Facebook Is Loving This Man’s Honest Depiction of Drag Queen Story Hour

A man from Missouri has had enough of the disinformation around Drag Queen Story Hour events. So he posted about these children’s reading opportunities on Facebook, and the internet took notice.

Kyle Denton posted a photo on Tuesday showing real drag queens reading to kids in over-the-top outfits.

“Just [in] case people were wondering, this is what drag queens around children look like! Fully dressed, usually dressed in the theme of the book they are reading! Lots of you have misinformation about what a drag queen in a library looks like. They aren’t doing some overly sexual show! They are just reading books to kids in a silly over the top (fully covered up) costume!” he wrote.

The post has been liked and shared thousands of times and has attracted thousands of comments, mostly supportive.

“Drag Queen story hour is not offensive. If you’re offended, that’s a you problem. Worry a bit more about your kindergartener having to go through active shooter drills and little girls being dolled up like sex workers for “baby beauty contests.” You know, *actual* problems,” wrote one Facebook user.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union in January, Missouri was leading the nation in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative proposals. In February, GOP lawmakers in the state introduced a bill that critics say is worse than Florida’s restrictive “don’t say gay” law.

Republicans contend that those who affirm transgender people and who are not scandalized by drag queens reading to kids in over-the-top costumes are sexualizing children.

Those on the right have made drag queens a political football, with Republican-led legislatures going so far as to ban performances of drag in public.

Tennessee became the first state in the nation where drag performances conducted where children can see them will now lead to felony charges when the Republican governor signed a drag ban into law last week. Across the country, Republicans have sought to ban drag shows due to misinformation being spread online around Drag Queen Story Hours and children. Some on the right have conflated nightclub shows with family-friendly brunch events or the popular reading program.

To combat the influx of people attacking the post by claiming people who support drag queens reading to kids were “groomers,” many in the comments posted photos of little girls wearing very little clothing and makeup as part of children’s beauty pageants and cheerleaders revealing plenty of skin and engaging in suggestive movements to show the ridiculousness in the far-right argument that extremists and Republicans have made, claiming drag queens sexualize children.

“Everybody knows why conservatives insist on being the only ones with access to children. After all, Chris Hansen didn’t catch any drag queens,” wrote one supporter.

Denton tells The Advocate he made the post to combat misinformation in his circle of contacts.

“I wrote the post because a few days earlier, I reposted a picture that said ‘Drag shows haven’t killed anyone, but guns have’ or something along those lines, and a couple [of] people in my daily life took offense to that and told me I was wrong and that drag was disgusting and was all of a sudden being pushed down their throats,” he says.

He made another post, he says, which included pictures of famous actors in drag from film and TV, including Mrs. Doubtfire, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and M*A*S*H*.

“Well, people took even more offense to that,” he says. “I got an email from someone that told me [that] drag back then was different, and now it was all S&M things and being done at schools.”

Denton says he decided to Google drag queens with kids to show the people in his life that they were wrong. The entire exercise, he says, was to educate those he knows who have a misconception of what far-right media figures have told them.

He says that the attention his post has gotten has been rewarding.

“I had no idea that so many people would share it,” he says.

“I’ve been around drag for 15 years, and the queens are some of the kindest people I know,” he adds.

He says he’s impressed by the strength that drag performers exhibit daily with all the ridicule to which they are exposed.

“They are wonderful people in and out of drag, and I just wish people took the time to get to know them before they labeled them as a problem,” Denton says.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include comments Kyle Denton made in response to The Advocate’s questions.