‘Violent’ Disruption of California Library’s Drag Queen Story Hour Leaves Kids ‘Totally Freaked Out’
18:32 GMT 14.06.2022 (Updated: 18:34 GMT 14.06.2022)
© AP Photo / Esteban Felix
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Right-wing commentators and politicians in the US have taken to labeling LGBTQ people and their allies who talk to children about LGBTQ issues as “groomers,” accusing them of preying on children to sexually exploit them. The move has come amid attempts to ban LGBTQ-related books and to ban trans children from getting gender-affirming medical care.
A drag queen whose event was stormed over the weekend by right-wing activists is speaking out, calling on others to stand up to extremism.
"I think now is the time to unite and to come together as a united front," Panda Dulce told KGO-TV, an ABC affiliate station in the San Francisco Bay area on Monday.
Dulce, an Ivy League-educated social worker, led a Drag Queen Story Hour at San Lorenzo library in California’s Alameda County on Saturday afternoon. The event was for preschool-age children and was being held in celebration of Pride Month as part of an international program. However, the event was soon stormed by between five and 10 men, who disrupted the event, hurling anti-LGBTQ slurs at Dulce, who library staff took to a rear part of the building for protection.
6/11/22 Proud Boy stormed a “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the San Lorenzo Library on Saturday afternoon shouting homophobic and transphobic threats
— Popitics (@Popitics1) June 14, 2022
After @libsoftiktok posted information about the event online. #MorningJoe pic.twitter.com/E6RABdovwl
"They said ‘who brought the tr*nny.’ ‘It's a groomer.’ ‘It's a pedophile.’ ‘Why do you bring your kids to this event,’" Dulce said, adding that they made white power hand gestures.
"It totally freaked out all of the kids. They got right in our faces. They jeered," she added.
Library staff called the police, who escorted the men from the building.
“It appears the group of men may be affiliated with the Proud Boys organization,” Lt. Ray Kelly, a spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday. He said that five men were wearing the black and yellow colors associated with the group.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) database on US extremist groups, the Proud Boys are “self-described ‘Western chauvinists’ who adamantly deny any connection to the racist ‘alt-right,” but whose “actions belie their disavowals of bigotry.” They were founded in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes and have become closely associated with former US President Donald Trump, including taking part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
The Drag Queen Story Hour program began in 2015 and has spread to more than a dozen libraries in the Bay Area, and is a frequent feature at the San Lorenzo library. While bigotry against the drag queens is not unknown, Dulce said this one “hit different” because of how intense it was and because of the group’s reputation for violence and advocacy of violence against the LGBTQ community.
Two weeks earlier, the Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” which often posts video clips, images, or links to LGBTQ people for purposes of directing right-wing harassment against them, put a spotlight on the San Lorenzo Drag Queen Story Hour.
Fascists Arrested Outside Idaho Pride Event
Separately on Saturday, police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 members of the far-right group Patriot Front after finding them in the back of a U-Haul van near an LGBTQ Pride event equipped with improvised body armor, including shin guards, shields, and helmets, as well as long metal poles and at least one smoke grenade.
Today 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot
— Popitics (@Popitics1) June 12, 2022
Near a LGBTQ pride event in northwest Idaho
Cops recovered at least one smoke grenade & documents that included an "operations plan" from U Haul truck they used as well as shields & shin guards. pic.twitter.com/vF9Vy9Lex4
“These individuals were prepared to riot,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White told the Washington Post. “They even had operations plan to detail their actions once they arrived at the Pride event,” he explained, leading to their misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot.
Like the Proud Boys, Patriot Front was a participant in the failed January 6 insurrection by Trump supporters who sought to overturn the results of the November 2020 election. An explicitly fascist organization, Patriot Front split from Vanguard America in the wake of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. It has largely focused since then on “flash mob”-style theatrics, such as when roughly 100 of their members marched in formation and body armor across the National Mall in December 2021 - again, utilizing a U-Haul truck to facilitate their quick entry and exit.
Despite the arrest of the 31 Patriot Front members, several counter-protesters still rallied outside the Coeur d’Alene Pride event, heavily armed, and carrying a banner that read “groomers are not welcome in Idaho.”
June 11, 2022; Armed men patrols the area around the annual 'Pride in the Park' march in Mceuen Park, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
— Jake Lee Green (@AeonPhotoCo) June 12, 2022
Several other armed men who self-identified as 'white-nationalists' stood on the peripheral of the LGBTQI+ event. pic.twitter.com/lOkEaXPROp
‘Groomer’ Label Part of LGBTQ Rights Rollback
Accusations that LGBTQ people seek to prey on children have been used against the community for decades without foundation, but the most recent trend of labeling LGBTQ people and their allies as “groomers” began earlier this year when Christina Pushaw, a spokesperson for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, slapped the label on opponents of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which banned teachers from instruction or discussion about LGBTQ topics with younger students.
Since then, it has spread like wildfire across the US political right, being adopted by Fox News hosts and commentators as part of their regular programming on the alleged evils of LGBTQ rights in the US. The rhetoric has spawned several public attacks on LGBTQ people.
It has come as part of a nationwide movement to roll back LGBTQ rights in the United States, with hundreds of bills being introduced in US state legislatures just since the start of 2022. Many of them target transgender people and especially trans children, including banning trans girls and women from competing in girls and women’s sports and from using women’s restrooms and locker rooms, and banning trans children from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
In Texas, the Republican-dominated government has attempted to take trans children from their parents on accusations of child abuse if the parents affirm their child’s gender identity - a situation being fought out in the courts but which is now known to have caused several trans children to attempt suicide.
