfork protests somewhere else? Is she doing anything at all, or does her Defend the Kids TX site just kind of sit there?

Once again, the answer is on the website, with specifics on the linked social media sites.

 

[Thermal]

Once again, the answer is on the website, with specifics on the linked social media sites.

I don't do social media. Clicking on them, I get told to sign in.

Eta: what little I can see without an account says nothing. Her Twitter's last tweet was announcing the site's launch last October. Again, do you know what the site has accomplished, besides discussion about the site?

ETA 2: the October tweet was a pinned Tweety. Scrolling through her feed, she retweets a couple drag stories from other sources, but not seeing anything connected to her DOKTX site. What are you seeing that I'm not?

 

[Carrot Flower King]

No offense, but I would love for you to be laid off due to lack of demand.

You wouldn't be the only one: I was pretty much top of the list.

 

[Upchurch]

You wouldn't be the only one: I was pretty much top of the list.

Any professional insight on how to reduce bullying or do you focus on the reducing self-harm?

 

[BobTheCoward]

Going to one today (assuming no changes)....I will give an update on what happened if anything

 

[LondonJohn]

Going to one today (assuming no changes)....I will give an update on what happened if anything

I confidently expect you to report back that the depraved pervert doing the reading attempted to groom several of the children into performing sexual acts.

Just as a viewing of "Reefer Madness" left me convinced that widespread use of marijuana was going to destroy western society.

 

[Parsman]

Going to one today (assuming no changes)....I will give an update on what happened if anything

Let us know the colour of chiffon dress you are magically persuaded to wear Bob

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Any professional insight on how to reduce bullying or do you focus on the reducing self-harm?

What I did (now retired) in one job was purely assessment of bairns after they'd overdosed and been admitted to an acute hospital, looking at level of suicidal intent and whatever factors lay behind it, then considering what options were open to us in trying to ameliorate Bad Things and keep the bairn alive to have a decent life.

In my next job, which was my last one, my preferred caseload was one which was heavy on the more depressed and self-harming bairns, again looking at underlying factors and what could be done about those. I did other things too...

Some bairns even had a mental illness...

Lot of liaison with schools about issues happening there, which could include bullying. Some schools were better at dealing with those issues than others and some parents were better at trying to help their bairns than others. Indeed some parents are better at not bring up their own bairns to be bullies than others.

How to reduce/prevent bullying is complicated, as many of the issues involved go beyond schools or homes and off into society: homophobic bullying and the like would be examples of this...

Often, though, I might be the first person that a bairn had told about the extent of the bullying and I would be roped in as their ally/advocate/mouthpiece/representative to the world of officialdom and parents.

Tl;dr: a messy area involving many different areas of any society and how well they work. No simple answers.

 

[catsmate]

The tie-in to US politics that I saw, at least in your article and the way I've viewed it, is that Drag Shows\Story Hours are a hot button political issue. The article you posted references how it's the new Right-Wing rage topic and even coupled it with CRT. Which isn't far from the truth if you ask me. The fact the woman that started it is, as you pointed out, a BlazeTV talking head kind of lends credence to that claim as well.

Precisely. It's the usual reactionary bollocks, another front in the attempted demonisation of gays and transfolk and hence stirring up the right-wing base to keep contributing and supporting.

 

[Thermal]

Gotta say, had to google "bairns".

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Gotta say, had to google "bairns".

Welcome to North East England and Scotland!

 

[BobTheCoward]

The city had an outdoor all ages drag brunch called winters a drag for their annual winter festival. I was hoping crazy qanoners would show up and counter protesters and we would get two shows.

Security was elevated.

4 protestors showed and they stood quietly outside the plaza near the food trucks. One had an abortion sign so it was a bit of a grab bag.