Crusade Against Drag Events in Putnam is Ill-Founded
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Recently, community members, both in Putnam County and nationally, have decided to launch a crusade against Drag Story Hour events. They characterize drag as being sick, exposing children to pedophilia, sexual and other inappropriate content, and pushing an agenda aimed at “grooming” and recruiting young children.
Let’s be clear as day about the facts here. If you’re worried about your child being sexually abused by a pedophile, keep them away from your close acquaintances and family members. Those groups account for 93% of all reported sexual abuse cases against children, according to RAINN. If you’re worried that people who are LGBTQ+ generally, or those who perform drag, are going to hurt your children, that fear is so wholly unsupported by any real-world evidence as to make you look completely ridiculous. 88% of perpetrators are male, and that is the only group—across most crimes, and overwhelmingly who identify as cisgender and straight—that there is statistical evidence of any kind to support fearing around your children. If you fear drag performers, who are invariably interacting with your children in public, with parents present, in front of a crowd of people, but don’t think twice about sending your kid on overnight trips with your husband, brother, friend, cousins, school friends’ families, etc., then you are very clearly just homophobic. There is no basis in fact or reality for your paranoia. Of course, you have every right to keep your kids away from anyone you want – so please stay home.
Drag is performance/ theater. Anyone can do drag – you don’t have to be LGBTQ+ or identify as male. Kids love drag queens because they are bold and bright and beautiful and fun. The books that are read are ones of empowerment, inclusion and that teach kids it’s ok to be different. The only people thinking about sex in the context of these events are those threatening violence to stop them.
One could perhaps dismiss the few bigoted and sheltered people who exist in every town, but when elected officials are giving these arguments credence in local social media forums, it really becomes an issue of intellectual capacity to be a leader. Putnam County schools have a systemic racism and harassment problem, our water is polluted, NYSEG is bankrupting people, there is corruption in local government, there is zero transparency from the legislature, and on and on. If you are an elected leader, or one campaigning, who is worried about taking down a story hour for kids in the context of everything else that’s going on, wherever you’re from, you’re either not smart enough yourself to be in power, or you think your constituents are dumb enough to be distracted by such nonsense so you don’t have to do any actual work. To be sure, some are—but most of us have bigger concerns.
Eileen McDermott
Putnam NY Pride
Brewster
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