Tangle - The drag show controversy.

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

One of the newest culture war battlegrounds in the U.S. is the exposure of children to drag shows. Plus, a listener question about Julian Assange.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. On today's episode, we are wading into a culture war. We're going to talk about the drag show controversy. And if you just said to yourself the what, you probably spend an appropriate amount of time online, unlike me. This is not something I thought we were going to cover.

We'll talk about why we are in a minute. Before we do, though, I want to quick make a clarification about yesterday's podcast. I responded to a reader question about Judge Ludig. And the reader who wrote in had basically quoted him as saying that President Trump and his party were a clear and present danger for American democracy. And in responding to the reader question, I said, actually, in his testimony, Ludig had said the president and his allies were a clear and present danger for American democracy, which felt like a distinction worth making. However, it turns out that Judge Luttig did actually say the quote the reader had sent in. He just said it in an NPR interview that was released after the testimony. So this isn't really a correction.

It's more of a clarification. I think I was right because I said he didn't say this in his testimony. The reader was right by quoting him and saying this because he did actually say it in an interview with NPR. So I just wanted to make sure that was clear, no confusion. A few people wrote in about it and it felt worth calling out. All right, before we jump into our main story, we're going to start off with some quick hits for the day. First up, Alabama and Georgia have primary runoff elections today, and Virginia has primary elections. Number two, the January 6th committee will be holding its fourth public hearing today to focus on the pressure state officials faced following the 2020

election. Number three, Israel will be forced to hold another election to determine its leader after the current government dissolves, the fifth election it has had in four years. Number four, hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed in Ethiopia in what appears to be an ethnically motivated attack. Number five, gasoline prices fell below $5 per gallon, its first weekly decline in over two months. Storybook hours often seek to entertain young children while inspiring a love of reading. But one organization is turning the tables on who's turning the pages. Queens Councilman Vicky Palladino talking to the cops sent to guard her office after she received death threats following a series of tweets challenging a $200,000 program

that sends drag queens into city schools to teach gender diversity. What was supposed to be a quiet reading time with drag queen Panda Dulce ended like this. Did you guys call the cops? It was stormed by eight Proud Boys. I have no idea why you want drag queens to read books to your children. I have no idea. What in the hell has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them and admire them so much? One of the newest culture war battlegrounds in the U.S. is the exposure of children to drag shows.

Since Pride Month began on June 1st, more and more attention has been paid to Drag Queens Story Hour, a non-profit started in 2015 that helps fund drag queens who read to children and their parents at libraries, bookstores, fairs, parks, and other public spaces. The events are billed as a fun and entertaining way for kids to learn basic lessons in an imaginative setting, which encourages children that it's okay to be different. But in the last few weeks, drag shows more generally have become an increasingly strident point of contention. Activists who say it is inappropriate to expose kids to drag are protesting across the country. On social media, influential conservatives like Christopher Ruffo and the account libs of TikTok

have shared videos of some looter drag shows happening in schools or public spaces with children in attendance. Much like the controversy around gender ideology in classrooms and Florida's parental rights bill, conservative activists have said drag shows are designed to groom children into subscribing to more progressive ideology or into being gay or trans. In Texas, Republican Brian Slayton has said he would propose a bill banning people from hosting drag shows in the presence of minors. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Republican Arizona state senators then followed suit. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said child protective services

may consider drag shows child endangerment. Florida Senator Marco Rubio called for a drag queen's story time to be canceled, describing it as a gross abuse of taxpayer funding to place children in a sexualized environment. This weekend, members of the extremist militia group known as the Proud Boys disrupted a drag show event reading at a California library. The controversy has drummed up a lot of commentary about drag, what we're exposing our kids to, and whether it's okay for them to be exposed to certain content at all. It has become a deeply divisive political and cultural issue. In a moment, you're going to hear some reactions

from the left is saying. The left says drag is a perfectly innocent and fun way for kids to learn, and objections to it are rooted in homophobia. Some call out the increasingly common trend of demonizing LGBTQ people. Others say we are in the midst of a new rainbow scare. In NBC News, the children's book author and drag queen Little Miss Hot Mess said attempts to shut down story hours are an attack on freedom of expression and imagination. While I have grown used to backlash from conservative groups, I am disturbed by the recent mainstreaming of overtly anti-LGBTQ and racist discourse, especially legislative attacks on trans kids, attempts to falsely discredit queer people as

groomers, and efforts to ban books with diverse themes, they said. Drag Queen Story Hour's most potent teachings, like any good drag performance, are best read between the lines. Parents and educators often assume that what children can learn about most from drag performers is to challenge gender stereotypes and celebrate diverse LGBTQ leaders and histories. While these are certainly important learning objectives, drag is also a creative portal into a new world. Through drag, we're able to see those elements of society that are a hot mess and find the courage and creativity to change them. Drag activates creativity and play, expanding traditional ways of thinking, Little Miss Hot Mess said.

Drag offers a textbook example of imagination, transforming society by making a new image of ourselves and the world around us. Drag queens and kings turn trash into treasure, taking our inner spark and allowing it to shine on the outside. And we invite respect through the audacity of being our most fabulous selves, holding our heads high even against the toughest critics. In research I've published with education scholar Harper Keenan, we argue that drag echoes many of the most effective learning practices, according to prominent scholars of educational theory. Among other things, programs like ours invite a sense of wonder and curiosity through our larger-than-life and engaging presence in classrooms and libraries, replacing scripted ways of learning with improvisation and inquiry.

Jahan Jones said a growing number of high-profile conservatives have spent the last year demonizing LGBTQ people. Lately, that's led many right-wing figures to become bizarrely infatuated with drag shows, Jones said. For Republicans who try to enforce rigid and outmoded gender roles in nearly all aspects of society, drag shows are an easy target. People, often queer people, happily wearing clothes that defy gender norms embody a world conservatives want us to believe is dangerous, especially to children. Ironically, these claims have come from members of a party servile to former President Donald Trump, who's made sexual comments about his own daughter in the past, been accused of walking in on teen

beauty pageant participants as they were changing, danced around with Jeffrey Epstein, and offered kind words to Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell ahead of her trial. Nonetheless, Republicans baselessly claim queer people, and drag queens especially, are the real child predators, and across the board they're embracing extreme measures to oppress and ostracize these people, Jones said. All of this rhetoric has fed a culture of violence and intimidation that is being waged against queer people and their supporters. On Saturday, members of the Proud Boys extremist militia disrupted an event in California where people in drag were reading stories to children. In a separate incident on Saturday, 31 people affiliated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested after piling into a moving truck to allegedly disrupt a pride event in Idaho. And in Arizona last month, a right-wing extremist who

has appeared in photos with several local politicians threatened to quote, hunt LGBTQ supporters in Phoenix, saying in a video that these people are not safe. Allison Hope said Americans are facing a rainbow scare. The rainbow scare has haunting echoes of the red scare and related lavender scare, as historian David K. Johnson coined it, from the mid-20th century, when fears about the spread of communism during the Cold War emboldened Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and others in the U.S. government to persecute and ostracize people who were deemed to be communist sympathizers, cavorting with the Soviet enemy, Hope said. Today, extreme right officials and community leaders are heinously using LGBTQ plus students

as pawns to stoke fear and win votes. Banning books, censoring curricula, and silencing LGBTQ students and teachers are the latest tactics in the right's effort to perpetuate regressive discrimination under the guise of a culture war. The rainbow scare is evident in the more than 200 bills and state legislators that aim to or already have stripped LGBTQ plus and specifically trans kids of the right to access life-saving health care, to play sports, or even to talk about orientation or gender identity in schools, Hope said. It's there in the coordinated efforts to ban books in libraries and schools that have LGBTQ plus characters or themes, and in bills in the one passed by the Ohio State of Representatives,

which would, in addition to banning trans girls from sports, require a genital exam and verification by a doctor if a student's sex were questioned. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to the right's take. The right says it is about protecting children's innocence. They argue that drag shows are inappropriate for kids no matter what the content is. Some call out drag queens who have been accused of sexual crimes. In Fox News, David Marcus said the left is abandoning the idea of a child's innocence. Protests erupted over the weekend as a gay bar in Texas hosted a Drag Your Kids to Pride event, at which, among other things, kids tipped dancers in drag with dollar bills,

mimicking the common strip club practice, Marcus wrote. Defenders of the youth-themed show call it harmless fun, but it raises serious questions about whether children need to be protected from this overtly sexual entertainment. Put simply, do we have as a a society, a responsibility to protect the innocence of children? 18th century French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau is generally considered the father of this movement, which held that children entered the world blameless and should be protected from negative influences until they develop into fully reasonable adults. But today, the American left is

abandoning this principle, he said. Does it still believe that childhood should be a time of innocence? Recently, an article in Fatherly argued that we should bring our young children to gay pride events even though they may well be exposed to public nudity and kink. It's the same kind of commonplace thing said today that not very long ago would have sounded completely insane. The message is a clear one. The risk of harming a child with inappropriate images is worth ensuring they wind up with the right politics. Now, nobody thinks that progressives today would put 12-year-old kids back in the coal mines, but we know that they are very willing to place them on the barricades of their political and culture wars, both literally

at pride events and figuratively by making little tiny activists out of them at school. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. more at fluselvax.ca. In the Washington Examiner, Kimberly Ross said, yes, children are too young for drag shows. There's been a growing militancy within the LGBTQ community. Among other things, normalizing gender transitioning for minors and demanding correct pronoun usage have increased.

So have drag queen events geared toward children. Both drag queen story hour and family-friendly drag shows are meant to inspire acceptance and diversity, Ross said. But introducing sexually exaggerated female characters played by men isn't at all appropriate for children. This position should not be controversial. Some communities, such as one in Apex, North Carolina, reject these drag-related events, and politicians such as Texas Representative Brian Slayton prefer legislation that would actually ban minors from such events. Conservatives are right to be bothered, but the issue should be discussed in a much broader context of parental obligation. Rejecting drag queen events aimed at children is considered by

some to be homophobic. The truth is, there are many events children should never attend and plenty of entertainment they should not consume. Standing between children and mature, violent, and or sexually explicit things is what adults should be doing. Instead, the issue has become another culture war topic in which the left is said to be about diversity and the right is all about hatred. It's dishonest, lopsided nonsense, she wrote. No children should not be exposed to drag shows, even ones labeled family-friendly. Minors aren't allowed at strip clubs for good reason. Movies have age requirements too. If I allowed my son to watch an episode of The Sopranos with me, I would be doing him a disservice. He is far too young to view it.

In Spectator, Ellie Garty criticized Democrats for placing drag queens in schools. Drag queens have become symbolic of the indoctrination of children into the LGBTQ ideology, as the drag queen story hour has grown in popularity in elementary schools and libraries, Garty wrote. The event features men dressed in drag who read children's books that advocate for radical gender ideology. The story time is sometimes accompanied by sexually explicit dancing. The non-profit Drag Queen Story Hour says that its events capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and allow children to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish.

gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish. The New York Post reported last week that New York City schools have spent over $200,000 on drag queen shows. The events have drawn headlines for connections to child predation, she said. The former president of an organization that sponsored Drag Story Hour events was sentenced to nine years in prison for possessing images depicting the sexual abuse of children. In another incident, the drag queen who read to children at the Houston Public Library was a registered child sex offender. Alright, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take. Alright, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take.

Okay. God. Why is our country like this? Alright, so when I initially saw drag shows generating political punditry, I was not planning on covering it. I felt as if the story was just pure, unadulterated culture war on the fringes and one that probably wasn't worth engaging. But when I saw the response get so hot that lawmakers in several states began floating the idea of legislation to ban them, it crossed the Rubicon from culture war to significant political issue, one in the same league as Florida's parental rights and education bill or bans on teaching critical race theory. My sense from following this story is that there are two kinds of people objecting to these drag shows in schools.

One kind objects on the grounds that there are certain shows, highlighted in videos online, there are links to them in today's newsletter, that are just simply inappropriate for children. In these videos, drag queens might be wearing thongs, gyrating their hips, showing their crotches, having money stuffed into their cleavage, or displaying fake breasts. Many people reacted by saying there is no place for children at these performances, neither in schools nor if their parents decided to take them to such events outside of schools. Generally speaking, I don't see anything homophobic or otherwise untoward about this position. I've been to a few drag shows, which are always great and unambiguous fun, but I'm an adult. Some of the shows being highlighted by conservative activists do look inappropriate for children, at least to me.

And suggesting that these shows shouldn't be allowed in schools for certain ages seems totally rational for the same reason I wouldn't want my kid's school to put on a burlesque show. I've seen some drag queens argue this very same thing. There is a limit to that objection though. When you start claiming that parents might be endangering their kids by having them present at these shows or that it might be grounds for calling child protective services on a family, you've lost me. Even if you think these images are inappropriate for kids, they're closer to provocative cheerleader routines that you see during most halftime shows than they are to taking a kid to a strip club. I understand not wanting certain drag performances in school, but you can't beat the drum of parental rights as Governor Ron

DeSantis has in One Breath and then suggest you're going to take away someone's child in the next because they took them to a drag show. Either you want the parents to have discretion about how to raise their kids and what ages are appropriate to expose them to certain things, or you don't. Otherwise, you're just imposing your own views onto others with the law. The second kind of person objecting to these shows seems different, though, and I find them a bit more alarming. These are the people that suggest any man or woman dressing up as the opposite gender is some kind of sexual pervert or pedophile. These are the people in videos, like one I linked to in today's newsletter, who are barging into drag queen story hours to call the performers trannies and pedophiles, actions that I imagine

traumatize the very children they claim to be protecting. It should go without saying, but since it doesn't seem to, I will anyway. Drag queens reading children's books with LGBTQ characters is not the same as intentionally provocative strip teases. A man in makeup dressed as a woman is not going to harm your child. It's not hard to imagine teachers using this as a kind of theater, a performance, a way to engage kids and break the rhythm of the normal school day. And I'm certain there is even a middle ground where some drag queen performances that include dancing or singing would be perfectly suitable for kids. Nevertheless, some people online are doing everything they can to link drag queens

to sexual predators. In one of the above pieces, Ellie Garty calls out a quote-unquote incident where a drag queen who reads to children at the public Houston library was a registered sex offender. This is a real story from 2019, but using this as evidence that drag queens are sexually deviant and kids should be kept away is like saying kids shouldn't go to church because priests are sometimes child abusers. It's intended to make all drag queens seem like a threat, which is the kind of bigoted notion that the left properly gets infuriated by. And this is where the story gets messy and convoluted.

It puts actual homophobes and transphobes on the same side as well-meaning parents who just don't want their kids exposed to sexualized content of any kind. I think a simple and direct way to think about it is this. If a cheerleader was doing the exact same thing as some of these drag queens in front of your kids, would you find it offensive or inappropriate? If the answer is no, then it's probably the drag queen making you uncomfortable, which is cause for some self-reflection. You should lighten up. If the answer is yes, then it's likely you just view the content in front of you as inappropriate for children regardless of performer, and it's perfectly reasonable to object to them being exposed to that content in school. Unfortunately, it seems clear that journalists are no longer capable of

guiding a rational version of this conversation. But I'll keep conversing into the abyss for as long as I have to. Next up is Your Questions Answered. This one is from Jermaine in Houston, Texas. Jermaine said, News is now coming out that Julian Assange might be extradited to the U.S. What do you think? I think it's bad for the free press and very bad for Assange. I've written a good bit about Julian Assange before, and my conclusion then is the same one I have now.

This is what I wrote last year. Quote, regardless of whether you think Assange is a scumbag traitor or a once-in-a-generation hero, there is an immovable reality of what this prosecution means. As Jacob Solem so cogently put it, even with the hacking charges removed, Assange is still facing 170 years in prison for doing the things nearly every respectable news organization in the world does. When the initial charges were brought against him, there wasn't as much reason for consternation. does. When the initial charges were brought against him, there wasn't as much reason for consternation. But being charged under the Espionage Act for simply obtaining and disseminating classified documents, especially those that expose unambiguous wrongdoing by the United States

government, is chilling. End quote. There are good questions to ask about Assange, his motivations, and whether he actually ever committed any hacking crimes. But given the U.S. government has already tried to kidnap him and has made clear its plans for him if he comes here, there is really no reason to believe he'll get a fair trial. He doesn't have to be a hero, and WikiLeaks doesn't have to be a legitimate news organization for these concerns to be real for all journalists. I think Assange has already been punished plenty for his transgressions, and I don't think any good is going to come from him ending up in U.S. custody. Oddly, that has put me in agreement with a broad spectrum of people, from staunch progressives all the way to Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, you can take it however you want.

Alright, next up is our story that matters for the day. All right, next up is our story that matters for the day. Airports around the world are being plagued by delays, cancellations, long lines, and lost baggage, according to the Wall Street Journal. Soaring demand and staffing shortfalls have set off a cascade of problems for travelers, and it may worsen in the coming months. London's Gatwick Airport has gone as far as advising airlines to cut back on inbound flights. In the U.S., about 3% of scheduled flights have been scrapped so far this month, compared with a 2% rate in 2019. The total number of cancellations rose 16% from a year ago.

Worse, the surging demand for flights has overwhelmed capacity in some areas. The Wall Street Journal has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of LGBTQ candidates who ran for House or Senate this year was 104. The amount of money raised by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in May was $11.9 million. That's the most it's ever raised in May. The amount of money raised by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in May was $8 million. The median existing home price in May is now $407,600, the highest on record. The percentage of homes that sold in May at above their listing price was 60%.

percentage of homes that sold in May at above their listing price was 60%. All right, finally, our have a nice day section. A pastor in Flint, Michigan is launching an affordable laundromat in the basement of his church to help local residents. There's no laundromat in a four mile radius, North Flint's Good Church lead pastor Leo Robinson II told a newspaper. Over 75% of our people in this area depend on public transportation. So you can only imagine taking all of your clothes, getting on the MTA to go to the laundromat to sit for three or four hours to do your laundry, and then come back on that bus route. That's taking up most of your day. Robinson never considered a laundromat nearby could be more important than, say, dinner, but when he learned about hygiene poverty, he decided to take action. With donated laundry

machines, he's going to be able to launch an affordable laundromat that is accessible to the community. Good Good Good has the story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. Alright everybody, that is it for today's podcast just a reminder if you ever have thoughts feedback something you want to say you can reach me isaac isaac at readtangle.com and if you want to support our work you can go to readtangle.com membership that's it for today. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75.

For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.

It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed.