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Don't worry if you missed the first couple of Drag Story Times
By adamg on Mon, 06/13/2022 - 2:45pm
There are still three more Drag Story Times at Boston Public Library Branches this month, including tomorrow morning at the North End branch, June 21 at the Connolly branch in Jamaica Plain and June 28 at the Jamaica Plain branch.
You have to register, but looks like they have plenty of seats.
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Comments
did Jacques close?
and is there a two drink minimum? asking for a friend.
Might as well be
Jacques hasn't closed, but it has become a haven for straight white cisgender woman having bachelorette parities who are out to gawk. Who wants to put up with that?
That's not a new phenomenon...
Plus if they didn't have this revenue stream it would most likely be yet another gay bar closure...and we don't want that...
The current sociology of gay bars
Apparently society DOES want that. We have "assimilated", don't you know. As a young, gay male in the 1970s there were an abundance of gay bars. You could go out every night of the week and find a crowd somewhere. It was like our own world, hiding in plain sight. The drinking age was 18 as well. It's not the case now. But given the choice of going to Jacques, one of the few remaining, with a flock of drunk, suburban, straight women I think I'll pass.
Where is the outrage?
Obviously, this hasn't been posted to the city's facebook or twitter page. Otherwise all the the nuts that attack the mayor for everything would be screaming "THINK OF THE CHILDREN". Or at least something about masks killing everyone. It might be that I have stopped reading the comments following a city's post because they are so disgusting and have missed the train.
Edit: I totally missed all the outrage on uhub twitter.
I'l say one thing
these "THESE SHOWS ARE CORRUPTIN THE CHILLDRENS" people seem to have amazingly large collections of drag show photos at the ready
I have to admit ...
I was completely unaware of the local Drag Story Time until this afternoon, when somebody told me I should see what the screaming mask haters were up to now that they can't complain about masks anymore.
So, thanks, haters, for bringing this cool thing to my attention.
Cool?
That’s an odd way to describe this event.
You're right
"Great" works as well. "Fun" also.
Here are some more words, since I'm betting you don't own a thesaurus.
Not judging
But this is just weird. I would never take my child. What benefit does this provide to young children.
Boston Public Library ...
It's the library for a large city. Parents might like to take their kids to something like this to show them that it's a big, amazing world out there with all sorts of people.
And kids love getting read stories.
Nobody's forcing you to take your kids to anything, if you don't like this sort of thing, that's fine, you don't have to go.
Has your child ever played dress up?
This is playing dress up.
Reminds me of the time that my son's straight laced Texan baybsitter glanced over at her son parading around in a boa and shiny heels and simply said "all toddlers are drag queens".
You are saying drag queens
Have the minds of children.
Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted
All wood floats, but not all that floats is wood.
You must not get invited to many Halloween parties
I'm guessing not many parties at all, for that matter.
So
Drag is just a Halloween costume?
What answer
will make you go away
Sew
buttons on ice cream.
Time for you to get lost.
On the flip side..
How does it hurt, injure or irreparably damage your precious child?
Oh, that's right... it fucking doesn't at all and they may enjoy it if you stop clutching the pearls....
Good ol days
K, maybe I’m the loner here, but remember when volunteers read stories to children at libraries without having to push their sexual inclinations?
When did this become a ‘thing’?
Please revert back, I want my kids at the library without having to come home asking about the ‘lady’ with stubble.
Too much to ask?
Irish spouse
For what it's worth, my toddler also asks about his mother's stubble . Good old Italian genes.
Ladies with stubble
Oh, dear, yes, I can see how that would be a problem. It must be a terrible burden for you having to explain to your kids that there are all sorts of people out there, although I guess you assume somebody going the extra step of dressing up in drag couldn't be bothered to shave.
Judging from the photos
Judging from the photos and videos of this and other drag story hours, given the wildly exaggerated "clownish" way some of these folks look, in what I am assuming is an intentional manner, it's really not all that different from being read to by Bozo the Clown. Reminds me a bit of the old, legendary Sylvia Sydney (speaking of Jacques) "The Bitch of Boston" a/k/a "The Mess In A Dress". Except, of course, Sylvia's act was far from family friendly.
You are comparing drag queens
To clowns.
yes
both are outside the parameters of normal, or as we used to say in Boston, totally fuckin bazaaah.
Drag is not a sexual inclination
And if you're not prepared to explain things to your children, maybe its time to move them into a commune where they never have to interact with the outside world?
Yeah I have
We smartly escaped the city and our local public spaces aren’t overran with these folks.
All for whatever makes you happy yet again, our kids don’t need men in makeup and dresses reading them stories. What’s the point?
My family and I welcome everyone yet We reserve the right to limit what our children will be exposed to.
Funny... chances are your
Funny... chances are your wife either has been to a drag show or her friends have been... I do not expect you to know this but straight women have become one of the most lucrative markets for Drag Queens. We did not invite your wife and her friends into our Drag Shows, they came with lots of money. We did not invite them to watch Drag Race on LOGO, they came in such great numbers they helped push the show main stream. In fact its the embracing of Drag culture by straight women that has increasingly brought Drag into your public spaces.
I am part of a team that puts on a Pride event in Chelsea and last year we hired a Drag Queen to perform (very clean, it was in public after all, cleaner than most cheer performances actually) and guess who showed up without being purposefully invited? Families. Straight women. Kids. In larger numbers than we ever had when we did not have the Drag Queen. This year there were more kids. We are family friendly but not kid focused and they still came to us.
So before you go wagging that finger around, it is only a matter of time before you have Drag Queens at your doorstep in whatever leafy suburb you live in and most likely your neighbors are already driving to Boston and Cambridge and Chelsea to enter OUR spaces to enjoy it.
So things adult do
Kids should do too?
Are you really this dense?
So the logic here is that things adults do, kids shouldn't?
Why just today, I've slept, eaten, read, laughed, hugged, listened to music...
#WontSomeoneThinkOfTheChildren
We need more details...
Chelsea Pride? When, where?
Hey there, sorry to say it
Hey there, sorry to say it was last week but we do it every year in Chelsea Square (Bellingham Square is at City Hall, Chelsea Square is at the Police Station. We raise it at both but the party is at Chelsea Square.) All are welcome, if you are from Chelsea or live here let me know though and you can get involved if you wanted. This year we had Veronica Vandersnatch and Regina Jackson (decked out as a mermaid) doing our after raising event around the fountain and they instructed people in the history and basic elements of vogueing. Generally it's the first Friday of June though.
We try to balance the event out. It's not a stuffy suit and tie flag raising at 2pm at city hall but it's also not a late night drunken rave. We do our ceremony with speakers we curate (This year speakers were from Fenway Health and a local who is the manager of a new young adult mental health drop in center.) And then our Drag Queens helped us lead the crowd in counting down the flag raising at which point the fun breaks out immediately as she went into a dance and lip sync rendition. Breaks were taken for pictures and to catch their breath.
I really believe you can have a community event that respects the struggles of the LGBTQ community, be family friendly and still allow everyone to have fun. It wraps up by 9pm at which point we encourage everyone to go to local restaurants (who have all learned that it's good for business to be inclusive, we even had some that wanted to set up but we didn't have the permits this year.) Once again now that we have been at it for several years people, like the restaurants, are coming to us. Which is why I laugh at these people complaining about gay people pushing stuff in their face, I'm sorry but the call is coming from inside the house straight people who hate pride. LGBTQ spaces and events are increasingly finding a new challenge , how to balance our own unique culture with the bigger and bigger waves of straight allies who want to join in. So they can keep whining about how we are pushing our agenda with events like the one at the libraries but this is all only because so many straight people want in on this that we need to keep expanding what we do to accommodate all the new people.
Chelsea Curves
Why oh why do we not have a drag queen yet named Chelsea Curves is beyond me.
*Taking notes
*Taking notes
Very cool
Will look for it next year!
Re: "My family and I welcome everyone".
Except for "these folks"? Any other exceptions? I'm sure there must at least a few more groups on your "bad" list.
Why "escape" the city
and then spend all your time reading and commenting on a local blog about city events?
Ok so pretty easy answer - don't go to these events? I don't see why you feel the need to comment on the events you'd prefer not to go to in a city you don't even live in.
I'm sorry that drag turns you on
That isn't the point of it.
Do you police your child's dress up and ascribe sexuality to that?
https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/infants-toddlers/social-emoti...
So
Drag queens are like children playing dress up?
Oh dear
I think you believe that you're being oh so clever with your incessant "I will use a logical fallacy to construct a 'so you're saying' statement that no one will see through" tactics. After reading a number of your comments, I must say candidly that you strike me as less intelligent than the average uhubber, and so this is really painfully embarrassing to watch. It's like watching a kid who was slightly brighter than some of his kindergarten peers, and also not very well socialized, so he thought this kind of thing was fun...and who never outgrows it, and who keeps using the same tired sandbox tricks, and who never figures out that his favorite trick might fool the average kindergartner but it doesn't work so well on adults.
tl;dr: there's a reason why people often don't bother to respond to your clumsy attempts at a gotcha.
It’s usually
Just you responding Ibb. All I am doing is repeating the things others are saying.
It's not and you're not
It's not, though. Plenty of other people pointed out your idiocy in this thread.
You're not. You're disingenuously misstating and flat out making up things that no one said. You are either as dense as lead or as dishonest and lacking in self-awareness as Trump. Perhaps both?
Sure, and
Al Horford is like a child playing a ballgame. Comparisons are easy, but they don't always say very much.
Can you imagine back in the days of Shakespeare
having men dress up as woman like it was some sort of act? Society has fallen so far.
/s
So
Drag queens are merely just in a perpetual state of acting?
Yes
"Drag queens are merely just in a perpetual state of acting?"
When they are in their "drag", YES. Drag queens are not transgender. Get with the program. They themselves even refer to their "act".
So
How is that different than being a furry?
Is Mickey Mouse at Disney a
Is Mickey Mouse at Disney a furry?
So
Drag queens get paid to dress like that? That would make it a job. You think whoever dresses up as Mickey does that all the time and not just for their job?
Oh we have an expert on our
Oh we have an expert on our hands... I do photography, I sometimes do it for free (I get posted here quite often) and I often get paid for my services. Drag Queens sometimes do it for free... But they very often do get paid. I have written checks for enough of them to know they like money just like any other capitalist.
Ignore the Sea Lion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Point taken, I guess that's
Point taken, I guess that's why he's so obelsessed with Furries
What's wrong with furries?
Furry fandom isn't my cup of tea, but dude, most of what goes on at furry conferences is all-ages and is just people in costumes and people selling merch, just like at comic con, sci-fi cons (or fundie con or wherever it is you have your fun).
I should have aimed lower
clearly my point went over your head.
Nobody is forcing you to take
Nobody is forcing you to take your children there
Do straight people take their wedding rings off when talking to kids?
Do pregnant women hide from kids?
Do kids actively participate in weddings?
Do kids ever see cheerleaders?
Guess what, if a clean version of a Drag Show is too sexual for you then what do you call all those other scenarios. Why is it only pushing sex in someones face when its a Queer person? Also did you know that there are straight drag queens? One was just in the last season of Rupaul. How about Tyler Perry? Robin Williams? Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, The Waynes Brothers, Monty Python, All the Kids in the Hall, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Tim Curry, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Patrick Swayze, Wesley Friggin Snipes, Christopher Walken, John Lithgow... and I am running out of steam before we even begin flipping the pages of history all the way back to Shakesphere!
Now lets talk about these good old days. I am all for nostalgia when it comes to all sorts of Americana but, BUT if you are sitting at your computer seriously lecturing us about the "good old days" in reference to LGBTQ people what I hear is "back when those damn gays would keep their damn mouths shut and people could beat the shit out of them without any repercussions and they would just suck it up or die." Are those the good old days you are talking about? The days when people like me were surrounded by messaging that being gay was bad, or dangerous , something that was not allowed. The good old days when the government could laugh and laugh while HIV and AIDS destroyed a generation for years before it was given enough attention to devise ways to keep people alive because it was just a "gay" disease.
The good old days when even the ultra famous like Freddie Mercury and Rock Hudson would succumb to a plague and didn't feel like they could be fully truthful about what was going on because, well , it was the good old days.
Excuse me if I don't very much want to go back to the good old days when gay people knew their place and kept their mouths shut. Excuse me if I don't want to go back to the good old days when Transgender people were thought of as people to be derided. Excuse me if I don't want to go back to a time when young adults kill themselves rather than face people like you who are too dense to see the person beyond where they stick their private parts... oh wait that still happens. A lot of this still happens. The difference is now we are not as hidden as we are before and that scares you, you are afraid that if children see that they can be who they are that they may themselves feel comfortable enough to express themselves at some point. That little Johnny may decide to be a well adjusted young gay man instead of a closeted alcoholic straight man who kills himself.
The good old days....
Gee, "BigBird"
Now do the Catholic Church who have stolen more innocence from children than drag queens have.
This isn't normal.
Unleash the "you're a bigot" replies.
Drag performance isn't a lifestyle it's a form of entertainment for other adults.
There's no reason for it to be adult-only
Sure, drag performers CAN include racy aspects in their performances. So can comedians, magicians, actors, rappers, or bassoonists. If their performance doesn't have 18+ language or content, then it's not an 18+ performance just because the person is capable of including such but didn't. I'm surprised this is so difficult.
They can read to kids without the costume
It's not about the kids it's about the drag queens. If it was about the kids they'd show up dressed like they usually dress and read to the kids.
They want the attention with their ridiculous interpretation of what a woman is, the over the top makeup and eyelashes etc,, is cringeworty when children are involved. I can handle it I'm a grown woman but little kids can have books read to them without being pawns .
Tell you what
When you're reading to kids, you can wear your cargo shorts and a polo shirt. That work for you?
Pot, kettle.
What does cargo shorts and a polo shirt represent?
I'm not following.
I mean
If you're going to police the attire of others at an event you have no intention of attending, I suppose apparel can mean whatever you choose it to mean, and far be it from me to tell you.
I didn't police anything
I am not trying to stop drag queen story time, I was giving my opinion on it.
Who asked?
And who asked? Seriously, who asked?
This is a straight people thing, you think your two cents on anything LGBTQ is wanted and needed and relevant. It isn't. If gay folks offered opinions and critiques on straight lifestyles and behaviors the way you feel perfectly entitled to offer your opinions on anything LGBTQ, you'd lose your mind. It's rude and tacky. Why do you do it?
No one asked
Who asked you to "police" my opinion
Is this your first day on this site? He posts stuff and people give their opinions.
Oh sorry, that was me who
Oh sorry, that was me who asked them to do that...
Is this your first day on this planet?
Is this your first day on this planet?
You are tacky beyond belief. Really, it's embarrassing to watch people like you run your mouths and your keyboards with ignorant, uninformed, irrelevant opinions about how other people should stop doing something that harms you not one iota. You want to opine about whether pineapple is good on pizza? Go for it. You want to opine about whether anyone should be allowed to put pineapple on pizza? Keep that opinion to yourself.
Well that’s the issue
You are not allowed to have an opinion. You must just follow along blindly and never question anything from the “oppressed,” who are showing their true colors of intolerance of those who do not act and think as they do more and more with every passing day. Get in line or face the wrath of the intolerant.
Anyone saying this is simply reading books to kids is lying. The books are generally chosen with an agenda in mind. It’s too bad adults feel the need to jam their worldview down children’s throats instead of letting them just be kids.
Perhaps we should implement boot camp for 1st graders because it will make them stronger and more disciplined people. Or…we can raise them as children and just let them grow to be who they are and introduce the worldviews of adults in middle or high school.
The reason this is happening is because elementary school students are now an intended target for many people to lay down their views without dissent from those listening.
I must have missed where this was a mandatory event
Seems like if you're a parent who doesn't want your kids to see this - just don't take them to it?
Boy, you haven't read many childrens' books, have you? You might want to take another look - most of them are about trying to "jam a worldview" down someone's throat! There's a reason why "Arthur and his friends sit staring at the walls and never learn any lessons" never got printed.
Your first sentence is a lie.
You are allowed to have an opinion. Other people are allowed to have an opinion, too. They may be in opposition to each other. This is allowed!
Pretty simple
You're clearly someone who doesn't understand the fun people can have dressing up, and the fun other people can have seeing someone who's dressed in a fun outfit.
Hey Ibb
What kind of shorts and shirts are you into? Or are you just a pants person? I’m genuinely curious.
Hey bostonbot
Hey bostonbot,
My favorite attire, when I cannot get a full vacuum suit, is a grass skirt and a coconut bra.
Your raggedy business is down the hall and to the left.