Losing the plot at the library

Drag shows are not for kids.

In all the heat generated by Destiny Church’s non-peaceful protest at Te Atatu library on February 15, the underlying reason for the protest has become obscured. Tamaki talks about the need to protect children but none of the soundbites identify that it’s protection from gender identity ideology that is necessary. Let us spell it out.

Gender identity - what’s the problem?

At first glance it may seem harmless to let children identify as the opposite or neither sex, and when it is part of childhood imaginative play, that is true. But when adults start affirming a child’s imaginary sex as reality a cascade of significant consequences is set in motion.

• Disconnected from sex, gender identity denies reality, yet reality in the form of puberty will come knocking.

• Fear of pubertal changes leads to taking powerful ‘puberty blocker’ medication, although the long term physical and cognitive effects of bypassing puberty are unknown.

• To maintain the facade, everyone else is coerced into denying reality and agreeing the child has truly changed sex - or face censure. Even small children are expected to comply.

• Language and facilities are changed to accommodate the wishes of a few and the beliefs of the majority are decried.

• Children who have been coddled in an opposite sex identity grow into adults with a lifelong medical dependency and an attitude of entitlement.

The problem with gender identity is that it is a set of beliefs - an ideology - that is dressed up as being kind and inclusive when it is the opposite. Gender ideology has gained a foothold by presenting itself as the next step for gay rights while camouflaging the homophobic sex stereotypes at its core.

It’s not Gay Rights 2.0

Gay rights is about people who are same-sex attracted having the same rights as heterosexuals. Same-sex attraction acknowledges that there are two sexes, that sex is not on a spectrum, and that humans cannot change sex.

On the other hand, gender ideology, against reason and the material reality in front of our eyes, asserts that sex is made up and is whatever an individual wants it to be. And it demands that we all agree, or else.

The gay rights campaign asked for simple acceptance. Transgender extremism instead dictates that everyone must believe in the power of thoughts and feelings to literally transform a body into the opposite sex.

Gay rights do not require others to forfeit anything or demand fundamental changes to everyday language. Conversely, trans activists insist that women must forfeit their single sex spaces, sports, and opportunities, and words like ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ must be replaced with the dehumanising phrases ‘birthing parent’ and ‘person with a cervix’.

Gay rights is about inclusivity. Gender ideology is about exclusivity - the demand for transgender people to be treated as more special than others and for anyone who disagrees with the ideology to be socially excluded.

Breaking sexual boundaries

Until five minutes ago everyone understood the need to protect childen from exposure to adult sexuality. Age of consent and censorship laws are there for a reason.

But now that gender ideology has successfully detached sex from reality in some people’s minds, boundaries around sexuality have also been disconnected. When ‘sex’ is only a concept, something fluid and individually created, protections that have been commonly accepted for centuries are easily discarded.

If a boy can be a girl, he can use the girls’ changing room and any girl who feels uncomfortable is simply being mean.

A man with a penis can nevertheless be a lesbian, if he says so.

A sexualised adult entertainer can perform in front of little children and parents will pat themselves on the back and call themselves ‘progressive’.

Gender ideology has latched onto gay rights so firmly that many people now believe it truly is possible to change sex, that how well a person performs a sex stereotype determines their sex, and that exposing children to adult entertainers teaches them inclusivity and acceptance.

Kink is not for kids

Drag shows in libraries are advertised as family friendly but hidden beneath the glitter is a message that children can ignore their innate wariness of strangers and that adults who provide colour, fun, and flamboyance can be implicitly trusted.

The costumes may be toned down, the songs may be uplifting, the books may give wholesome messages, but still the performers are adult entertainers whose online sexulalised profiles are easy for a young child to access. Hugo Grrrl, the drag performer at Te Atatu says, “I love being a hot trans slut” on her facebook page, alongside adult-themed photos like this one. (Hugo is in the green costume and is a woman who identifies as a man.)

Adults in drag performing to children is not a way of modelling freedom, being yourself, or being kind; it is showing children a side of life they are not emotionally ready to understand and teaching them that lampooning women in a sexualised way is normal and acceptable behaviour.

The stated purpose of Rainbow Storytime is to “promote the importance of inclusivity, diversity and self-acceptance”. These worthwhile goals would be easy to achieve without introducing children to adult sexualised characters and actors wearing costumes that are a mockery to women.

It is a mystery how a niche form of sexualised adult entertainment has suddenly become the preferred symbol for everything Rainbow. Libraries could instead celebrate true diversity by hosting readings from lesbian or gay couples, refugees, disabled people, or many other minority groups.

Read more about the double standards and excuses offered by libraries for their drag shows in our March 2024 substack, Libraries go astray.

Biological reality vs wishful thinking

When libraries host drag performers, they are taking a partisan position on the very contentious issue of transgender ideology. They are endorsing the belief that if a man puts on a dress, he becomes a woman, or in the case of Hugo Grrl, when a woman declares she is a man it becomes a literal fact.

Children learn that they too can aspire to be the opposite sex and that body dissociation is normal and something to celebrate. No one informs them of the heavy toll on their bodies of taking cross sex hormones for life or that it’s possible to reject sex stereotypes without rejecting their physical sex.

Opposing drag performances for children is not anti gay rights or anti trans. It’s opposing teaching children an ideology that prioritises feelings over facts, that denies the reality of sex, and that sets them on a pathway to lifelong medicalisation.

There is nothing to celebrate when children are caught between Destiny Church with its overbearing tactics, and people who wilfully expose them to drag performers. Both sets of adults have lost the plot.