Drag vs Fascism

Drag v. Fascism

Episode 139: Dec 26, 2022 9:38AM • 56:38

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 00:00

This was part of an escalation of folks targeting the queer community, but drag shows in particular have seen — primarily mobilized by Proud Boys — protests at gay pride events, other drag story hours, and drag shows across the state.

Desmond 00:17

To me, drag is being yourself and creating a character who you enjoy being. I enjoy performing, because I can make people happy and I love the cheers, just the happiness that comes with performance. To see kids being able to be themselves without their parents being called “groomers” or them being called “disappointments,” I really want to see a world that’s like that because LGBTQ people should not have the face that just for being.

Paradise 00:42

My reinforced feelings of self love and acceptance are also being enjoyed and cherished by the people that I perform with and for. We’re really being able to introduce these conversations about gender on a level that’s really, truly unprecedented, and how to really have those conversations or if you’re not ready to have those conversations just to exist, and to be happy with that and to know that you deserve it just as much as anybody else does.

Sam Goldman 01:31

Welcome to Episode 139 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. In today’s episode, we’re sharing a set of interviews speaking to the attacks on drag events. In Moore County, North Carolina on December 3, approximately 40,000 people were left without power when two power stations were shot up.

As I mentioned on a previous episode, this is noteworthy not just because of the scale of the attack, or the timing — it occurred during the same time as a drag event in the area was about to begin, that had been targeted for harassment — but also because this tactic of trying to shut off the power supply as part of a right wing coup attempt was first uncovered in 2020, when an informant with a neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Group revealed this was part of an attempt to keep Trump in power.

To get into this I speak with Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, Communications Director with Down Home North Carolina and a [Greensboro] News and Record columnist. Then I share insights from drag performers Desmond Napolis and Paradise.

But first, thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcasts, shares and comments on social media or YouTube. It helps us reach more listeners and we read every one. So, after listening to today’s episode, go help us find more people who want to refuse fascism by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts and encouraging your friends and family who listen to do the same, subscribe/follow so you never miss an episode, and of course, continue all that sharing and commenting on social media.

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Sam Goldman 04:05

As I mentioned last week, research from GLAAD and Equality Texas has identified at least 141 “protests and threats” against drag events across 47 states that happened in the United States in 2022. On November 19, on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, a man shot up Club Q, an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, which was holding a drag show that same night. Five people were killed and at least 18 injured. Terror and trauma spread to not only those at the club and their family and friends who lost their loved ones, but to the LGBTQ community across the nation, especially trans folks who have been specifically targeted for torment.

Fascist forces in the United States, from the Christian fascist Republi-fascists in Congress to terrorist misogynist thugs like the Proud Boys, have been whipping up bigotry against LGBTQ people for years, and much more intensely so in the last six months. This anti-LGBTQ violence is the predictable outcome given the fascist propaganda and venom from the Lauren Boeberts and Marjorie Taylor Greenes on loop from the mouths of Tucker Carlson, and others on Fox News from “influencers” like Tim Poole and Matt Walsh.

It is now commonplace to hear about doctors and hospitals facing bomb threats for providing gender affirming care for attacks to be planned on pride events for drag shows to be met with armed “protesters,” and for family-friendly drag story hours to not only face demonization on fascist propaganda networks like Fox News, but to face harassment reminiscent of the experience of the decades of terror by the anti’s at abortion clinics.

We’re going to get right to these interviews today, but we can’t be silent regarding the January 6th Commission report and its referral to the DOJ for criminal charges for Trump. We’ll say more about it soon, as we are still reading and thinking about it. It’s over 800 pages and dozens of attached interview transcripts long. We hope you all are also reading and thinking about it, and as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. It is unprecedented that such a commission has made the recommendation that a former president who just so happens to be the GOP front runner, and some of their co-conspirators never be allowed to hold political office again, and that they be prosecuted for committing multiple felonies.

It is a good thing that the January 6th Committee referred Trump for criminal charges. It can be part of confronting the fascist threat we face if the decent people in the United States take the fight against fascism beyond the courtroom and the ballot box into the streets and into every sphere of society. Now, here’s my interview with Gwen. Welcome, Gwen.

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 07:08

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Sam Goldman 07:10

Let’s start with the basics. For those around the country who haven’t heard about what took place in Moore County, can you give us the nutshell version?

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 07:21

Yeah, absolutely. Moore County, North Carolina is a small rural county; most of North Carolina is rural. As folks have been for a long time in rural North Carolina, there was a local theater that was hosting a drag show. A couple of weeks in advance of that drag show, some bad actors started to protest and tried to get that drag show to not happen. However, it did go on. A protest was held outside, and as the drag show started, the power went out. The power didn’t go out just to the theater, but to the vast majority of Moore County, including all the local businesses and homes.

As it turns out, two power stations that were about 10 miles apart, were shot at and sabotaged so that the power was lost for almost a full week for the entire county. I believe, and I think it’s pretty clear, that this was part of an escalation over the last six, seven months that we’ve been seeing in North Carolina, of folks targeting the queer community, but drag shows in particular and sort of upping the ante at each protest. On the ground, local folks feel strongly that there’s a connection, though no official connection has been made by authorities yet.

Sam Goldman 08:37

What has been made clear, correct me if I’m wrong, is that this was an intentional incident; that there’s no way that this could have happened without some malicious intent. Correct?

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 08:49

That is absolutely correct. I think folks spent that first day really hoping that that wasn’t going to be the case, but shell casings were found at the two substations. These are fairly big complexes. These weren’t just transistors in the neighborhood, and one of the substations at least had to have its gates rammed through presumably by a truck or some sort of vehicle in order to gain access. So, the local authorities and the FBI have confirmed that it was absolutely an intentional act, and coordinated.

Sam Goldman 09:18

This is really chilling. Not only because more than, I think, 40,000 people were cut off from power for days — you said about a week — with schools being closed, well water being unavailable for houses, homes going unheated, etc. But because it seems to be the coming into fruition of a plot that we first heard about a couple years ago that fascist groups were looking to target power stations for attack as part of an overall assault to keep Trump in power. Can you tell us more about this?

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 09:52

You know, by no means am I an expert in Far Right extremism, but because I do rural organizing and because I live in the South, one is best to keep their eyes on things and monitor what’s happening in their own communities. So what we do know is that the accelerationist wing of far right extremists, who are often Neo-Nazi white supremacists, have been talking about this kind of attack for years now.

In fact, in 2021, in North Carolina, three Marines were arrested at Camp Lejeune, which is down in East North Carolina, a couple hours from Moore County, for being part of a Neo-Nazi plan to attack power grids. They didn’t do it. My understanding is that they were caught before this happened, but we know that that has been part of the milieu and the conversation of accelerationism. My interest is in the rural South and in working class mobilization and working class organization, and Moore County is the perfect example of why extremism does not work, ever, for local folks, for poor folks for working class, folks, in fact, quite the opposite.

Sam Goldman 11:03

Another thing that you wrote about is that the sheriff of Moore County is actually an acquaintance or friend of this local fascist organizer, Emily Rainey, and appeared at some political events alongside her. Can you tell us who she is and why this is an important part of the story.

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 11:21

It’s an important part of the story, because it helps us understand how the rural South works. Now, I want to be really very clear. I am a Southerner, and I know myself and my colleagues and my friends and my family, and that most of rural North Carolina is diverse, accepting and incredibly resilient. I think that a lot of the stereotypes that others have about the rural South are incredibly undeserved. What we do have, however, is baked in power structures that don’t benefit poor and working folks across race, and those are leftover from 200 some years of history.

What was happening in Moore County is that right after the power went out, a disgraced officer from Fort Bragg, which is in a nearby county only maybe 30-35 minutes away from where this attack happened, named Captain Emily Grace Rainey posted on her own Facebook page that the power is out in Moore County, and I know why. Rainey had been behind this sort of two week build up of protests against the theater that was holding the drag show. So immediately, she was visited by local law enforcement when she posted this, and because she posted a photo of the darkened theater where the drag show was happening, saying something about this is the way god is dealing with the sin.

Quickly, however, the local law enforcement said this young woman has nothing to do with it, and indicated that they had actually prayed with her. The problem with this is that in small towns, folks do know each other, and this is the benefit of living in small rural Southern towns. But also there’s a baked-in power structure, like I said, that just doesn’t work for the majority of local folks. So this sheriff there was found to have had a lot of interactions with Rainey before — a picture circulating of the two of them sort of, in an embrace at a local “back the blue” event. And quickly, local folks lost confidence in their sheriff to be able to investigate this, and the FBI, and my understanding is the Joint Terrorism Task Force, has basically taken over the investigation at this point.

This is something we see across the board. When we do local rural organizing, we find that these baked-in power structures are already there, and we have, especially local sheriffs, but certainly other people in power as well, really upholding, sometimes the farthest right in the community. We’ve seen this around protests against Confederate monuments. We’ve had a number of local sheriffs either over-arrest the opposition to Confederate monuments, or ignore threats that are pretty clear from neo-Confederates. This is pretty standard across North Carolina. There’s a lot of grassroots movements, of course right now to make a change and try to change those power structures.

Sam Goldman 14:16

The power station was attacked at the same time that this drag event was about to start as you’ve spoken about. This is why people believe it was the true target of the attack, as it has been singled out for various types of “protests,” as you mentioned in the lead up of the event. I was wondering if you can tell us anything about the nature of this event, and a little bit more about why you think it was targeted?

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 14:42

It’s important to understand the way that we see the far right working to answer this. In North Carolina for the last six to eight months, we have seen a big mobilization statewide. This is in big cities like Raleigh all the way down I’m to small towns like Southern Pines. We’ve seen groups organizing with increasing frequency and severity, I think would be the word I would look for, against these protests. It started in June when Proud Boys descended on a children’s story our in a local library that was reading books about diverse families. They sort of ceremoniously marched in, they terrified the local families and children, and local law enforcement seems sort of aghast and uncertain of what to do.

Since then we have seen — primarily mobilized by Proud Boys — protests at gay pride events, other drag story hours, and drag shows across the state. What we’ve seen is while there’s a sort of a central group of known Proud Boys who these protests are coalescing around, they’ve been attracting in more and more individuals. Sometimes it might be a local evangelical church. But increasingly, it’s explicit Neo-Nazis. For example, in Sanford, North Carolina, about a month and a half ago, there was somebody holding signs, who was wearing Neo-Nazi memorabilia and had 1488 tattooed on his knuckles.

And so really, what’s happening, is they’re using this issue — what they would call “grooming,” but the rest of us would refer to as entertainment, and things that have been going on for a long, long time, everywhere, including the rural South — to kind of create tension and to allow further and further right extremists to sort of come into the milieu. It’s escalating to the point that an accelerationist group would glom onto it and come into Moore County to take this action, shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us. That is the exact escalation that one should expect, if you watch how these communities grow, and how these sorts of movements escalate.

Sam Goldman 17:01

Yeah, it definitely struck me and what you were writing about and other things that I’ve read about similar events, that idea, if you will, of attacks on drag shows and things like that being the new gateway drug to this fascist cause. People that normally may not be swept up in white supremacist messaging may actually go along, or be attracted in some way to this “protect our children” type language regarding attacks on drag shows or attacks on on trans folks.

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 17:34

That’s absolutely right. If you look back a year ago, what were the local Proud Boys in North Carolina organizing around? It has nothing to do with drag shows or other really common events. A year ago, they were organizing around critical race theory, and a year before that it was masks. What they are trying to do is find local issues that have some sort of a mainstream appeal, in order to organize around, not because they’re deeply passionate about any of these issues, but because they see them as an open window.

They want to open that window a little bit further so that they can be in the same place and space as people who are not as extreme as they are. What they’re trying to do is pull people through that window. The problem is on the other side of that window, it’s not just more of the same. It’s actually explicit Neo-Nazi organizing, and accelerationism — to the point of taking down the power grid of an entire county.

Sam Goldman 18:35

That’s really important, the way that you put it is that. It’s not just more of the same, I think is really key. I was wondering from what you’re seeing in your community, are there any lessons that y’all are learning from standing up to these threats that you think should be replicated or or learned from across the country?

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 18:58

One, it’s really important that we focus in on, not just what is happening, but really dig into why, and to talk about sort of that extremism pipeline, and the tools and tactics that they use to try to recruit people and pull people to further and further extremes. I think part of that is just educating each other and talking about it. I do think that there’s a role for communicators in this. I have a deep respect for journalists who try not to jump ahead of a story. This is something we’ve been struggling with in Moore County, where because there’s no official word, because the FBI is investigating, but being pretty close-lipped about it.

Journalists have been really careful to not jump ahead of the story or make assumptions. As a consumer, I deeply appreciate that. I want news to be factual and informative. However, what is happening with that is it’s missing the mark. We have a community that’s incredibly fearful. When the drag show started, the lights went out. That wasn’t lost on anybody in Moore County, or across North Carolina. So it becomes really hard when you don’t see journalists addressing the elephant in the room, which is people’s deep fear over this apparently being some sort of far right extremist attack on our infrastructure.

One of the solutions, I think, is to make sure that not only do we have hard journalism, which again, I respect deeply, but we also have people who are more in the lane that I work in, which are communicators and essayists, talking about the analysis of the situation. I’m not claiming to know who is responsible for this, I am not directly pointing fingers, but I am saying that there’s a known pattern, and if we don’t point out that known pattern that results in this clear escalation, then we’re doing a disservice to the community.

Another thing that I think is really important, and we think about a lot in our organizing in rural North Carolina, is that the far right is coming to recruit from our communities. Our communities have grievances that are very real, that aren’t being met by mainstream political parties, by the mainstream press, by a lot of mainstream organizing. It is our responsibility to make sure that we are creating entry roads into multiracial working class movements, instead of putting up barriers to entry into our movements.

I think Moore County is a great example of this, this is an incredibly rural county, it’s almost 75% white, and like all North Carolina rural counties, it has a lot of poverty, and a lot of working class wages. If we don’t create a movement that answers the questions of local folks, and invites them in, and instead is putting up barriers to them coming into our movements, we’re not closing the window, that I referred to, that Proud Boys are opening. So, one of the major pieces of work that we have to do is to figure out how we can create off-ramps away from extremism and into multiracial work for us.

Sam Goldman 22:05

Gwen, I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing your insight, your perspective and your on the ground knowledge of what’s happening in Moore County, and the lessons for people really nationwide who are concerned about the fascist threat. I wanted to give you an opportunity if there was anything that we didn’t talk about to mention, or if there’re resources that you want to connect people to, to give you an opportunity to share that as well.

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton 22:36

I think the only thing that we didn’t touch on that is actually an update — how long will this be a relevant story? Something to add into this is that just this past weekend, on the first day of Hanukkah, a banner was dropped in Moore county that was emblazoned with swastikas and “1488.” This is not something that is intrinsic to Moore County by any means, and we don’t know who was doing this activity, but there was a link on the banner that went to a Telegram feed and that Telegram had posts about taking down power grids that were posted back in November.

So, when we’re talking about this being part of an intentional plot that has been being teased out and played around with by the far right, and Neo-Nazis, for years, I think that that’s more examples of it. Nobody, of course, has any idea if this banner that was dropped has any connection to the power grid or if it’s just something opportunist, but what we do need to know as people who live in these communities is that at least there’s Neo-Nazis who would really like us to believe that it’s connected, and to me if that is a substantial threat on its own.

Sam Goldman 22:58

I don’t think that you can begin to understand why drag is targeted and attacked by this fascist movement without getting into what drag is, the joy it brings, and the important role that holds for not only those who perform and those in the audience, but for society at large. To help us tell that story, here are my recent conversations with two drag performers.

First, you’ll hear from teenage artist Desmond Napolis and then you’ll hear from Paradise, a storyteller with drag story hour NYC. I am really excited to welcome onto the show Desmond Napolis, a teenager who is changing the world. They are a multi-awarded LGBTQ + advocate. They are a gender fluid editorial and runway model, motivational speaker, performer, clothing designer, actor, singer, host, social media influencer. They are simply amazing. They’re of Be Amazing, A History of Pride, they’re the designer of Be Amazing NYC. Desmond occasionally performs in drag under the stage name Desmond Is Amazing. And Desmond is the youngest member of Out of the House of Soulja in the New York City ballroom community, walking in the runway category, and hopes to walk in the design category soon. As I mentioned, this past April, Desmond launched their own clothing brand, Be Amazing NYC. I am excited to welcome Desmond onto the Refuse Fascism podcast. Welcome.

Desmond 25:22

Hi, how are you?

Sam Goldman 25:23

I wanted to start by asking you, you occasionally go in drag under Desmond Is Amazing. We’ve been talking about, on this show, some of the attacks that have happened on drag story hour and other drag events. We just wanted to pull the lens back a little bit, and talk about what inspires you or motivates you to perform? And what is drag all about?

Desmond 25:52

For me, drag is being yourself and creating a character who you enjoy being, I enjoy performing because I can make people happy. And I love the cheers, just the happiness that comes to the performance.

Sam Goldman 26:05

Thanks Desmond. Do you remember the first time that you saw drag?

Desmond 26:09

The first time I can remember seeing drag was probably when I was about four. I remember my mom was watching, I think the second season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. That was when I first remember seeing someone in drag, but I’ve been watching Ru Paul’s drag race ever since I was a kid.

Sam Goldman 26:24

Yeah, it’s a big deal. What impact do you think that drag performances can have for young people?

Desmond 26:34

Well, I think drag, as long as it’s age-appropriate to young people, I think it can introduce them to an all new world that they’ve probably never seen before. It can show them that there’s other people out there who do certain things that you may not understand, but just let them be them. I remember when I was reading at a drag queen story hour, you know, some of the kids were confused. But you know, you explain to them, and then they learn more about this art known as drag. I think that’s important that they learn about that art.

Sam Goldman 27:05

I really agree. I’ve had similar experiences when I’ve read to my kindergarten students. Mainly, it’s just joy in their eyes and seeing characters be fulfilled. It’s a human experience that a five, six year old can understand: Oh, they’re being who they are, [D: Yes] and the pride that that holds. I really agree with that. When you’ve gone to events and seen communities embrace drag performers, what impacts beyond the performance itself do you think drag can have for communities? Not only the LGBT community, but broadly speaking?

Desmond 27:46

Well, I think that drag can bring a community happiness, because with drag, drag queens are really happy. They produce a lot of laughter, and it can teach, as I said earlier, others about new things, and it can help form bonds with others, and things they like, or form bonds with the drag queen.

Sam Goldman 28:06

Have you seen that happen? Have you made new friends through your performance experience?

Desmond 28:11

Yes, I made a lot of friends do my performance experiences, and that’s why I really also love performing.

Sam Goldman 28:16

That’s awesome. I wanted to switch gears slightly, and talk about, unfortunately, the pushback that you have felt personally and a lot of performers, and just people, have faced. I read about some of your story times being canceled because of threats that you’ve faced. This is something that isn’t just happening to you alone, but it’s happening to performers, and just volunteers like yourself, at libraries around the country. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about what you faced and your experience.

Desmond 28:56

So my experience is, I was going to read a library in the Bronx, and what happened was, there was this dude who kept telling the library that he was going to try and like confront my dad, and he was saying I was gonna groom the children by reading to them somehow. Which, you know, is kind of confusing, because how am I doing that, if I’m just reading to kids? I feel like these people, they’re just gonna continue doing this until someone steps in and stops them. Because there’s nothing wrong with a drag queen reading to kids as long as it’s appropriate and safe. There’s nothing wrong with that. They are learning about a new type of art, and it can inspire them to be themselves and there’s nothing wrong with that, and that is not grooming. If someone thinks that’s grooming, then that’s just weird.

Sam Goldman 29:40

It says so much more, in my opinion, about them than it does about you. What kind of worlds are they thinking about and fostering? Versus, what kind of world are you trying to bring to kids? I think that it’s very ominous. There was unfortunately, more protests at their events this past week in Chelsea, [D: Exactly] I heard from my friend who is there, and then, the week before it, there was, I don’t know, protests inside the library when a story time was going. What do you think this is all about? This wave of terror?

Desmond 30:19

I think it’s wanting to control kids and make kids see in one way, so that when they’re older, they’ll join their side of the political spectrum. That’s just a little bit of my theory. I don’t believe in that 100%, but I just think they’re trying to control the kids and show him that only one thing exists. Drag queens are undesirable, and that you should discriminate against them.

Sam Goldman 30:44

What do you hope that people who care about their LGBTQ siblings, what do you hope that people will do?

Desmond 30:54

Well, I hope to help stop any bills that are being proposed to terrorize LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ youth, and support them when they’re having a hard time — either being bullied, or going through a hard time in general, for being LGBTQ. That’s what I think.

Sam Goldman 31:11

What else would you want people to do to support your work? Is there anything that that you want folks to check out?

Desmond 31:19

I’m going to be relaunching my Be Amazing NYC a million times better, hopefully, by January. I’ve been working on it a lot. That’s been very exciting. Also, people can support me by supporting their local drag queens and their local drag queen story hour, because you’re helping these drag queens who are facing this wave of hate, and you’re helping the libraries also combat this wave of hate.

Sam Goldman 31:44

Thanks so much, Desmond, for your time and sharing your story and perspective with us and personal experience. I wanted to end with that hopeful message. What keeps you motivated? and what keeps you speaking out and standing up?

Desmond 32:01

What keeps me motivated is seeing LGBTQ people have the right that they deserve. And to see kids being able to be themselves without their parents being called groomers or them being called disappointments. I really want to see a world that’s like that, because LGBTQ people should not have to face that just for being themselves.

Sam Goldman 32:19

That’s a great place to end. Thank you, Desmond. I am happy to get to chat with and learn from Paradise. They are a storyteller with Drag Story Hour NYC and we at the show are honored to chat with them. Welcome Paradise. Thanks for coming on.

Desmond 32:40

Thank you so much. And thank you for having me.

Sam Goldman 32:42

A lot of our listeners are hearing a lot about drag story hour through news headlines and and their family members who watch Fox News or whatnot, yelling at them or what they might glance in a newspaper. Can you tell us a little bit about drag story hour? What is it?

Paradise 33:01

Absolutely. Drag Story Hour is — I think it’s going on seven or eight years now of operation. It’s an international network of groups that all have basically the same idea and premise, which is to put drag performers — and that can include, but is not limited to, drag queens, drag kings, drag things, drag XYZ, putting these drag performers — in public library settings as well as public schools to read stories, sing songs, and just generally provide clownery services in order to entertain but also educate children about all kinds of diversity.

It’s not even necessarily just about gender anymore, think it’s all pretty readily connectable and overarching. I will say I am currently with Drag Story Hour NYC, which is, to my knowledge, one of the largest, if not the largest chapters in the United States It was not the first one. The first one was founded in San Francisco by a drag artist and activist by the name of Michelle T., and I believe that was in 2015. Our chapter started a couple of years after, maybe 2016 or 17.

Sam Goldman 34:17

Do you have a favorite book that you’ve read, or a favorite song that you sing?

Paradise 34:24

My absolute favorite of all time has always been Where the Wild Things Are. I think it’s literally a work that precedes my own life, but it’s still somehow so relevant to the present and future of what it means to be a child, and a rambunctious one at that. Other favorite books would include this book called Neither by an author. [SG: It’s so good. I teach kindergarten, and it’s one of my favorite books to read to my kids — that and Not Right Norwell, I love it.] Yeah, we use that one as well. And they’re definitely a lot more modern but just so thoughtful and so fun. In any case, highly recommend. Favorite song I would say is probably the Itsy Bitsy Spider, a cherished favorite.

Sam Goldman 35:09

A cherished classic. What drew you personally to drag?

Paradise 35:14

I’m originally from a small suburb in southwest Florida, that, as you can probably imagine, was not the most liberal of atmospheres to grow up in. For me, theater, since I was really like three or four years old has always been a refuge of sorts. I very much was that kid who dreamed of moving to New York City and making it big. Then I moved to New York City. And I did not necessarily make it big in the way that I thought I would, but I’ve been practicing drag since I was in middle school, mostly for theater. It was kind of a natural transition and a lot more accessible and paid the bills a lot more readily than trying to make it on Broadway when I first moved here.

Sam Goldman 35:58

What do you love about doing drag performances, or about watching your favorite drag performers?

Paradise 36:08

For me, drag is really essentially about playing. I think that really points to the connection that drag performers have so naturally on just an inherent fundamental basis with children, is that in a sense, we all kind of start out as little drag kings and queens and performers, when we play dress up at three or four years old. It’s just about playing and really getting to try on new identities, to embody new ideas, embrace this openness and this energy that’s just kind of like bigger than all of us as individuals. There’s literally this transcendental experience, when you particularly embody the elements of another gender. I think that was a really exploratory and beautiful thing for me. I do think honestly, that anyone and everyone could benefit from exploring with drag a little bit if they haven’t already.

Sam Goldman 37:06

I was thinking about what you were saying about embodying new ideas, and the connection between — very logical connection between — drag performers and children and that role of play, and the role of empathy, and embodying the “other” is a way of building empathy, and that whole walk a mile in their shoes as well, actually [P: Oh, absolutely.] a second in the shoes of someone else. That can be an exercise in empathy.

Paradise 37:37

It really, truly is. And I’m not sure that that many people realize just how, if not naturally, than logically, it just kind of makes sense. I’ve done drag now for a lot of different kinds of audiences at all different kinds of times of the day and in contexts, and it’s never felt quite so effortless as it has with kids, because they just see this fabulous performer and they’re not even necessarily thinking about what gender they are or what’s going on between their legs.

Usually, in my experience — now, it’s been about six or seven years since I started doing drag story hour — 99.9% of the questions that I’m getting are from parents and families who are just trying to make those more logical leaps into what is actually going on, but almost always entirely from a place of love.

Sam Goldman 38:28

That’s beautiful. How did you get involved with Drag Story Hour NYC?

Paradise 38:33

I had just moved to New York, like eight years ago. I was trying to find my way in the Brooklyn nightlife scene, which was a lot smaller back then, but was still not easy. It’s never been easy to pay your bills in New York City just by doing drag alone. One day I saw a colleague of mine who was performing the drag story hour and I was like, this is for me, this makes sense. To be honest, I have only really been doing drag for children and their families now for like the last four years.

Sam Goldman 39:08

Why drag story hour? Why should families come and experience a drag story hour?

Paradise 39:16

Anybody can come, and I guess the easiest and shortest answer to why they should come is because it’s fun. If you happen to be queer and or gender expansive, or identify as such, like it just brings that extra level of warmth, and I guess, if not optimism, then it’s just it’s a little bit healing. I can’t speak for everybody, but so many of my colleagues at drag story hour and the parents of the kids who I read for tell me the same thing, which is that they wish that they had this growing up.

Sam Goldman 39:50

Can you tell us a little bit more about what you’ve kind of noticed from the kids who come to story hour? We know that some family members stuff talk to you… Who is it that’s coming to these shows?

Paradise 40:03

All kinds of people. That’s been one of my favorite, if not the best part of living in New York City at all times, is just the sheer diversity. But generally speaking, everybody is in awe to be around a drag performer. It’s special. That’s kind of the point of drag, is that you’re becoming something that makes you feel really special. When people are exposed to that heightened sense of authenticity, of self love, they tend to have some pretty heightened responses.

I think that can even, honestly, extend to our friends on the far right, who are having a heightened reaction, as opposed to a response to just how much we love ourselves, especially in the face of so many centuries of hate — that we can still look and feel as glamorous and fabulous as we do is such a radical act of queer joy. People are gonna have varied expressions and responses to that, but for the most part, our families are very progressive, and like, like-minded in that sense.

Sam Goldman 41:12

You spoke about this some already, so I don’t want you to have to repeat yourself, but people are being inundated right now with such garbage, associating trans folks with pedophilia, and then drag performers, and just LGBTQ people overall, who have the audacity of being themselves, as “groomers.”

Given that, I would like to talk about the benefits of drag, and the benefits of drag story hour in particular. What have the benefits been to you and your own life of getting the opportunity to do drag regularly? What benefits do you get? And what impact do you think drag performances broadly, or drag story hour can have on communities? You talked about the impacts that can have on kids, broadly speaking, what is the positive that it has on communities? Not that it needs to have benefits to society in order to justify people being creative, but there are. What do you notice in yourself and in others when you perform?

Paradise 42:21

I’ll start with myself. On a personal basis, being able to perform regularly in drag — and it’s not even necessarily about the money anymore — it really has just become this very therapeutic, cathartic creative outlet for me. I mean, that’s sort of what theater and performance art and particularly drag has always been, but there is a certain level of extra healing, again, personally speaking, involved in connecting with thousands of children a year through this art form.

And understanding that, at least so far, as our youngest population is concerned, we are normal, and maybe like an exceptionally cool part of that normal, but that we are accepted and loved. That is worth more than anything anyone could ever pay me. I can see how, on sort of the micro level now, my reinforced feelings of self love and acceptance are also being enjoyed and cherished by the people that I perform with and for. I do see these really subtle, but radical vibes of acceptance, inclusion, and just love, sort of resonating with all of the audience that I perform for.

On a macro level, we’re really being able to introduce these conversations about gender on a level that’s really, truly unprecedented. And it’s such a magical, magical opportunity that I never could have imagined for myself, but I can’t express just how grateful I am for it now. Opening up our like national conversation about what it means to feel like a boy or a girl inside or something else, and how to really have those conversations, or if you’re not ready to have those conversations just to exist, and to be happy with that existence and to take up space, and to know that you deserve it just as much as anybody else does.

Sam Goldman 44:15

Thanks for sharing, Paradise. Throughout this conversation, we alluded to the reality that drag story hour has come under routine attack, including in New York City, where multiple story hours have been disrupted, “protested,” performers harassed. This has happened outside and inside multiple events; library by Lincoln Center, Chelsea, you know, places where you might not expect it to happen, and places where I would totally expect it to happen, like Staten Island — but it hasn’t been isolated. It really has been all over and in many ways it’s been escalating — with individuals that trespassed a council members home who was supportive; Eric Boucher’s Manhattan apartment — vandalized the sidewalk, harassing him for supporting and defending drag story hour, basically writing things like “child predator” outside of his house.

And that’s just one of many examples that could could be given. Obviously, this is not confined to New York. This is something that storytellers and families who attend have experienced across the country. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you or others who are involved with Drag Story Hour NYC have experienced, and your thoughts on why drag story hours are being targeted.

Paradise 45:36

First of all, I don’t know if I mentioned it, or if it was apparent in the way that I speak, that I’m a social work student. Part of this education that I’ve been privileged to receive is learning about the history and realizing that these kinds of sentiment and rhetoric on the conservative, aka these rogue [SG: They’re fascist.], fascist conspiracists, whatever you want to call them, these rhetorics that they’re using are by no means new — this idea of protecting the youth, protecting families, has been around for many, many decades now. It’s definitely taking on some very new and actively more militant forms of execution right now, and that’s fully unnerving, but it’s not new. It’s a particularly homophobic and transphobic flavor of this whole menu, or really, truly just nutty, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, arsenal of bigoted and white supremacist, oppressive opinions.

When we’re talking about these rising incidents, and even this latest wave, like this isn’t the first time this has happened to drag story hour, I can recall the first protests happening in New York City, at least for drag story hour around like 2018, 2019. They were sort of a big deal, but very few and far between, and nothing like they are now. But again, I am hoping to sort of promote this bigger perspective, and hoping people realize that actually, the same people who are protesting drag story hours are also the same exact people who protested against Black Lives Matter, the same exact people who led these really harmful movements against what was actually just peaceful protesting in New York City at the time, and across the country. These are the same people who protested mask mandates, who protested vaccinations.

It’s not just this one thing. I’m hoping to portray that it’s really just so much more connected than that, and that these incidences are really just one sliver of this whole portrait that we’re really starting to hopefully become more aware of this really insidious group of fascists who are a lot more in tandem and a lot more capable of organizing than we perhaps ever gave them credit for. I actually, somehow, managed to get through the last six years of drag story hour without a single event protested until a couple of weeks ago. Up until then, it was really just a vicarious hearing these really traumatic stories from my cohorts, or if not traumatic than traumatizing for them as performers and as queer people, who, even growing up in New York City, being a queer person is just kind of universally not the easiest.

That said, it hadn’t really clicked for me until I was sitting in this basement in a library Midtown a couple of weeks ago, reading a story in French to some kids, and I see, like through the glass doors, just this big mob forming and holding these huge signs that said “groomer.” Which I can’t even begin to talk about how gross of a misappropriation that they’re doing with the word ‘grooming’, but it’s intentional. They’re literally taking our own vocabulary and throwing it back at us. So much of the right’s power and their fear mongering techniques is employing these techniques that really just show how developed they are at playing the long game.

So that it feels like on the left, we’re continually just putting out all these fires, and not necessarily within a position of power to really think ahead, as they I think have pretty clearly demonstrated, they are doing, which is also very unnerving. We ended up getting barricaded into this room in a basement for a little over an hour. The energy was palpably pretty scary, I’m not gonna lie, to the point where it’s all of the parents and families were doing such a hecking awesome job at just, like, trying to divert attention and trying to keep their children not staring at these people who are holding up signs that were really quite aggressively worded and being thrown in these children’s faces.

Which, again, you’re literally claiming to be protecting the children, while at the same time doing these things that are legitimately, exponentially more terrifying than we could do to these children as literal 21st Century clowns. The actual cognitive dissonance is unreal. As all of the adults, we understood what was going on and we did our best to just kind of divert attention and to have a good time. It seemed like our efforts were really being successful. But I have a hard time believing that at least on some kind of subconscious level that the energy wasn’t in some way tainted by this instance. That breaks my heart, it really does. And beyond the sort of dissociative state that I went into, you know, I just really been taking my time to just sit with these feelings of discomfort and try to fathom what kinds of steps to take from here, because it’s quite a conundrum.

Sam Goldman 50:41

I think the terror that is being unleashed is a lot to process, and I think that it makes sense, you can’t package your feelings and experience in it in a quick pithy way. That is appropriate to what both storytellers and librarians and those involved are experiencing right now. I want to know, and I know that people listening want to know, is what can we do to support and step it up for Drag Story Hour NYC and other places? What can we do to support y’all as part of refusing the fascist movement that these attacks are a part of?

Paradise 51:24

That’s a really great question that I think we’re still very much tackling, not only as an organization, but as a group, as a collaboration with all of these public libraries, with the government, with city officials and our Councilman as a nonprofit — most of our funding comes from either private donations or grants through the Department of Education. I would say to listeners, do some research, see if there’s drag story hour, or any kinds of drag happening in the vicinity, and just show up and support however you can, even if it’s making donations. Obviously, again, DSHnyc.org. We have literally every imaginable kind of social media, so we’re not hard to find and to donate to.

Write to your local policymakers. NYC’s Mayor Eric Adams for divesting money from New York public libraries to put into his most recent efforts of controlling homeless populations by supporting the police, and literally the amount of buffoonery — I don’t want to go there — write to our mayor. Mayor, Eric Adams, please do better. From a social worker in training, we do not stand, we do not appreciate please do better. Please don’t take money from New York Public Libraries and give it to the police. That’s exactly the opposite of what the vast, vast majority of New York City has been saying for years now. I think, really just showing up however you can, even if it’s just a social media blast, or a donation, or just come through, you can come by yourself, you don’t have to have kids.

Sam Goldman 52:57

Yeah, and I want to shout out again, the DSHnyc.org. Check it out. Even if you’re not in NYC. I’m not in NYC and I think I am going to get their Dragtivity book, it’s 10 bucks, and I think that it looks really cool. They also have other item-azings that have cool art on them, that you can check out as well. Those are all things that you can look into and support them. I want to thank you, thank you, thank you, Paradise for taking your time to share your expertise, your insight, your perspective with us at Refuse Fascism. I know that folks are going to be checking out and joining in with drag story hour near them.

Paradise 53:50

I look forward to that, and again, I cannot thank you enough for having me. It’s been cathartic and even a little healing just to have this platform to really externalize and talk about these things that have been going on. Thank you.

Sam Goldman 54:02

Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, art, ideas for topics or guests, or lend a skill. Tweet me @SamBGoldman. Or you can drop me a line at [email protected] or leave a voicemail by visiting anchor.fm/refuse-fascism and hitting the message button. Yes, we are on Mastodon. Find us at Mastodon.world/@RefuseFascism or see a link in the show notes.

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