Drag queen story hour in America's Bible Belt

Drag queen story hours - events where drag performers read to children - are moving out of the big cities and coming to conservative southern US states.

A group of drag queens stand in a small room at the back of a public library in South Carolina, their bright outfits in contrast with the beige walls.

Children file in and quickly scan the larger-than-life characters before turning their attention to running around and playing.

"There are five drag queens walking around this room and not one kid has walked up to us and said 'you're so weird'," says drag queen Rylee Hunty. "Kids exist in their own fantasy world and we fit into that."

The children assemble on the floor in front of Rylee as she starts to read. After a page or so, she is interrupted by a young girl who stands up and offers Rylee her bracelet because she's "a princess".

Outside the library, armed police watch over groups of protesters and counter-protesters chanting at each other in the rain. Each side representing a different view of the future of the American South.

Drag Queen Story Hour was established in San Francisco in 2015, and has since spread across the US and around the world.

While the Greenville story hour is not officially linked to the organisation, it is part of a growing movement to bring these events to Middle America.

Jonathan Hamilt, a co-founder of Drag Queen Story Hour in New York, told the BBC they have seen "an exponential growth in the number of events in more conservative, rural and southern states over the last year".

"We have chapters in Nebraska, Indiana and Alabama. I think it is partly a reaction to the political landscape of the US right now and a need for more queer

"And librarians have been radicalized since the 80’s."

At least that long. The profession has a higher infestation rate of liberals than just about any other, probably going back to Dewey or further.

For many decades it's been clear that librarians, similar to Doctors and their Hippocratic Oath, are immensely proud of their own version - the Hypocritic Oath. As near as I can tell, it goes something like this:

COMMANDMENT I: Librarians have a Sacred Duty to expose young minds to all ideas and all writings and all images. In particular, this means any kind of pornography, even the most vile kinds. To do anything else would be (shudder!) CENSORSHIP!!!
COMMANDMENT II: Librarians have a Sacred Duty to protect young minds from anything that can do grievous harm to them. In particular, this means Christian ideas/writings/images, conservative ideas, and of paramount importance, never exposing them to anything in that fatally toxic combination of BOTH Conservative AND Christian.

I mean, hey, everyone agrees that shouting Fire in a crowded theater isn't covered by the First Amendment, and quoting words from Christians or conservatives to young, impressionable children is essentially equivalent to shouting fire in the theater.

In approx the mid-90's, Citizen Magazine, a conservative Christian monthly published by Focus on the Family, were getting their feet wet in the brand-new WWW, as we all were. They used the primitive web-search engines of the day (Yahoo, Altavista, etc) to see if their magazine was mentioned by anyone out there.

What they found was a heated discussion in a Usenet Newsgroup that was used by librarians to share info & tips with each other. The heated discussion wasn't over the merits of Citizen Magazine. Oh no, not at all. Rather, the discussion was over how to most effectively ban it from libraries.

It started off with a librarian complaining that a library patron had offered to donate to them a multi -year subscription to Citizen. She was asking fellow librarians across the country for advice on how to turn him down in a final decisive way that wouldn't escalate.

The first response was something like, "Just tell him you don't want his filthy, stinkin', right-wing magazine in your library!"

Others replied along the lines of, "No way! You can't do that. Some people might think it appears to be censorship of a political viewpoint." (Gosh! D'ya really think so??)

There were all kinds of alternate ideas brought up and discarded. Eg, "Well, sir, each periodical costs our library more than just the subscription, such as the costs of personnel to maintain the materials, etc." That would backfire, as the little Christian vermin might insist on increasing his donation to cover all handling costs too.

A better idea was to claim that their periodicals section was currently maxed out on space. But that lie could be easily uncovered by the patron perusing the stacks and noticing unused shelf space.

I think the favorite idea ended up being along the lines of, "smile broadly, thank them, flatter them, and then smother them with bureaucracy" by claiming that of course we will immediately forward your most generous offer to the Periodicals Committee, which meets periodically (and "periodically" == "never!" in your case, buddy) and please check back later to hear of any status updates. Eventually they'll give up, and you can keep your library pure and unadulterated.

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