Last night “RuPaul’s Drag Race” won the Emmy for Best Reality Competition Series for the fifth time in the show’s history. Show host RuPaul Charles accepted the award surrounded by the cast members, including several fan-favorite drag queens.
In his speech, he brought awareness to the drag community being targeted for reading to children:
“We have released into the wild hundreds of drag queens, and they’re beautiful. On behalf of them, we thank you. And listen, if a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library listen to her, because knowledge is power. And if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you. So, listen to a drag queen!”
In the political sphere, the drag community has been under attack, with legislatures attempting to restrict or even ban public performances by drag queens, using the reasoning that they’re protecting children. Some people argue that drag queens are exposing children to sexual content and grooming them, though it’s debated how consistently children are even present at adult drag shows.
However, Drag Story Hour events at local libraries, bookstores, and schools are designed specifically for drag queens to read to children. Drag Story Hour began in 2015 in San Francisco and has since spread to several other states and cities.
According to the group’s website, the Story Hour is intended to give children a comfortable environment to learn while accepting themselves and others regardless of their identity: “DSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models,” the website reads.
Though it’s a seemingly wholesome event, groups like the Proud Boys have protested and harassed the drag queens, yelling homophobic and transphobic slurs at the Story Hour events. Instead of caring about children’s educational journey and simply having a good time, people have taken it upon themselves to scare drag queens and the events’ guests,
RuPaul’s speech wasn’t the only marginalized group highlighted at the Emmys: Colman Domingo and Hannah Waddingham presented the Governors Award to GLAAD, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the inclusive representation of the LGBTQ+ community in media and entertainment.