1 year ago
62
If conservatives are hellbent on one thing, it’s ... canceling story time? Stopping adults from reading to children for free? Canceling library events? Well, that’s the case when the folks doing the reading are in drag, apparently. As Daily Kos continues to cover, anti-drag extremists have been making waves across the nation as Republicans have pushed anti-queer and explicitly anti-trans bills on both the state and federal levels.
Thanks to the likes of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for example, we’ve seen a proliferation of Don’t Say Gay bills aiming to silence and demonize queer folks and our histories. We’ve also seen an absolute barrage of anti-trans bills seeking to ban gender-affirming health care, bathroom access, and the opportunity to participate in sports teams that align with one’s gender identity. It’s a hateful mess.
Alongside all of these discriminatory bills, we’ve heard a cacophony of anti-queer “grooming” rhetoric. Extremists are convinced queer people are trying to “groom” young children into being queer by having them read books by and about LGBTQ+ people, learn queer history, and maybe have a story read to them by a drag queen. In reality, none of this is grooming, and it’s an insult to actual survivors of grooming to even suggest it.
I was lucky enough to have writer Alisson Wood sit down with Daily Kos for an email interview about her experiences as a survivor of grooming—by a high school English teacher, not a drag queen, mind you. In her smart, thoughtful, and aching coming-of-age memoir, Being Lolita, Wood examines rape culture, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and her own trajectory of coming to terms with the abuse she survived as a teenager.
RELATED STORY: Writer Sarah Fawn Montgomery talks ableism, COVID-19, and the reality of teaching at a state college
