Library drag queen story hours were archly defended Monday night by RuPaul who accepted the Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Program and used time in the spotlight to applaud the divisive LGBTQI+ practise.
The performances in libraries across several states have drawn angry responses from parents in recent years, protesting children should not be exposed to such overt displays of sexuality.
In New Jersey, a drag queen performer, who also happens to be a school board member, has complained the passage of increasing laws restricting drag queen performances for children as a “disservice to young minds,” Breitbart News reported.
More than 12 states have laws restricting public drag queen performances, a fact RuPaul says amounts to a scare campaign, as he outlined in his speech.
“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,” RuPaul declared.
“So listen to a drag queen.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race previously won this category four years in a row between 2018 and 2021.
The Human Rights Campaign lauded the speech “on the importance of protecting our power as LGBTQ+ people in the face of anti-drag attacks.”
RuPaul, when asked in 2020 if he ever imagined the LGBTQI+ community and drag queens would be accepted he challenged the basic premise of the question, CBS News reports.
“I don’t know how accepted it is,” he said in a “CBS Mornings” interview.
“At our core, we’re all really still the same. … We’re more polarized in our country than I think I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.”
Outstanding Reality TV Competition Program winner RuPaul for “RuPaul’s Drag Race” poses in the press room with Drag performers during the 75th Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theatre at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on January 15, 2024. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Last year RuPaul’s Drag Race champion Jinkx Monsoon accused conservatives of using children as political shields in the debate over child grooming. “What the GOP is doing is objectively evil,” the drag queen said.
In an interview with Variety, Jinkx Monsoon — real name, Jerick Hoffer — launched a broad attack on the right’s efforts to protect children from radical gender ideology and irreversible transgender medical procedures.
He claimed “allies” on the left have failed to adequately defend drag queens and they need more caring attention to protect them and their feelings from conservative critics.
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