The other day someone reposted this meme, which they'd found circulating in right-wing circles.
A recurrent theme was that drag queens break gender stereotypes. For example: "ahhhh gender inclusivitiy [Loudly crying face] [Loudly crying face] [Loudly crying face] how dare we teach our kids that going against societal norms is ok".
Most obviously, if schools teach children to go against societal norms, then going against societal norms is a societal norm and obeying societal norms is therefore going against societal norms... But there's nothing more complicit with societal norms than a drag queen. Drag queens are the loyal opposition of the dominant gender system: the whole rationale, as expressed here, is that there are men's clothes and women's clothes, and it's a big deal if you wear the "wrong" outfit, but it's a completely conformist way of "going against the societal norms." Theatrical cross-dressing is ancient and can be found in many cultures, from ancient Greece to China and Japan to Elizabethan England to single-sex schools in England and the US to music halls and vaudeville to Bugs Bunny to Daffy Duck playing Carmen Miranda. As those latter examples show, it's considered perfectly appropriate for entertaining children, and it's totally compatible with homophobia and extreme gender conservatism. Cross-dressing has many meanings and drag is only one of them, but they are almost all reactionary. They are a feature of Carnival for example, as in Mardi Gras: roles are flipped, but only to affirm them. That's what drag is: I look like a woman but I'm not, and when I take off the gown, the headdress and the layers of pancake makeup I'm a man again.
Drag performance in the US, however, is adult entertainment -- not because of the gender play, but because traditionally it features venomous misogyny and a lot of expletives. When I first heard of drag-queen story hours I admit I was taken aback for just that reason, though I didn't suppose that the performers waltz into an elementary-school classroom and gaily shriek "Suck my pussy, bitchez!" as an intro. But maybe not; the Bloomington Pride Fest featured a performer who cheerfully sang ditties about sucking cock on an outdoor stage in front of young children. Two years in a row. I don't suppose their young minds were permanently traumatized or warped by such antics, but the event was advertised as "family friendly." I wouldn't have thought that singing about dick size qualified, but I'm out of the loop these days.
And then there's Rudy Giuliani. You can't tell me he's any kind of rebel.
One of my favorite responses in the thread was "Teach both. Kids should be able to strip and clean a firearm AND read at a high school level by age 6, don't @ me". I quite agree: kids should be able to strip and clean a firearm AND a drag queen by age 6. Alas, such essential traditional skills have been tossed by the wayside.
But many of the comments were incoherent, such as "Oh no, someone is dressed strange and reading to kids, maybe it'll teach kids to have confidence to be who they want to be." How would this "teach children to have confidence to be who they want to be"? Or: "Traditional values are children being instructed in the culture of their tribe by a shaman, as opposed to cold modernity where children are taught to operate machinery as preparation for becoming part of the social machine." That reads like parody, but I'm afraid it is probably serious. I wonder if it was meant to suggest that a drag queen is a shaman, instructing children in the culture of their tribe? I do wish people wouldn't post when they're high.
Or "as a queer person this is great! but my problem is when the education system teaches them the different sexualities and like.. it's super complicated, and there's different ways of combining the sexualities. So I say just teach kids the frame work, and they'll figure it out!" As a queer person myself: how does a drag queen story hour in elementary school "teach them the different sexualities" -- any more than watching Bugs Bunny in drag did when I was a kid? It's not even supposed to. "Combining the sexualities"? They lost me there. It's strange that we hear a lot of griping from gender radicals about "media stereotypes" confusing children and leading them astray, but drag is part of that stereotyping system, not a remedy for it.
Drag has little or nothing to do with real women. Look at the costume that fellow in the photograph is wearing. It may say "five-horned demon Queen," but it doesn't say "woman," any more than a guy in a Superman costume says "man." It's a theatrical caricature of gender. Which is fine, because exaggeration and caricature are routine parts of theatrical performance. But it's not a model for living gender, doing gender, in one's life.
