Across the country drag queens are reading stories, and teaching tolerance, to kids – but the events have come under fire from some conservatives

'Are you a boy or a girl'? Drag Queen Story Hour riles the right, but delights kids

It was the Drag Queen Story Hour at the San Francisco public library and six-year-old James Mendenhall intended to get right to the bottom of things.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asked the 6ft 2in story reader, who was wearing a maroon satin gown, a hot pink frock, silver high-heeled pumps and false eyelashes. The drag queen, who goes by the name Honey Mahogany, leaned her delicately-braided blond wig towards him and paused for effect.

“Well, I guess I was born a boy,” she replied. “But I like to dress like a girl. It’s for fun.”

For the 175 or so children and parents who turned out for the event last weekend at San Francisco’s main library, the program – which also runs regularly at libraries in New York City and sporadically in bookstores and classrooms around the country – offers a mix of gay pride and kid-friendly entertainment.

“It’s really fun for the kids to see a princess, dressed up and in makeup,” said library spokeswomen Katherine Jardine, who added the program is a way for children to learn about the city’s diversity.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Honey Mahogany at Drag Queen Story Hour in San Francisco. Photograph: Erin McCormick/The Guardian

The story hours have come under fire recently by conservative publications for allegedly using public resources to indoctrinate children with leftist views.

“Apparently, people around the country are interested in having their tax dollars spent paying for drag queens to read to their children,” wrote education blogger Amelia Hamilton in the National Review last month.

“While this story time is ostensibly meant to introduce children to new ideas and open their minds, it is clear that the events skew in a particular political direction. What sort of outcry would there be if there were a children’s event promoting American exceptionalism or traditional values? An event with books about gun rights or the value of life in the womb? No, that would never do.”

Attacks have turned up in places such as Breitbart News and as a discussion item in the ultra-religious Rapture Forum. The rightwing Daily Wire ran an article entitled “Leftists push ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ for public schools, libraries.”

But San Francisco’s librarians emphasized that the program, founded in 2015 in San Francisco by writer Michelle Tea, does not use any taxpayer dollars. For each Drag Queen Story Hour, the nonprofit Friends of the Library group – a privately run organization – pays a $250 stipend to the production company that created the event, Radar Productions. Jardine said she believes much of that is passed onto the drag queens.

It’s about opening our doors so that every single member of our community is included Lyn Davidson, library manager

Virgie Tolvar, managing director of Radar Productions, said that aside from the backlash in the conservative press, reception has been largely positive. “We get emails every day from places like Australia and Sweden. We’re definitely thinking of doing a Drag Queen Story Hour tour.”

Lyn Davidson, who manages the main San Francisco children’s library, said that the library “is about giving everybody equal access to books, to stories, to ideas. It’s about opening our doors so that every single member of our community is included. Our drag queen community has something special to share too”.



Honey Mahogany started on Saturday by reading Families, Families, Families, a book about how families can have a mom and a dad or just one mom or two dads.

“How many of you recognize your own families in here right now?” she asked, gesturing around the room with her shimmering silver bracelet glinting in the light. “Because families can come in all shapes, sizes and forms, right?”

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After leading a rendition of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Honey Mahogany settled in to read a second book, about a dog who didn’t want to do normal dog stuff, but wanted to do ballet instead. Every once in a while a toddler would dart toward her, reaching out to touch her layers of puffy pink tulle and then run back into the audience.

After the reading, a long line of children waited for a chance to talk to Honey Mahogany.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Honey Mahogany with one-year-old Oscar Morales and his mom Sarah Morales. Photograph: Erin McCormick/The Guardian

Heather Bird not only brought her own two sons, but she organized other families from her children’s school to come to the event as well.

“It was a lot more interesting than anything going on at our house this morning,” she said. “I don’t know why people have time to criticize people who are being kind to each other and coming together as a community.”

Fourteen-year-old CJ, a San Francisco middle school student who asked not to use his last name, came because he had seen Honey Mahogany on Rupaul’s Drag Race, a TV show in which contestants in drag compete for who will be “queen”.

“It was great for me, because I got to meet someone I saw on TV,” he said, adding that it is a great program for little kids as well. “It introduces kids to the idea that there could be more than two genders, so when they get older, maybe they won’t be so mean. The world needs less trans-phobia right now.”

I grew up with no LGBT role models and I still turned out gay. Families need to support and accept their children Honey Mahogany, drag queen

Honey Mahogany, who co-owns a business and also works as a social worker, said it was ridiculous to think that introducing children to gender issues would somehow turn them gay. But for those youth who do question their gender identities, having a role model could be a life-saver.

“I grew up with no LGBT role models and I still turned out gay,’’ she said. “Families need to support and accept their children, because it is the difference between having a happy, healthy family and having kids who are much more likely to commit suicide.”

Panda Dulce is another drag queen who regularly reads for story hour, sometimes showing up in a bright teal wig wearing blue lipstick and swirling eye shadow. With a day job as a social worker, Dulce is attuned to the hardships of being different.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Panda Dulce and Persia (right) are two other ‘core queens’ on the Drag Queen Story Hour circuit. Photograph: Courtesy of Panda Dulce

“When I came out in the seventh grade, I lost all of my friends,” said Dulce, whose legal name is Kyle Casey Chu. “I thought the closet was the loneliest place, but I was wrong. It was being out in the open, vulnerable and alone. Drag Queen Story Hour is so important to me, and for our youth, because it converts our differences from shame into power.”



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Panda Dulce recalled one story time when a child in blue glitter eye shadow came running up to proclaim, “Did you know I’m a boy?”

Near the end of the greeting line on Saturday, six-year-old Mendenhall was waiting with another question brash enough to make even a drag queen blush.

“How did you get your breasts?” he asked Honey Mahogany. She gazed down at her modest bosom and decided to stick with the truth.

“I told him they were fake and I put them on under my bra,” she said. “What else was I going to say?”