
A wise man once told me, “It’s not what you teach- it’s what your students learn.” The more I learn, the more profound that statement becomes.
The relationship between a parent and their child’s teacher was once considered sacrosanct. As a result, we as parents or caregivers leave our children in the hands of those who would have our best interests and that of our children at heart. Though this has eroded over time, we foolishly believed that there were still existing limitations on the autonomy of academia.
We were wrong.
In 2003, RADAR productions, which according to their website is a “Bay Area queer literary arts organization,” was founded by queer author Michelle Tea. Through this group, Tea produced the very first “Drag Queen Story Hour” at an LGBTQ neighborhood library in San Francisco. During this program, a drag queen (a biological man dressed as a heavily made-up woman), read a “queer inclusive” book to a group of children. It was an instant hit. Like many things that are thrown into our culture of “wokeness, equity, and inclusiveness,” the premise can seem harmless. After all, what’s wrong with children understanding our ‘differences?’ On that basis alone- nothing. But underneath this supposedly harmless presentation, the truth is revealed as the blurring of lines between men and women.
Hot Mess
“Who wants to be a drag queen when they grow up?” says a drag queen by the name of little miss “Hot Mess” to a room full of unsuspecting children. They’re average age being five years old. “We can both be grooms,” says another. But one of the clearest examples of the indoctrination comes from a drag queen named “Miss B.”
“Does anyone know what a drag queen is?” she queries to her group of Pre-K’s. “A drag queen is a character you create to express your feminine side, “she illuminates to the boys and girls, “or any other side of yourself you’d like to explore.” Initially however, reports suggest that the adults in the room initially glean much more from the experience than the children.
In a 2019 article from the Wall Street Journal entitled, “What I Saw at Drag Queen Story Hour,” in which columnist Charlotte Allen was present, she offered the following:
“The adults present loved Drag Queen Story Hour. They laughed at Venus’s jokes, and they sang the children’s songs along with her, rolling their hands and shaking their fingers Hokey Pokey-style as she did. When she stuck out her tongue during a ditty about a frog, so did the mothers and fathers. It was the children who . . . didn’t react at all.”
The article goes on:
“They either stared transfixed at Venus, squirmed restlessly, or crawled and toddled off to find their own entertainments. After the reading a mother brought her little daughter up to meet Venus, who offered to let the girl try on one of the massive rhinestone bracelets she wore on both wrists. The mother, delighted, slipped a bracelet onto her own wrist; the little girl shrank back and turned her head away.”
Children tend to do what looks like fun, or peaks their curiosity.
At their core, they desire little more than to please their parents-so they go along. Sometimes, unfortunately to their detriment. For most, we have become acquainted with seemingly benign terms such as, ‘gender-fluid’ and ‘gender-neutral’ as part of the neo-societal construct, relegating this to the rights of adults to do and live as they choose.
However, when it comes to their children, certain parents have allowed these “individuals” to confuse their innocent offspring, by instructing that men and women (not drag queens), are societal designations of which we have the autonomy to choose whether or not to accept.
In fact, many schools now use a “gender unicorn” to help students pick out their own gender/sexuality before they can even spell their last names.
The truth is, growing into adolescence is challenging enough. The pre-pubescent changes affecting our bodies, our skin, and even our minds are crucial and fragile, even under the best of conditions. Add to that, the belief that gender/sex are fluid concepts, and you have a recipe for disaster, from which there is no respite.
We must keep in mind that there was no prior notification for the introduction of these programs.
There were no community or town hall gatherings; nor any opportunity to vote or sign a petition. These groups simply and arbitrarily decided for us. Unfortunately, there was basically no public outcry in response, let alone angry mobs or clandestine meetings in opposition to the new threat. In fact, the only resistance offered in many cases was to simply not bring one’s children to the library.
But, is that even a valid response? Is avoidance truly an alternative? How long do we simply change the channel because of the programming? At what point do we protest that which is before us?
One outlet, The Imaginative Conservative, paints a grim but realistic picture through writer David Deavel:
“I can’t adjudicate the questions about how to get rid of drag queen story hour, but I will say that it is actually not the worst part about public libraries these days.” He further elaborates: “The worst part is that these days you can’t actually take your kids to the library and simply let them check out books on their own. What we’ve found over the last few years is that the number of books, videos, and other kinds of material that are promoting the view of the human person and sexuality represented by drag queen story hour has grown quite a bit. And it’s not simply material in the YA or Young Adult section—it’s the kids’ section.
Some of them are quite explicit about what they’re going for, but many of them bury their themes more than half-way through the books, such that one has to read through almost the whole book to find out whether they are going to be dealing with bisexuality, as one recent book one of our children checked out did.”
Regardless of our hopes, and despite our many wishes, Drag Queen Story Hour, gender-fluid teachings, and their ilk will no doubt continue.
Not because of the aforementioned programs-but despite them. In other words, our by and large reactive, rather than proactive approach, our ‘co-exist’ as well as our “live and let live” demeanor are the personifications of our complicity. If we have any realistic view of saving our children, then we must first recognize that we have not the option, nor luxury of waiting for the life-long effects of such instruction to come to fruition. We can ill afford the complacency of looking for the danger signs. Be advised; by the time the indicators have revealed themselves- the damage has already been done.