April 6, 2023 at 12:19 p.m. EDT
“It is a reminder there’s a whole bunch of odds, but we’re in this together,” said Pastor, 37, of Baltimore. “We can come together and feel awesome.”
This role — as defenders of drag queens, as blockers of hate — felt personal. But underneath all of that, Pastor said it was hard to ignore the frightening reasons they all felt compelled to crowd the pavement.
Drag story hours are events where toddlers listen as a drag queen reads books that teach them to be kind and inclusive and to love themselves, no matter how different they may feel from others. Republican legislators, conservative commentators and far-right extremists have protested and criticized the story hours as part of a broader backlash to expanded LGBTQ rights, including false and dangerous claims that gay and transgender people are “grooming” children.
These events have also been the targets of bomb threats, including at a restaurant in Virginia’s Fairfax County in December; a coffee shop in Tempe, Ariz., in February; and a bookstore in Indianapolis last month. Shane Mayson, the owner of Crazy Aunt Helen’s, said there was a bomb threat to his home and D.C. restaurant during the drag story hour in March, too, though it did not end up being credible.
Such threats and protests served as the catalyst for the creation around the country for defense groups like the national nonprofit Parasol Patrol and the one Pastor stood alongside Saturday morning, called the Rainbow Defense Coalition. That group now has about 200 event-day volunteers to join its dance parties around the D.C. region, said Kristin Mink (D), a council member for Maryland’s Montgomery County and one of the Rainbow Defense Coalition’s organizers. Of those, usually about 50 to 100 people show up at a given event, said Beth DiGregorio, president of the local Drag Story Hour chapter.
“We’re showing that we are not scarce,” said Rune Kuhns, 29, who is nonbinary and has been volunteering at these events for about seven months, including the March story time at Crazy Aunt Helen’s. “We are here and we are a force.”
The defenders have a system for what they see as their joyful resistance. They arrive at an event at least half an hour early to claim space, standing shoulder to shoulder. A few scan for protesters. They blast Disney music, which organizers say doubles as familiar songs for children and a tactical strategy: If such songs play in the background of videos that protesters post, social media platforms may remove them because of copyright infringement.
The defenders cheer in the face of protests but don’t engage with protesters, because they say even verbal fights can look scary to children. Their rainbow umbrellas double as shields. When families made their way into Crazy Aunt Helen’s in March, the defenders lifted the umbrellas over and around them, so the children wouldn’t see the people across the street holding a sign that read “PRIDE IS OF THE DEVIL.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to keep each other safe, because we are a community and that is what we do,” an organizer told the crowd before the story hour kicked off. “And let us know if you see something suspicious.”
For a few hours, at least, the defenders hoped to wash out any of that negativity with celebration.
Carly Hughes stood on the sidewalk holding her rainbow umbrella, the same one she used to defend herself in February when members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, shoved people defending a drag story hour in Maryland and shouted, “You’re bad parents!” at families walking into a Silver Spring bookstore.
Hughes wore a blue sweatshirt that said “keep it kind” and blew bubbles toward the men voicing anti-trans rhetoric on the other side of the street. Even though she said it was scary to confront members of the Proud Boys, Hughes, who is queer and a kindergarten teacher, has kept coming back. She said she hopes the presence of so many people on the street dancing, singing and laughing can inspire children to live full and vibrant lives, no matter how they identify.
“Seeing queer adults alive and happy is something that’s really important for queer kids and just for any kid,” Hughes, 24, said. “Seeing people who are free in their self-expression and free in who they love and free to be who they want to be, I think is empowering for anybody.”
Drag queen Evita Peroxide held back tears as she watched the defenders escort families into Crazy Aunt Helen’s under the canopy of umbrellas. She thought of the times she performed at drag shows in Northern Virginia, the two bomb threats she said those venues faced, and how she wished such a crowd had been there to support her through it.
“There’s a lot of hate out there,” said Peroxide, who, in another outfit, is a public school teacher. “I’m proud to be a member of the community. I’m proud to be a performer. I’m proud to work with children as well.”
Inside the restaurant, drag queen storyteller Tara Hoot, decked out in a shimmering green dress, matching green heels, pearls and rainbow earrings, read some of her favorite books, including one she reads at every story hour titled “Be Brave Little One.” These were the kinds of events Mayson, who described himself as the gay son of a Pentecostal preacher, had in mind when he opened his restaurant almost two years ago.
Mayson has been defending his rights since he came out as gay in 1982, and when he first started going to gay bars, he said the drag queens were the first people to take him under their wings. He has since hosted bingo, trivia, burlesque shows, stand-up comedy, open mic nights and a gospel drag brunch.
The drag story times, he noted, are also “not a gay event.” He emphasized that most of the audience is heterosexual: cisgender parents choosing to bring their children. Mayson remains resolute in his desire to create a space at Crazy Aunt Helen’s that is welcoming for everyone. Or, as he puts it: “We’re a neighborhood restaurant that has a lot of fairy magic.”
“Here we are, again, having to fight for the same rights that we’ve already secured,” Mayson recalled thinking at the event last month. “Now, they’re knocking on this door and they’re trying to say, ‘You can’t do what it is you’re doing,’ even though my neighbors want it. Even though the city is embracing us. And everyone who’s coming here is having an amazingly good time.”
Simon Heil, 25, of Silver Spring, joined the chorus of defenders chanting “I scream! You scream! We all scream for ice cream!” Across the street, a protester used a microphone to tell them: “You are going to hell. But if you repent you can receive salvation.”
To Heil, they were not fighting the protesters. They were singing and chanting to preserve their own joy. Heil kept thinking of his younger self, he said, the kid who in middle school knew he was trans but did not have the vocabulary for it. When he finally met a trans man while in high school he realized: “Oh, that’s me.”
He looked at the public display of solidarity for the LGBTQ community around him and said he hoped queer or questioning children think: “Maybe I can also be allowed to express myself in a way that doesn’t completely match up with how I’ve been told I should be.” He stayed outside as the defenders blasted “Let it Go” from “Frozen,” “Friend Like Me” from “Aladdin” and “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid.”
“My goal, my want for trans kids who are facing so much violence is to be able to dream of living a boring life,” Heil said. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted to know that there was someone like me who was older who had made it, who had made it to the point where they didn’t have to worry about who they were every day.”
Once the event ended, defenders escorted Kathryn Grandstaff-Bradford, 41, of Alexandria and her 4-year-old daughter away from Crazy Aunt Helen’s.
Mayson said he has been working with law enforcement and volunteers to increase security measures at the restaurant’s next event, scheduled for this weekend. And despite the bomb scare, this March story hour had proceeded safely, too.
Grandstaff-Bradford’s daughter clutched a unicorn plushie as her mom asked: “Did we have so much fun? Can you say, ‘Thank you, Rainbow Brigade’?”
“Thank you!” her daughter said. She looked up at the volunteers and smiled.
