Comments
An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote
Every once in a while my feed gets something bad and I repost it without knowing. I don't have the time to engage it right now but you're more that likely right! Sorry about the shitty post!
this_one wrote
That's ok, absolutely no judgement on you - you make a lot of posts and the vast majority of them are great. And I can definitely understand how the mistake was made - I thought based on the title it'd be interesting. It sounds like it could be something written by a "boy dancing in drag in a gay bar" about the tricky situations that sometimes puts them in which they have to navigate, but alas, we were both mistaken in some way.
I was kind of hoping there'd be a discussion to be had (maybe there still could be, although with this article off the front page, idk how many people will be seeing this comment) about how the culture at large sexualises kids (especially girls), and how young drag queens can enter into femininity while avoiding sexualisation.
An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote
That's ok, absolutely no judgement on you
I didn't think you were judging me :) just wanted to be clear about it.
Feel welcome to write up a post about it for discussion.
this_one wrote
I am curious to hear queer voices on this topic (or at the bare minimum, not actively queerphobic ones), because I think it is important to talk about stuff like this.
No one forces him to perform, performing is what he loves to do and has always loved to do.
Is good to hear, but I'm skeptical of a parent saying this (rather than the child themself) It might well be true, but yeah. It feels exploitative to me for any kid to be doing so much at such a young age. I worry it'd turn out like other kinds of 'child stars' (see: Hollywood). My bigger issue, though, is with two points at the end of the instagram post. Firstly:
The performance was promoted and anyone who did not wish to see a drag kid perform in a club did not have to attend. No one forced you to go.
Doesn't that mean that the only people who would have gone would be people who want to see a child do drag? The thought makes me uncomfortable. I'm by no means saying everyone who wants to see kids do drag is a pedo, but if you were a pedo, that might be something you wanted to see. I'm not sure if I take issue more with the actual idea of the event, or just the fact that this argument is being used to defend it. I think it's a bad argument. My second issue is with this:
I know a lot of drag fans/drag queens do not want to see kids in what they consider an adult form of entertainment or venue, but drag is changing and becoming more widespread and popular with people of all ages, genders, identities, races, abilities, and disabilities.
If you want to promote the idea that drag isn't inherently 'for adults' or whatever, wouldn't it make more sense to put on a drag show that non-adults are at all likely to attend? I like the idea of drag being more inclusive/accessible, but I don't think this event was a very effective way of achieving that.
[deleted] wrote
this_one wrote
homosexualphobia? :P
this_one wrote
I'm not sure how I feel about this.
I skimmed over it after reading the first [editor's note] (gross gross gross). I don't like the idea of an 11-year-old "dressed in drag danc[ing] on stage in a sexual manner [to an adult audience]" at all, but this seems like an intensely queerphobic publication, so I'm not sure it can be trusted.
The source they used for that story was a "The Daily Wire" story, within 1 click of which I was able to navigate to a page that says, "How many genders are there? There are two..." (yuck yuck yuck), so I get the feeling that might also be a queerphobic publication. Also, for some reason they spend half the article talking about the bar's weird cellphone policy for some reason.
That Daily Wire article links to some (old) stories from "left-wing" sites (at least, they seem to think they're left-wing) about the same kid, but their actual source for this particular event is a youtuber who, judging off the title of their videos, including "VLOG: Going to Vote straight Red IN 2018 MIDTERMS VLOG" I'm going to assume might be queerphobic. Reluctantly, I watch his video, "Slippery Mets Slope - Drag Kid Desmond is Amazing "PERFORM" at Adult Gay bay", to find his sources.
His first source is a yelp review, apparently for the event. His second is the kid's instagram (as well as one other instagram "nudus.elit" that now seems to be deleted). That yelp review for the bar doesn't exist any more. On the kid's instagram is this post which reads:
These are the photos I could find from the event, for anyone who wants to get a sense of what it was: [1] [2] [3] [4]