Column: Would hate disrupt a drag story hour in Laguna Beach?

I visited Laguna Seashore this previous Saturday on a stunning morning, the kind of sunny day the seaside gem hadn’t skilled in months. Vacationers headed towards the seashore. Locals jogged. Paramotor lovers crisscrossed the blue sky on their manner towards the Pacific.

Magnificence wasn’t what introduced me to the coast, although. It was hate.

For weeks, social media posts had trashed the Laguna Artwork Museum for planning to host story time with a drag queen. Typical was one from the Higher Laguna Seashore GOP, which alleged with no proof in anyway that the mere act of a drag queen studying a guide to youngsters was a part of a “bigger, current development of sexualizing kids.”

These assaults have been the most recent volley in an unpleasant battle in opposition to queer something in Southern California this 12 months.

The president of the Temecula Valley Unified Faculty District deemed Harvey Milk a “pedophile” throughout a board assembly. Vandals have destroyed Satisfaction flags. Protesters clashed outdoors an elementary faculty in North Hollywood that held a Satisfaction-themed meeting and a Glendale Unifed Faculty District board assembly the place June could be acknowledged as Satisfaction Month. 1000’s held a rally at a Dodger Stadium car parking zone earlier than the staff’s Satisfaction Evening on Friday to lambaste the Blue Crew’s determination to honor a gaggle of drag nuns with a Neighborhood Hero Award.

Now, the hate threatened to crash onto Laguna Seashore, one of many oldest LGBTQ+ communities in Southern California.

Laguna Artwork Museum workers have been calmly readying for the studying after I confirmed up. Govt Director Julie Perlin Lee advised me they all the time attempt to sync up the area’s month-to-month story time with a topical theme, comparable to a winter Ukrainian folks story in December. For this Satisfaction Month, the museum contacted the literacy nonprofit Drag Story Hour, after which Perlin’s deputy director talked to different museums that had hosted related occasions and heard “nothing however a constructive expertise.”

“However I’m certain everybody has skilled a point of what we heard, too,” Perlin Lee continued, alluding to the social media criticism. “I shouldn’t be stunned as a result of that’s how issues appear to be these days,”

“However,” she concluded, gesturing towards a gaggle of rainbow-clad adults outdoors the museum’s glass doorways, “there’s tons of help, too.”

Kat Schroeder and Melissa Desjardin handed out small Satisfaction flags to anybody who needed them, and wore T-shirts that learn “Free Mother Hugs.” With them was James Flores of Laguna Seashore Satisfaction! 365. He wasn’t completely happy in regards to the deliberate protests in opposition to the museum, the primary anti-LGBTQ+ motion in Laguna Seashore that he had heard of since transferring to the small metropolis 17 years in the past.

“Laguna has been part of our [LGBTQ+] tradition endlessly,” he mentioned. “Folks may really feel somewhat put down by this, however that’s why we have to present up.”

“It’s a disgrace that it’s got to this,” added Schroder, an Orange resident.

“That’s why we gotta present visibility and educate the neighborhood,” replied Desjardin of Huntington Seashore — “the nice half,” she emphasised with fun.

Simply as Desjardin completed, Laura Puente walked previous her, then stood steps away. She held an enormous purple signal bedecked with hearts that learn, “Love Drag Queens at Grownup Venues!”

“I’ve two kids and am a homosexual particular person,” the Laguna Seashore resident declared. “It’s inappropriate for little youngsters to see these grownup conditions. I’ve plenty of homosexual and lesbian buddies, and there’s an enormous consensus to maintain drag away from youngsters.

“We love drag queens. However there are particular sexual overtones. I’ve seen sufficient story occasions — in any other case, I wouldn’t spend my stunning Saturday morning right here.”

When Puente bought no response from Flores, Schroeder and Desjardin, she moved to the nook of Coast Freeway. A smattering of automotive honks and supportive hoots greeted her. A person and lady who gave their names solely as Eric from San Francisco and Carolina from Laguna Seashore joined Puente. Eric held an indication suggesting drag queens ought to learn to senior residents as an alternative of youngsters.

“Seniors are lonely,” he reasoned. “They want a present.”

“I’ve drag buddies,” Eric continued. “However why are these story occasions focusing on youngsters? As a result of they’re impressionable. Kids are confused sufficient.”

“What’s going to be subsequent?” Carolina replied. “Burlesque for youngsters?”

By the point two different protesters confirmed up, the museum’s foyer was filled with kids and their mother and father.

One of many activists walked as much as the foyer’s window wall and held up an indication that learn “Cease Intercourse-ing our Kids.” The one response she bought was tykes waving at her.

Households wait contained in the foyer of the Laguna Artwork Museum earlier than the beginning of a drag story time on Saturday.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

The households ultimately streamed into what’s normally a gallery area however could be the studying room for the story time, the higher to accommodate the group of 40. Youngsters lay down on mats within the entrance; adults and preteens sat behind them in chairs.

The drag queen for the day was caught in site visitors.

A staffer tried to maintain kids occupied by enjoying “Simon Says,” however they have been getting stressed. “It’s very electrical, I really feel it!” she gamely advised the group. “So let’s sustain that power— “

Out of the blue, a 6-foot-and-change blond in a flowing neon coral pantsuit strode into the room with a “Helloooooo!”

Miss Pickle was able to learn.

She has handled sufficient Drag Story Hour backlash this 12 months. In April, protesters disrupted one among her readings, on the Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Department Library, with screams of “perversion” and “abomination.” The day earlier than her Laguna Artwork Museum look, the Glendale Library introduced on Instagram with no rationalization that it was canceling Miss Pickle’s scheduled story time at their Satisfaction within the Park pageant on Saturday afternoon.

If Miss Pickle was frazzled by these troubles, she didn’t present it in Laguna.

Miss Pickle reads from Loryn Brantz’s “Feminist Child Finds Her Voice” on the Laguna Artwork Museum on Saturday.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

She was humorous and sassy and affected person and caring. Miss Pickle requested her viewers questions after each sentence and urged them to comply with good manners, comparable to sharing toys with buddies and asking mother and father for permission to eat macaroni within the bathtub. She made the adults snicker with on-the-spot jokes. “You’ve misplaced two tooth and have three wiggly ones?” the drag queen requested one little boy who had simply knowledgeable her about his dental issues. “Glad you’re retaining a spreadsheet,” Miss Pickle mentioned, earlier than suggesting the boy file a 1099 tax kind to declare any cash the Tooth Fairy may carry him.

The books for the morning: Loryn Brantz’s “Feminist Child Finds Her Voice,” one other one about the way it’s OK to be completely different, and one other one about having a giant coronary heart. They have been as problematic as bunnies hopping on the garden whereas child chicks chirped.

“It’s the biggest crowd we’ve ever for a narrative time by fourfold,” Perlin Lee whispered, with a weary however vast smile.

The grand finale was “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish,” a songbook by Lil Miss Scorching Mess that the Higher Laguna Seashore GOP described as: “Would you like your 4-year-old to be a ‘little scorching mess’ shaking his booty and dealing it?” Miss Pickle requested everybody to stand up and dance alongside to the guide’s lyrics — “Fortunately for the museum, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ is within the public area.’”

Sneakers stomped. Hair went up. Jewels blinged. Shoulders shimmied. The studying ended, the adults applauded, and the kids swarmed towards Miss Pickle for photographs and stickers.

Sasha Deming of Laguna Hills had by no means been to a drag story hour earlier than however confirmed as much as help the museum together with her husband and daughter. “I had no thought what to anticipate, but it surely was nice,” she mentioned. Of critics, Deming mentioned “that claims extra about their very own inside thoughts than the precise actuality.”

Laguna Seashore natives Lauren and Graham Unterberger introduced their daughter Elliott, who had positioned a Satisfaction flag by means of her hair bun. Earlier, she had requested her mother in regards to the protesters outdoors.

“It actually breaks my coronary heart to see this shift” in rhetoric in her hometown, Lauren Unterberger mentioned. “So I advised her it was hateful language, and that we ought to be inclusive and loving. I want these folks would’ve stepped inside and given it an opportunity, as a result of they’re judging a guide by its cowl.”

The children moved to a different room for an artwork challenge, however Miss Pickle needed to go. She was nonetheless planning to indicate up in Glendale. I requested if the conservative battle on drag had weighed on her.

“They’re a loud bunch, however they’re not with the bulk,” she mentioned. “Within the digital area, it’s poisonous, and I get to considering that it’s actual.”

Miss Pickle paused. “However you then get right into a room like this,” she mentioned, “and you are feeling it. This is actual.”