Nathan ‘Flowjob’ Mullen reading to children at Glencoats primary school (centre) and posing for explicit pictures. (Courtesy: Flowjob/Instagram)

UK — Paisley, Scotland. The major story of 2020’s LGBT History Month, which came to a close in the UK on Saturday, was the spotlight shone on Drag Queen Storytime popping up in primary schools and public libraries across the land.

The storytime phenomenon came under intense scrutiny last week, when explicit social media posts of 21-year-old drag queen ‘Flowjob’ came to light shortly after the performer read stories to five-year-olds at Glencoats Primary School in Paisley.

X-rated pictures on Instagram and Twitter of Nathan Mullen, who was introduced to the children as ‘Flow’, showed the performer simulating sex acts. His suitability to work with children was further thrown into doubt by a 2018 Tweet in which he joked about punching a child while hungover.

The school came in for fierce criticism for exposing children to a highly sexualised art form intended for adults, and Renfrewshire Council quickly apologised. But the media storm continued when MP Mhairi Black, who had accompanied the performer to the school, defended the decision, accusing parents who complained of ‘homophobia’.

You just know that the people pretending to be livid that a drag queen read a book in a school in my mentions rn are also the people who run out to buy their kids the latest Grand Theft Auto on release day. Your homophobia is transparent. — Mhairi Black MP🏳️‍🌈 (@MhairiBlack) February 24, 2020

With ‘drag queens’ being one of the groups that come under the umbrella term ‘trans’, as defined by groups such as Stonewall, the ‘Flowjob’ controversy immediately became part of the current conflict over trans rights.

Drag queens have been reading stories to pre-schoolers in the USA since 2015, when activist Michelle Tea introduced Drag Queen Story Hour in San Fransisco. But issues of safeguarding have been raised following a number of worrying incidents:

There are wider questions about the adoption of drag acts into very young children’s education about inclusivity.

In the USA drag acts have their roots in blackface minstrel shows and in Europe in the pantomime dames popular from the 19th century onwards. Since the mid 20th-century they have been closely linked to gay culture and nightlife – and have a reputation for highly sexualised comedy and song.

Some see drag as bawdy comedy; some as an expressive art form; but now with gender identity and expression in the news, women are also voicing the discomfort they feel about drag and its inherent misogyny.

Feminist writer Meghan Murphy asks why parodies of gender stereotypes are acceptable in a way parodies of racial stereotypes are not.

Murphy writes: “To me it seems equivalent to cultural appropriation or the way in which white people have mocked black people, Asian people, Indigenous people, and pretty much every other race/ethnicity that isn’t theirs, under the guise of ‘performance’ or ‘satire’.”

As film-maker and gay rights activist Malcolm Clark tweeted: “The ‘art form’ often starts and mostly ends as a parody, often a grotesque one of women.”

In this informative Twitter thread, Clark challenges the argument that seeing drag queens reading stories helps to liberate boys from traditional gender constraints. He asks: “What about the girls forced to meet a parody of women? Do their feelings not count?”

The needs of boys certainly seem to have been paramount at the school where ‘Flowjob’ performed. Out of 16 titles on the school’s recommended LGBT book list, only one is (in part) about a tomboy girl, whereas ten are about boys who discover their true feminine selves, with titles such as Sissy Boy, Sissy Duckling, William’s Doll, Hello Sailor, Oliver Button is a Sissy, Bill’s New Frock, My Princess Boy.

Journalist Sonia Poulton goes further and in a 30-minute film released on YouTube raises a troubling question: is Drag Queen Storytime just grooming in plain sight?

Read more on this story Furious parents slam primary school over drag queen’s explicit photographs

Daily Mail

The decision to invite a drag queen to speak at a Scottish primary school caused an outcry from parents after sexually explicit social media posts were found on the performer’s online profiles.