Drag queens appear everywhere now — public libraries, parades, and school classrooms. Even the signing celebration for President Joe Biden’s ill-named Respect for Marriage Act included a drag queen.
“Drag Queen Story Hour” is marketed as family-friendly entertainment you’d want to take your children to see. But the ideology behind drag queen culture merits a much deeper look. What used to be a common comedy sketch — men in drag — has become a vehicle for sexual politics that seeks to upend norms around human sexuality and the nuclear family. It’s important to grasp the dark intent behind this growing trend.
Drag queens are billed as a warm celebration of human differences. There are more than 30 chapters of drag queens in the United States seeking to introduce children to a new way of seeing sex and sexuality, often with readings in public libraries. As the Drag Queen Story Hour website explains, “In spaces like this kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where everyone can be their authentic selves.”
Journalist Christopher Rufo took a deep dive into what he calls “the real story” behind drag queen culture. We should think of drag queens, he says, as the footsoldiers for an ideology that deconstructs normative human experience, beginning with breaking the binary of male and female. In drag pedagogy, gender differences are invented categories that shackle good people to rigid stereotypes, instruments of oppression to be shattered.
Why the Push to Introduce
