Controversy erupts after children attend a drag show in Dallas.

 

A drag queen performing in front of a sign that says "it's not gonna to lick itself". The Daily Mail/Twitter screenshot.

Controversy has erupted after children were filmed attending a drag show in Dallas, leading to proposed legislation that would ban the practice. The Hill. Protests erupted after the event was discovered. Inside the bar, Mr. Misster gay club, children watched drag queens dancing and gave them dollar bills underneath a sign that said "It's not gonna lick itself". The organizers have said the show was "family friendly" but people have long taken issue of drag queens interacting with children. In response, legislators have proposed a ban of children under the age of 18 attending drag shows. 

My Comment:

First of all, I don't think anyone was covering themselves in glory in this incident. Though I am more sympathetic to the goals of the protesters I have to point out that as far as I can tell it's NOT illegal to take children to bars in Texas. The main protester guy kept harping on that and as far as I can tell he was totally wrong. And yelling at a cop that had nothing to do with the entire event doesn't seem to be productive at all. 

Not that the counter-protest was any better. That one woman insisting that the male protester had gay porn on his phone seemed, quite frankly, homophobic. Why would that be relevant at all? Gay people have expressed disgust with drag shows for kids as well, sexuality has little to do with it when it comes to exposing children to this kind of thing. 

As for the drag performance itself, the little bit I saw of it was fairly gross since children are involved. I don't have anything against drag queens per se, but it does not seem to be something that I would consider appropriate for small children. The sad thing is that I have seen way worse. I have seen images of young boys dressed up in drag and they were the ones getting dollar bills thrown at them. And some of the drag queens at drag queen story hour I have seen are dressed more like demons than drag performers. Compared to that this was pretty tame. 

Still though, I am not comfortable with children going to a gay club and watching drag queens perform. There is no reason for children as young as babies to be exposed to this. Drag is for adults and the shows can be quite graphic from what I understand. And there is no excuse for exposing small children to that sign that was at the wall at this club. 

Should there be a ban on it? I am not sure. I do think that small children should not be exposed to this kind of thing, but it's a different story for teenagers. By the time most kids are upperclassmen in high school, they usually have a pretty good idea what kind of sexuality they have and can handle some sexual content. I do worry about pedophiles trying to groom them, which is a sadly frequent occurrence in the LGBT community. But if their parents are there to protect them it should be ok. 

But for a small child? No way. They aren't going to understand what is going on and I don't think kids need to know anything at all about homosexuality other than explaining that some people like to date members of the same sex. They don't need to know about it. And I think more than a few of them would be scared of what they were seeing. 

I think a lot of the controversy here has less to due with drag performances, which are a long standing gay tradition and more to due to the, well deserved in my opinion, push back against the transgender community. Fairly or unfairly, drag and transgender get lumped together. From what I understand there is a bit of conflict because of it as well due to the fact that many transgenders feel that drag queens are mocking them. 

I think that the fear transgender grooming is valid, even though drag queens don't appear to directly involved in it. Far to many parents have found out that their schools have secretly changed pronouns and names of their children behind their backs. And everyone remembers the horror story, also in Texas, of the man who's wife transitioned his son against his will, despite evidence that the boy was only doing it to please his mother. 

I think that the LGB community would be wise to wake up to the threat that these kinds of events do to their image. The backlash against T is starting to come down and I fear that when it happens the LGB community might get looped into it. Doing things like this event and drag queen story hour are not helping their case at all.