Drag Queen Story Time Comes to the Philadelphia School District
Greenfield Elementary School in Center City Philadelphia has informed parents of its first graders that it is planning to host a drag queen story book event in the near future. This “show” will be performed by “Brittany Lynn” aka Ian Morrison who has been performing for youngsters at the Please Touch Museum for several years.
Parents of 1st grade were contacted last weekend with a pre-announcement of the up coming event, one hopes, as a trial balloon. It appears that balloon has burst as a parent or perhaps a teacher from the school has sent the email to Libs of Tik Tok. This is now rippling across national media.
The question of the appropriateness of this event appears to be blow past a lot of people. Many have become conditioned to believe any opposition to such exposure of their very young children to the repurposing of stage characters, from what was traditionally confined to night club acts, is in essence being anti-inclusivity, far-right, or even hateful.
The questions parents need to ask should be is the sexualized characterizations of femininity belong in front of such a young age group? How are parents going to be able to describe to their child what a trans person is? Is the school prepared to help parents with this difficult and/or confusing subject? And at age 6 is that a timely and appropriate conversation?
The fetishization of hair, make up, jewelry, breasts and pumps is the type of feminine stereotype that took the women’s rights movement a half century or more to overcome. Is this what being a women means? Is this what being gay is? Are these questions, which might be just right in a high school class or university seminar, ones a first grade teacher should be pressed to engage in with their students?
What’s wrong with just masterfully reading a book to a young audience focused intently on the literature’s content. Perhaps that might be the show? Did Mr. Rodgers need to show off outrageous slacks or slippers to engage his audience?
It is a necessary question to ask the Philadelphia School District why it should feel it is appropriate to embrace exaggerated characterizations of femininity that come demonstrated by a man for such a young and immature audience? Is this being properly explained by the school or the district or should parents just be condemned for even asking?
update:
The following is the response from the Greenfield School’s Home and School Assoc.
Dear Greenfield Community,
As you may have heard, Greenfield is in the process of bringing in Drag Queen Story Time as a way to promote diversity, inclusion, and belonging in our school, while also promoting literacy. A letter was sent to parents in participating lower school classes to give them advance notice of the program, as well as to provide contact information for parents who wished to ask questions, voice concerns, or opt out.
Unfortunately, the letter was sent to an organization that has promoted hate against the LGBTQ+ community, particularly towards trans* children and schools that have taken measures to provide a safe space for trans* children. Since then, the letter that was featured on this site was retweeted by prominent anti-LGBTQ accounts and featured in the national news.
Our hope is that when parents have questions or concerns about things happening at Greenfield, they feel comfortable speaking to us, another member of the HSA, the Principal, our school counselor, or any of the teachers. We are all here to listen and to answer any questions you may have.
This program is not mandatory, or an agenda being pushed by the school or the HSA. If parents are uncomfortable with their child participating, we all fully understand that, and they have a right to opt their child out of these activities.
Ultimately, one of our major goals is to promote a safe environment for our children, and we feel that initiatives such as Drag Queen Story Time do just that. In this case, Drag Queen Story Time is simply an avenue to normalize gender fluidity without explicitly having to teach kids about gender and provide enriched literary experiences with a bit of flair. The idea is to break harmful notions that support the bullying, teasing, and shaming that many trans* students face daily.
Bringing in speakers and guests of a variety of gender presentations, and finding ways to show our children that Greenfield is inclusive and safe for LGBTQ+ students, has a positive impact on safety. According to The Trevor Project, “Fewer than 1 in 3 transgender and nonbinary youth found their home to be gender-affirming and a little more than half (51%) found their school to be affirming. The Trevor Project’s research consistently finds that LGBTQ young people report lower rates of attempting suicide when they have access to LGBTQ-affirming spaces.”
As we think about protecting our students from harm and providing a safe, affirming space, we hope we can work together as a community.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxx & xxxxxxx HSA President & HSA President Elect