Wednesday, June 22, 2022

BUSTED! Far right caught spreading false story that a drag queen exposed self to children


With the help of a doctored picture (first picture), the far right continues its inane lie that drag queens are  'grooming' children. 

Yet again in their need to demonize drag queens, far right conservatives have shown how low they are willing to stoop. 

According to the Associated Press:

CLAIM: A drag performer flashed their genitals to children while reading aloud in a Minnesota library.

 AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The performer in this 2019 photograph was wearing several layers of nude tights, said Hennepin County Library Communications Manager Joshua Yetman. “There wasn’t any exposure to children,” Yetman said. 

THE FACTS: As hateful and misleading rhetoric aimed at the LGBTQ community has escalated in recent months on social media, Drag Queen Story Hour events hosted by libraries or bookstores have become a frequent target. This week, some social media users are resurrecting a 2019 photo of such an event in a Minneapolis suburb and reposting it with false claims it shows the performer exposing their genitals to children. The image captures the performer, who is wearing a short dress while seated in front of students, reaching to the side for a book. In some versions of the post, a black box labeled “CENSORED” has been added to the space between the performer’s legs.

 “This is literally a sex crime,” reads a June 10 tweet that was shared some 10,000 times. “Adult flashes his penis to young children at library’s drag queen story hour,” another tweet read. However, unedited versions of the image show that the performer was wearing opaque nude tights that covered their genitals, a fact that Yetman confirmed to the AP in a phone interview Monday. “The performer was wearing tan or nude-colored tights, several layers of tights,” Yetman said. 

“They did not expose themselves to the children.” Yetman said the photo was captured in October 2019 during a drag queen story hour program at Ridgedale Library in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka. The image circulated online with the same false claims shortly after the program happened, and the library system debunked them at the time.

This isn't the first time the far right has run distorted pictures in order to demonize LGBTQ people. 

There was the following in 2010 during an attack on Progressive Insurance because of that company's pro-LGBTQ policies:

Doctored picture



Actual picture



Then there was this 2014 monstrosity below which you read all about here. 

Doctored picture



Actual Picture



It's the thing to remember and keep in perspective while beating back smears against drag queens.. The targets may have changed from gay men to trans men and women to drag queens, but the propaganda techniques never do.  Nor do the lies.


Related posts:


Candace Owens can't even tell a good lie. Far right personality busted using fake photo of 'drag queen' 

'Right-wing media's latest anti-LGBTQ strategy is calling for kids to be taken away from their parents' & other Wed midday news briefs



Right-wing media’s latest anti-LGBTQ strategy is to call for kids to be taken away from their parents

 Candace Owens of The Daily Wire called for parents to have their kids taken away if they take them to a Drag Queen Story Hour event. She added that such parents are “underqualified to have children. They should have their children taken away from them because it's child abuse.” [The Daily Wire, Candace, 6/15/22] 

 Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder claimed that progressives are opening the door to parents having their kids taken away if they don’t help the kids transition. “No one complained when you did it [Drag Queen Story Hour] at your private gay bars, no. But when it's at a public library with children, all of a sudden that’s where you get people I guess guilty of hate speech,” he added. [BlazeTV, Louder with Crowder, 6/14/22] 

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon tweeted that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested: “We need a show called ‘To Catch a Groomer’ where cops organize fake ‘family-friendly’ drag shows and then arrest all the parents who show up with their kids.” [Twitter, 6/5/22] 

Washington Times columnist Tim Young said parents taking their kids to drag shows “deserve no rights in this country” and “at the very least” should “be in jail.” [Twitter, 6/4/22] 

 On The Faulkner Focus, Fox News Radio host Jimmy Failla claimed, “There was a time in this country of just a little more decency, where if someone even voiced the idea of taking your kid to a drag show, they would be arrested.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 6/7/22] 



Conservative Anti-LGBTQ+ Trolls Cause Threats of School Violence - The new anti-LGBTQ right. And as tiresome as the old. We will win.