What a drag

Somehow drag queens have become a significant part of America's culture wars these days. While dudes dressing up as glam chicks isn't anything new, the phenomena of them catering to an audience of literal children is a recent development.

A small shop in a southwestern Twin Cities suburb is the latest to get in on the act. 

A Chaska children’s boutique’s high-profile drag queen story time drew a supportive crowd Saturday morning in spite of protests.

The event drew attention after the store’s owner posted a video on TikTok of an angry customer arguing that it promoted sexual entertainment for children. The video received more than 500,000 likes and thousands of comments supporting Little Roos.

Darcie Baumann, who helped run the event, said in part due to these types of threats, the store was prepared when members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys showed up on Saturday and shouted at attendees.

Police and members of Minneapolis-based security team Sequeerity helped keep the peace, Baumann said.

“We’re very lucky to be on private property and have the support of the property manager, and we were not going to engage,” Baumann said. “Any attention that we give them is just fueling that fire.”

But what wasn’t expected was the 200-strong crowd that packed the store to create colorful chalk art and hear drag queen Miz Diagnosis read two children’s books. Little Roos owner Marissa Held-Nordling said they weren’t able to fit everyone in the store.

The rationale I hear most often for exposing kids to drag queens is to show the youngsters that members of the LGBTQ+ community are regular, everyday people who just wanna live normal lives. And hey, how can adults who reads fun stories to kids be in any way harmful? 

As someone who is a firm believer in free speech as well as strident private property rights, I'm not at all a fan of any kind of government intervention to ban events like what took place at Little Roos. Sure, I may question the parents' decision to expose their kids to any kind of sexual orientation at such a young age, but also being a strong advocate for parental rights means I concede they have that discretion. It's not unlike the time in 1987 when I witnessed a father bringing his pre-teen son to the movie theater to see Fatal Attraction, which was an "R" rated movie. It probably was not a great idea to expose a kid to such messy adult interactions but, again, the parents were apparently willing to deal with any fallout from the impact the film had on their child (at least I hope they were).

All that being said, there's just one thing I can't get past --- why is it so many drag queens themselves seem overly willing to not only command an audience of kids but also take it beyond just reading to them?

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