Column: Would hate disrupt a drag story hour in Laguna Seaside?

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I visited Laguna Seaside this previous Saturday on a beautiful morning, the kind of sunny day the seaside gem hadn’t skilled in months. Vacationers headed towards the seaside. Locals jogged. Paramotor lovers crisscrossed the blue sky on their manner towards the Pacific.

Magnificence wasn’t what introduced me to the coast, although. It was hate.

For weeks, social media posts had trashed the Laguna Artwork Museum for planning to host story time with a drag queen. Typical was one from the Better Laguna Seaside GOP, which alleged with no proof in any respect that the mere act of a drag queen studying a ebook to youngsters was a part of a “bigger, latest pattern of sexualizing kids.”

These assaults had been the newest volley in an unsightly battle in opposition to queer something in Southern California this yr.

The president of the Temecula Valley Unified College District deemed Harvey Milk a “pedophile” throughout a board assembly. Vandals have destroyed Satisfaction flags. Protesters clashed exterior an elementary faculty in North Hollywood that held a Satisfaction-themed meeting and a Glendale Unifed College District board assembly the place June can be acknowledged as Satisfaction Month. Hundreds held a rally at a Dodger Stadium parking zone earlier than the group’s Satisfaction Evening on Friday to lambaste the Blue Crew’s resolution to honor a gaggle of drag nuns with a Group Hero Award.

Now, the hate threatened to crash onto Laguna Seaside, one of many oldest LGBTQ+ communities in Southern California.

Laguna Artwork Museum workers had been calmly readying for the studying once I confirmed up. Govt Director Julie Perlin Lee informed me they all the time attempt to sync up the area’s month-to-month story time with a topical theme, comparable to a winter Ukrainian folks story in December. For this Satisfaction Month, the museum contacted the literacy nonprofit Drag Story Hour, after which Perlin’s deputy director talked to different museums that had hosted comparable occasions and heard “nothing however a constructive expertise.”

“However I’m positive everybody has skilled some extent of what we heard, too,” Perlin Lee continued, alluding to the social media criticism. “I shouldn’t be shocked as a result of that’s how issues appear to be these days,”

“However,” she concluded, gesturing towards a gaggle of rainbow-clad adults exterior the museum’s glass doorways, “there’s tons of help, too.”

Kat Schroeder and Melissa Desjardin handed out small Satisfaction flags to anybody who needed them, and wore T-shirts that learn “Free Mother Hugs.” With them was James Flores of Laguna Seaside Satisfaction! 365. He wasn’t joyful concerning the deliberate protests in opposition to the museum, the primary anti-LGBTQ+ motion in Laguna Seaside that he had heard of since shifting to the small metropolis 17 years in the past.

“Laguna has been part of our [LGBTQ+] tradition ceaselessly,” he stated. “Individuals may really feel a bit of put down by this, however that’s why we have to present up.”

“It’s a disgrace that it’s got to this,” added Schroder, an Orange resident.

“That’s why we gotta present visibility and educate the neighborhood,” replied Desjardin of Huntington Seaside — “the nice half,” she emphasised with fun.

Laura Puente protests against a drag story time at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach.

Simply as Desjardin completed, Laura Puente walked previous her, then stood steps away. She held an enormous purple signal bedecked with hearts that learn, “Love Drag Queens at Grownup Venues!”

“I’ve two kids and am a homosexual individual,” the Laguna Seaside resident declared. “It’s inappropriate for little youngsters to see these grownup conditions. I’ve a number of homosexual and lesbian buddies, and there’s an enormous consensus to maintain drag away from youngsters.

“We love drag queens. However there are particular sexual overtones. I’ve seen sufficient story instances — in any other case, I wouldn’t spend my lovely Saturday morning right here.”

When Puente received no response from Flores, Schroeder and Desjardin, she moved to the nook of Coast Freeway. A smattering of automobile honks and supportive hoots greeted her. A person and lady who gave their names solely as Eric from San Francisco and Carolina from Laguna Seaside joined Puente. Eric held an indication suggesting drag queens ought to learn to senior residents as an alternative of kids.

“Seniors are lonely,” he reasoned. “They want a present.”

“I’ve drag buddies,” Eric continued. “However why are these story instances focusing on youngsters? As a result of they’re impressionable. Youngsters are confused sufficient.”

“What’s going to be subsequent?” Carolina replied. “Burlesque for kids?”

By the point two different protesters confirmed up, the museum’s foyer was full of kids and their mother and father.

One of many activists walked as much as the foyer’s window wall and held up an indication that learn “Cease Intercourse-ing our Youngsters.” The one response she received was tykes waving at her.

Families wait for Laguna Art Museum's drag story time to start.

The households finally streamed into what’s normally a gallery area however can be the studying room for the story time, the higher to accommodate the group of 40. Youngsters lay down on mats within the entrance; adults and preteens sat behind them in chairs.

The drag queen for the day was caught in site visitors.

A staffer tried to maintain kids occupied by taking part in “Simon Says,” however they had been getting stressed. “It’s very electrical, I really feel it!” she gamely informed the group. “So let’s sustain that vitality— “

All of a sudden, a 6-foot-and-change blond in a flowing neon coral pantsuit strode into the room with a “Helloooooo!”

Miss Pickle was able to learn.

She has handled sufficient Drag Story Hour backlash this yr. In April, protesters disrupted considered one of her readings, on the Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Department Library, with screams of “perversion” and “abomination.” The day earlier than her Laguna Artwork Museum look, the Glendale Library introduced on Instagram with no rationalization that it was canceling Miss Pickle’s scheduled story time at their Satisfaction within the Park pageant on Saturday afternoon.

If Miss Pickle was frazzled by these troubles, she didn’t present it in Laguna.

She was humorous and sassy and affected person and caring. Miss Pickle requested her viewers questions after each sentence and urged them to observe good manners, comparable to sharing toys with buddies and asking mother and father for permission to eat macaroni within the bathtub. She made the adults snort with on-the-spot jokes. “You’ve misplaced two enamel and have three wiggly ones?” the drag queen requested one little boy who had simply knowledgeable her about his dental issues. “Glad you’re protecting a spreadsheet,” Miss Pickle stated, earlier than suggesting the boy file a 1099 tax kind to declare any cash the Tooth Fairy may deliver him.

The books for the morning: Loryn Brantz’s “Feminist Child Finds Her Voice,” one other one about the way it’s OK to be totally different, and one other one about having an enormous coronary heart. They had been as problematic as bunnies hopping on the garden whereas child chicks chirped.

“It’s the most important crowd we’ve ever for a narrative time by fourfold,” Perlin Lee whispered, with a weary however large smile.

The grand finale was “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish,” a songbook by Lil Miss Scorching Mess that the Better Laguna Seaside GOP described as: “Would you like your 4-year-old to be a ‘little scorching mess’ shaking his booty and dealing it?” Miss Pickle requested everybody to rise up and dance alongside to the ebook’s lyrics — “Fortunately for the museum, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ is within the public area.’”

Footwear stomped. Hair went up. Jewels blinged. Shoulders shimmied. The studying ended, the adults applauded, and the youngsters swarmed towards Miss Pickle for pictures and stickers.

Sasha Deming of Laguna Hills had by no means been to a drag story hour earlier than however confirmed as much as help the museum along with her husband and daughter. “I had no concept what to anticipate, nevertheless it was nice,” she stated. Of critics, Deming stated “that claims extra about their very own inside thoughts than the precise actuality.”

Laguna Seaside natives Lauren and Graham Unterberger introduced their daughter Elliott, who had positioned a Satisfaction flag by way of her hair bun. Earlier, she had requested her mother concerning the protesters exterior.

“It actually breaks my coronary heart to see this shift” in rhetoric in her hometown, Lauren Unterberger stated. “So I informed her it was hateful language, and that we ought to be inclusive and loving. I want these individuals would’ve stepped inside and given it an opportunity, as a result of they’re judging a ebook by its cowl.”

The children moved to a different room for an artwork undertaking, however Miss Pickle needed to go. She was nonetheless planning to indicate up in Glendale. I requested if the conservative conflict on drag had weighed on her.

“They’re a loud bunch, however they’re not with the bulk,” she stated. “Within the digital area, it’s poisonous, and I get to pondering that it’s actual.”

Miss Pickle paused. “However then you definately get right into a room like this,” she stated, “and you are feeling it. This is actual.”

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