Drag Queen Story Hour was starting at a Bay Area library when a group of men entered shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs, reports Iran Dahir on BuzzFeed News.
Panda Dulce, a social worker, resumed reading to children after intruders were removed.
The men accused the organizer of being a pedophile and one wore a T-shirt showing an AR-15 with the text “Kill your local pedophile.”
Deputies escorted the men out, and drag queen Panda Dulce went on with the event, which had attracted five or six children, parents and community members.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the incident as a “hate crime,” believes the men were members of a white, male extremist group called Proud Boys.
Library patrons said the men were “extremely aggressive with a threatening violent demeanor causing people to fear for their safety,” said the sheriff’s office in a press release.
Hecklers rarely are prosecuted, unless they fight with police when they’re asked to leave. A nasty “demeanor” isn’t a crime. Maybe the “kill the pedophile” thing? It seems weak.
Drag Queen Story Hour “captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models,” says the group’s web site. “Kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.”
I wouldn’t have taken my child to see a drag queen person read a book, but I wouldn’t have taken her to see a clown read a book either. Like many children, she was scared of clowns.
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