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:

Far-right personality encourages supporters to deceive people into talking about 'trans strippers in school'

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

Babylon Bee editor Seth Dillon caught spreading false story about a child tipping a half naked 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] 

Right-wing pundits use junk study from anti-LGBTQ group to spread lie that gender-affirming care leads trans youth to suicide - The old techniques never truly go away.

5 times that Republicans loved drag before they started using it as a political weapon​ - It's all about the power and the money. 

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

No, this gay man is NOT trying to 'convert' or 'groom' toddlers.

 

As this silly message I got earlier this month proves, the smearing of LGBTQ folks as 'groomers' of children is reaching the Twilight Zone level of inanity (click on graphic to read it):

How sad that your agenda is smothering our children! No one wants to “erase” you. Just stop trying to “convert” our toddlers. Some of these little ones are still in diapers, have pacifiers and blankies. And you want to teach them about your “pride”! Our little ones should be proud of themselves without you trying to convert them. Can’t you at least wait for middle school?

Well! I've been accused of many things as a gay man, but NEVER of trying to 'convert,' 'recruit' or 'groom' babies. Honestly speaking, it simply underscores just how inane this 'groomer' accusation is.

 I think I speak for quite a few LGBTQ folks (as well quite a few heterosexual folks) in saying that if I could truly 'groom' or 'convert' anyone, I wouldn't waste my time on kids with so many millionaires and billionaires around.

I've got fake fur coats to get out of layaway. 

'Transgender kids become the victims of ugly culture war' & other Mon midday news briefs

Trans kids and advocates blame culture war for debate over adolescent health care - In other words, people saw money to be made to by inflaming anti-trans feelings and lies. They didn't give a damn about the kids. 

Texas GOP adopts shockingly explicit anti-LGBTQ party platform​ - Texas is a drag right now. And not in a good way.

Mass. School Can’t Call Itself Catholic for Flying Pride and BLM Flags - The things I could say about the Catholic Church (but I won't.) 

Why are white nationalist groups targeting LGBTQ groups? - Homophobic as well as racist.

So-called anti-LGBTQ mastermind Christopher Rufo is a huge snowflake

Christopher Rufo

Far-right culture warrior Chris Rufo is mad at me.

Awwww! The so-called evil mastermind. Mr. BIG @NYTmag profile and so-called wrecker of #CRT and drag queens gets scared of a nondescript black gay guy from the south for simply making the argument that he is actually working FOR #LGBTQ people with his blatant public plotting. pic.twitter.com/rsVWpdD3li

— Holy Bullies (@holybullies) June 19, 2022

I take it as a badge of honor. This man is partly behind the attempt to smear LGBTQ people as groomers and pedophiles. And he even encourages people to lie on us.

He didn't appreciate me mocking his wannabe James Bond villain need of publicly bragging about his homophobic plots. Like this one:

I guess Rufo didn't appreciate that his latest tweet proves the point I made about him in an earlier post:

Rufo's eagerness and unashamed openness in telling people to lie in order to cast LGBTQ people as groomers says more about his willingness to put us in danger than about him actually wanting to protect children from danger.

Related posts:

Far-right personality encourages supporters to deceive people into talking about 'trans strippers in school'

Anti-LGBTQ grifter Christopher Rufo makes a fool of himself with latest 'attack' on Disney 

 Christopher Rufo running a homophobic, 'anti-woke' shell game. Expose his hype

Far-right personality encourages supporters to deceive people into talking about 'trans strippers in school'

Christopher Rufo

There is no such thing as "trans strippers in schools," but far right personality Christopher Rufo wants conservatives to start using that phraseology instead of talking about "drag queen in schools."

This is what I said about Rufo in a past blog post:

To the luckily uninitiated, Christopher Rufo is the newest homophobe on the block. That's right. Move over Peter LaBarbera, Linda Harvey, Matt Barber, Ryan T. Anderson, and every other bigot we've vanquished because Christopher has got goals to wreck us.  Unlike those others, he had the power of a cadre misinformers behind him either lapping up or repeating his every word. He first came on the scene pedaling the very successful anti-Critical Race Theory hysteria. This got him heavy mainstream attention.

 And now he has set his sights on attacking LGBTQ people.  Or at the very least, telegraphing it with the clumsiness of a James Bond villain. And with that clumsy telegraphing comes much embellishment.  That's always our saving grace when it comes to the enemies of our equality. They lie so much that they tend to lie to themselves.

Rufo's clumsy telegraphing continues with a bunch of tweets he sent out Friday:

There are no "trans strippers in schools" It is an absolutely ludicrous term which I am sure that Rufo and others on his side of the spectrum will defend with fake photos, videos taken completely out of context, one-sided debates on Twitter and the right-wing media, and doublespeak defenses so illogical that they would make your head spin.

But the point is how Rufo is openly telling people to play distortion games. To him, it's not whether or not there are actually trans strippers in schools (there aren't,) but that folks on his side can deceive and scare people with the idea. It's not about truth with him. It's about "framing the argument" even if the frame is a reprehensible lie.

Like the recent spread of the fake drag queen photo committed by other conservatives, Rufo's eagerness and unashamed openness in telling people to lie in order to cast LGBTQ people as groomers says more about his willingness to put us in danger than about him actually wanting to protect children from danger.

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

 Conservative personality Candace Owens making a fascist fool of herself is as customary as a weekday. I am beginning to find it more and more difficult to be shocked by how low she stoops to grift the money. 

Still, girlfriend manages to pull a shock out of her cauldron every now and then. Like so:

Candace Owens says parents who take their children to drag queen story hour "are underqualified to have children. They should have their children taken away from them" pic.twitter.com/P5Bk3QIWqo

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 16, 2022

Really Candace? I mean really? Let's go over this again. Drag Queen Story Hour is a perfectly innocent event enjoyed by kids and parents alike. Owens is simply trying to attach herself to the current right-wing moral panic about drag queens. It's simply another way people on her side of spectrum spook the gullible with lies about LGBTQ people supposedly wanting to harm children.

And what's more, Owens doesn't even try to tell a good lie as shown by this image:

The picture on the screen behind her is not from a Drag Queen Story Hour or any drag show. It is from a 2019 heterosexual burlesque show. Owens is simply the latest far right personality (aside from Babylon Bee editor Seth Dillon and FL Gov Ron Desantis's spokesperson Christina Pushaw) to use the photo to lie about Drag Queen Story Hour and drag queens in general.

Owens even verbally misrepresent the photo behind her as coming from a drag show starting at 1:40.

If folks used logic in this matter, they would ask if Drag Queen Story Hour and the like are so dangerous to kids, then why do right-wing personalities such as Dillon, Pushaw, and especially Owens have to lie to make that argument.

In their defense, logic has no place in the world of grifting, spooking, and clout chasing.