Posted on 04/14/2024 7:23:25 PM PDT by lightman
A Drag Queen Story Hour event that was scheduled for later this month at a church in Mountville has been canceled.
Christopher Paolini, who performs as Miss Amie Vanité, said that the decision was made to cancel the event after a news article by another media outlet was posted Saturday incorrectly saying the event was a reschedule of the canceled March Drag Queen Story Hour at the Lancaster Public Library.
“Hate started piling in with comments and shares on social media,” Paolini said.
The church hosting the event, the Vision of Hope Metropolitan Community Church, had posted Saturday on its social media that a story hour was to be held later this month but at no point referred to it as a rescheduling of the March library event. Paolini said the Mountville event was a rescheduling of a canceled Story Hour Tea Party scheduled for April 13 in York County. Efforts to reach someone at Vision of Hope were unsuccessful.
Paolini said Sunday afternoon the tea party event is officially canceled as well now.
“The media frenzy isn’t helping anything,” Paolini said. “It just keeps stirring the pot and is causing more harm than good from the hatred and slander being spewed at me and the LGBTQ+ community.”
The emotional and financial toll of the past month is wearing on Paolini, he said. While he does pick up other jobs such as bartending, his main career is working as a performer.
“Having to keep canceling my events and calling off regular work for media requests or my own mental health is financially devastating,” Paolini said. “My career and reputation as a performer are in jeopardy; which is also causing me anxiety over how I’m making up for these extra funds being lost due to cancellations.”
Paolini said that the hateful messages have had a domino effect that has also forced entertainers associated with him to cancel events over safety concerns.
The March event at the Lancaster Public Library was canceled after a suspicious package was found at the library the morning of the event. Later that day, individual staff members of the library, Lancaster Pride and LNP | LancasterOnline were subject to bomb and death threats that remain under investigation. Paolini was not individually targeted in the threats received that day.
“I’m incredibly frustrated,” Paolini said. “I’m emotionally and physically drained from the lack of sleep over the course of this last month; and I’m also scared for everyone involved in helping me navigate and reorganize events to get this programming to people who want and support it – because they don’t deserve any of this hatred directed at them at all.”
Is a drag queen ever not an effeminate queer?
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