Drag Queens and Nonbinary and Cross-Dressers, Oh My!

It's not just transgenders: The Media Research Center's war on non-heterosexual people continues.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 2/25/2020

MRC writer Elise Erhard went on a drag queen-bashing tirade in an Oct. 9 post, in response to a health insurance company commercial that was "uplifting" until it showed "a drag queen reading and dancing for laughing children":

For decades, the left has successfully promoted the increased sexualization of children by portraying opponents as somehow mean or intolerant. In this latest volley, those who see problems with a sexualized man dressed as a woman reading to children are once again criticized as just disliking people who are different or "too much." A drag queen reading to children is the same as an elderly woman who dresses her best or a male healthcare worker showing a softer side, in a new commercial by health insurance provider Kaiser Permanente.

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With the help of the American Library Association, drag queen story hours have been invading local communities, often against the communities' wishes. Children at these story hours have been exposed to convicted pedophiles, taught twerking, and placed in sexually suggestive positions with drag queens for photo-ops. One drag queen who participated in a story hour even admitted in front of his local city council that it was a form of “grooming.”

This is corporate advertising once again soft-pedaling a radical left-wing sexual agenda by integrating it into what seem to be benign, everyday advertisements. Kaiser Permanente has a long history of contributing to liberal causes, like GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, and National Urban League.

To all those parents and taxpayers who are fighting this latest insidious form of child sexualization, Kaiser Permanente literally says, “Too bad.” Apparently, the health insurance company thinks sexually grooming children is just another way for adults to “thrive.”

Erhard's "grooming" claim falsely suggests that drag queens are preparing children to be sexually exploited. In fact, that comment is taken out of context; the man who performs as a drag queen said at a Louisiana city council meeting in 2018 that he's "not there to push any kind of agenda":

I was told at the library council meeting last night that I am pushing the trans agenda, I am pushing an overly sexualized agenda, and that is furthest from the truth. I am just as talented as a singer or a dancer or anyone that has a special talent. It's just mine is dressing as a woman and entertaining a crowd.

Now, everywhere you can go, you can see that people can change their views for certain audiences. Just as much as someone can be an actor for an rated-R movie and they can go around and be in a G-rated movie, I can entertain adults in a club but also entertain a group of students and young children. I'm able to do that because I'm an adult and I know how to filter myself.

And I just think that it is implorable [sic] some of the opinions I've seen and some of the looks I've received here tonight. The eyes people give you whenever they think that you are the one that's in support of this event is truly disgusting. And I am not here to obviously change anyone's views about me, but I'm here to let you know that this event is something that's going to be very beautiful and for the children and people who support it are going to realize that this is going to be the grooming of the next generation. We are trying to groom the next generation not to see the way that they just did.

And just because I said that, you heard the little ploor [sic] of people behind me. It's disgusting. We're trying to teach people to be tolerable, to be patient, to be loving. And the fact of the matter is that I'm standing right here and there's probably 50 people behind me looking at me with daggers probably wishing I would probably die in a car wreck whenever I leave here. It's truly implorable [sic].

And that is what we're trying to do with drag queen story time. We're trying to raise people to be loving and caring individuals, and I really hope that this event is going to do that for not only just the children at this event but children in the future.

So, quite a bit different. The Daily Wire article to which Erhard links also took the "grooming" comment out of context.

Meanwhile, the content-desperate folks at WorldNetDaily loved Erhard's drag queen-bashing so much, the MRC item served as a basis for its own article, right down to adapting her "sexualized man dressed as a woman" phrase to the headline and repeating the out-of-context "grooming" line. If these kinds of articles are so homophobic that WND thinks this highly of them, the MRC might have a problem; it already has one in echoing WND the other way.

A month later, it was time for another drag queen freakout. Doing the honors this time was Gabriel Hays, who devoted an entire Nov. 13 post to being unhappy that a drag queen was in the audience at an impeachment hearing:

If you want a concise distillation of how serious the left’s impeachment attempts are on this first official day of hearings, look at the Drag Queen journalists on the ground at Capitol Hill. Just try to tell yourself — without wincing — that this is a “sad” and oh-so-serious day for democracy, as Nancy Pelosi puts it.

It sure says a lot about the Democratic party when drag queens have become their shock troopers.

Pissi Myles, as he likes to call himself (please Lord, we hope that doesn’t mean what we think it means), apparently fancies himself a journalist with a valid interest in covering impeachment politics. It’s a nice reminder of just how much of a circus the Dems’ attempt at removing Trump is, with freaks like Pissi Myles being the enthusiastic rent-a-clowns.

As much as Hays is desperate to like Myles to the Democrats to further his employer's narrative that the impeachment hearings are not serious, he offers no evidence that Myles has any connection whatsoever to the Democratic Party that would have given him special permission to attend the hearing.

But Hays was truly horrified by Myles' mere presence, apparently unclear on the concept of what a drag queen is:

The accompanying images were about as horrifying as one could imagine. Pissi, a clearly overweight male, was wearing an offensively red, way-too-short dress, sparkly red heels, and a curly blonde wig so ostentatious that Honey Boo Boo would have fainted on sight.

The most outlandish part of it all was that Miss Myles had her reporting rig all set up and ready to go. She was holding her phone with an extension arm, had her headphones in, and was giving viewers an up close and personal account of the morning’s proceedings.

Hays concluded by sneering: "It’s a shame to even say it, but If [Adam] Schiff and his drag queen soldiers beat Trump, then maybe he doesn’t deserve to win." Again, Hays offered no evidence that Schiff or any other Democrat had anything to do with Myles' presence.

On Nov. 12, Matt Philbin had his own drag-queen meltdown:

Are you comfortable with mentally disturbed men hanging around the kids section of the local library? How do you stand on dudes with 5 o’clock shadow dressed in lingerie reading to five-year-olds? If you’re a Spokane, Washington resident, you better be okay with it, or you’re a “religious extremist,” and just may find yourself sold in effigy at a slave auction to benefit America’s largest abortion mill.

A group called “Spokane United Against Religious Extremism,” doesn’t take kindly to people speaking out against the new sacrosanct civic ritual known as Drag Queen Story Hour. In a drag bar fundraising event to benefit Planned Parenthood, “drag queen performers ... mocked pro-life activists and local Christian pastors by auctioning off cardboard cutouts of their faces, mimicking a slave-style auction,” according to CBN.

If you so filled with hate that think that drag queens can only be seen as "mentally disturbed men" and "dudes with 5 o’clock shadow dressed in lingerie,"and you think CBN is a reliable, objective source of news, then perhaps you expect a little mockery to come your way.

In their Nov. 30 column, Tim Graham and Brent Bozell sneered at the American Music Awards, where "Kesha brought along the rapper Big Freedia, a deep-voiced gay male who dresses like a drag queen and uses she/her pronouns."

In a Dec. 11 post, Julie Mitchell ranted at the mere idea of drag queens doing a Christmas song:

When Christmastime comes around, many people find themselves reminiscing on traditional songs, like “We Three Queens,” and “All I Want For Christmas Is Nudes.” Well, maybe not many people … probably just ridiculous wackos who want to pervert Christmas, all of its traditions, and tear it from its roots in Christianity -- like the left and the LGBTQ+ movement promoting woke, drag queen remakes of holiday classics!

In the spirit of woke Christmas, Billboard recommends tarted up versions of holiday classics -- featuring drag queens. Chris Malone writes, “Drag queens may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Christmas, but make no mistake: just because they own Halloween doesn’t mean they aren’t one of the best parts of the holiday season, too.”

Yes, drag queens are one of the best parts of the holiday season … if you really dislike the traditional holiday season.

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Perhaps the most striking thing about these holiday remakes is that drag queens solely and selfishly promote themselves, the exact opposite of what Christmas is about: celebrating the birth of Jesus and being grateful for loved ones. Praising men who twerk in wigs and dresses is wildly contrary to Christmas and its traditions.

So is ranting about people who don't celebrate Christmas the way you demand that they should, but Mitchell won't talk about that.

Nonbinary meltdowns

ConWebWatch has already noted the MRC's freakout when the rebooted cartoon "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" added a character who wasn't heterosexual and another character who had two dads -- as if acknowledging that gay people exist and aren't inherently evil was an insidious "gay agenda." Well, "She-Ra" has continued to refuse to be as heterosexual as the MRC demands so the freakouts have continued.

Alexa Moutevelis complained in an Oct. 30 item that not only is there a nonbinary character on the show, a nonbinary actor is voicing them:

Prepare for trouble! It looks like the new season of Netflix’s kids' show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (coming November 5) will feature “the first nonbinary actor to voice a nonbinary animated character in a recurring series role.” Just what parents have been waiting for!

Netflix’s LGBTQ Instagram account Prism was so excited to make the announcement that they produced a video of performer Jacob Tobia talking about the character. Tobia, who recently wrote a memoir titled Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, said, “I play a character called Double Trouble who is a non-binary, shape-shifting mercenary, so functionally, I’m playing myself.”

Moutevelis complained about the show being "propagandizing" and "indoctrination" -- as if she wasn't doing the exact same thing -- and concluded by ranting, "She-Ra already has featured gay characters and storylines in the past. It looks like season 4 will be more than Double Trouble – parents, beware!"

On Nov. 10, Elise Ehrhard complained further about this nonbinary character:

In season four’s She-Ra, released Nov. 5, the “non-binary” character Double Trouble is really just a shape-shifter like the countless other shape-shifting characters that have existed in past children’s cartoons and world mythology. Calling classic shape-shifters “transgender” is a new trope of the “woke.” For example, in Rick Riordan’s blockbuster mythological children’s book series, Magnus Chase, a shape-shifting demi-god wearing a hijab is now considered a “transgender” Muslim.

Memo to the left: shape-shifters are not real and men and women cannot change their biological sex. If the left gets to stamp “transgender” on every shape-shifting character, then Robin William’s Genie would have to be called gender dysphoric because he morphs into Joan Rivers, among many other impressions, while singing “Prince Ali” in Aladdin.

The only distinction of Double Trouble is that the voice sounds like a campy gay male from Sex and the City. S/he says “darling” a lot and tells one of the princesses “that outfit really isn’t working for you.” The way transgenderism itself is constantly channeling homosexual stereotypes may explain in part the calls by some lesbian and gay activists to separate themselves from the “T” part of their movement.

Ehrhard went on to mock the fact that nonbinary people would like to be addressed by their preferred gender (or nongender, as it were):

Double Trouble says he loves “the thrill of seeding destruction and chaos,” which pretty much encapsulates the entire LGBT movement’s encroachment into pre-pubescent children’s lives. It is very important to transgender activists to confuse children about both grammar and identity. Everybody, including the villain mastermind, refers to Double Trouble as “they” and "them." “Even the most evil person on the planet doesn’t misgender people, because that would be rude,” Tobia said. You can try to destroy the universe and the English language, but don’t you dare “misgender” anybody!

Ehrhard then issued a sexist attack on the show's writing staff for not being sufficiently male:

Much hoopla has been made of the fact that this contemporary She-Ra has an all-female writing team (even though biological sex is supposedly not fixed). That being the case, I am embarrassed for my sex because the show spends an inordinate amount of time having princesses kvetch at each other and argue about their feelings. I am middle-aged and have more patience, but it must be torture for the kids to wait for action in between endless bickering between Princess Glimmer and Adora while other heroes take “me-time.” Is this really what an all-female writing team is supposed to produce for an action cartoon? If so, it might be time to add some testosterone to the mix. That is, if anybody in Hollywood can still acknowledge biological reality at all.

Ehrhard and Moutevelis should perhaps obsess a little less about cartoons.

Following up on an earlier freakout over gender-neutral Barbie dolls that he called "plastic monstrosities" that mean "now your son can occupy the budding years of his childhood fantasizing about what it’s like being some androgynous weirdo," Gabriel Hays complained about an op-ed that, in his description, made the argument that gender-neutral dolls are "not woke enough," prompting Gabriel to go into full mocking sneer mode about people he personally despises: "But then again, how does one represent mental illness in a plastic doll?"Hays also had a major meltdown over Merriam-Webster choosing "they" as its word of the year:

Wonderful. The folks behind the leading English dictionary are now complicit in the left’s vendetta against biology, naming “they” as 2019’s “Word of the Year” and explaining that this achievement is very much based on the word’s newfound gender-neutral usage.

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With a quick Google search, anyone can see the travesty for themselves. The definition of what used to be a simple third-person pronoun has a second official meaning: they can also be “used to refer to one person whose gender identity is nonbinary.” Well there you have it, folks. The lefty lunacy of “they/them” has been codified.

So, why did Merriam-Webster feel confident enough to buy into this mental illness? Well, because progressive lawmakers, agenda-driven psychologists and Hollywood wack jobs have been employing the term, of course. Merriam-Webster defended the pronoun’s “Word of the Year” status because Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), for instance, “revealed in April during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Equality Act that her child is gender-nonconforming and uses they.”

In any other society, Jayapal’s actions may be seen as child abuse, but in our PC wasteland it’s just a new parenting style you can look up in your current dictionary.

Only at the MRC could speaking a word in a way in which it doesn't approve be seen as "child abuse."

Cross-dressers too

The MRC hates cross-dressing to the point that it can't even find the humor in what has long been a comedy trope. When it's done to make a serious point, they don't get it at all.

In 2018, Lindsay Kornick watched an episode of the miniseries "The Alienist" and missed the point of the "several uncomfortable minutes of underage boys (some played by underage actors) wearing dresses with makeup and offering themselves for sexual pleasure":

It’s honestly hard to imagine that in a time where complimenting women can be seen as harassment, dressing boys up like female prostitutes, having them act and speak like girls, can somehow be considered good television. The show clearly paints the act as sad and pathetic, but apparently it’s fine when it’s done for art. That is, if degrading young boys can still be considered art. Somehow, I doubt there will be any Twitter movements regarding this unsightly treatment. After all, that would have to acknowledge two things modern-day feminists refuse to consider. One, that boys can be mistreated, and two, that boys can be (way too) oversexualized.

Kornick was apparently too busy hate-watching the show to figure out that the scene was supposed to be uncomfortable. As an actual reviewer pointed out, the miniseries is set in late 19th century New York City around the murder of a transgender prostitute, and the cross-dressing boys selling themselves is emblematic of the bleak existence of the immigrant underclass doing what they had (or were forced) to do to provide for their families.

If Kornick was squicked out by this, good. That's the whole point -- prostitution of this sort is supposed to be rather squicky. But she was too invested in the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy to notice.

When someone cross-dresses as a fashion and personal statement, well, it's meltdown time. And when that person appears on a children's TV show, it's time for a full five-alarm gay-bashing meltdown. Show us how it's done, Elise Ehrhard:

PBS once provided children with happy thoughts of a fatherly Mr. Roger's talking to us about our day or adorable Ernie singing about his rubber ducky on Sesame Street. But for the LGBTQXYZ movement, children's programming is just another opportunity to teach kids all the ways that it is a homosexual/transgender day in the neighborhood.

In recent years, children's public television has premiered a "gay marriage" on Arthur, sang about two dads with a baby in a preschool song about families, and put Grover in a purple dress on Sesame Street. But apparently having a muppet go transvestite for a day just was not inclusive enough. On January 30, the creators of Sesame Street announced on social media that cross-dressing LGBT activist Billy Porter, star of the LGBTQ FX show Pose, will appear on Season 51 of Sesame Street on HBO Max this spring.

She's gotten one thing wrong already: she identified "Sesame Street" as part of "public television" while also reporting that this episode will air on HBO Max, which is most definitely not public television.

Ehrhard went on to demonstrate her hatred for who Porter is by cattily mocking his fashion choices, despite no apparent experience in judging fashion:

You may remember Billy Porter from when he wore that ridiculous long black dress to the 2019 Oscars. The long women's gown he wore on the red carpet looked like something a widow would wear in Gone With the Wind. The man does not exactly have the creativity of David Bowie or Culture Club in his gender-bending. If the pictures on Sesame Street's social media are any indication, Porter wears the depressing, black women's gown when he visits the puppets on Sesame Street.

Ehrhard concluded with the usual MRC rant about a "gay agenda" coming for your children:

While the show will not premiere until this spring, we can presume that the creators expect to children respond to this as normal, not comical or silly.

The LGBTQ "slippery slope" long ago slipped off a cliff and is now pummeling our children with its agenda. Next thing you know Daniel Tiger will announce his gender transition at his preschool or Elmo with "come out" to the kiddies. With the sexual/gender theory left there is no end to the possibilities.

Because in the world that Erhard and the MRC occupy, the worst thing is to teach children that people who are different shouldn't be hated for who they are.

Gabriel Hays showed similar humorlessness in a Feb. 13 post complaining that Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- a longtime target of the MRC -- was going to be a judge on thet new season of "RuPaul's Drag Race." After sneering hope that she knows more about drag than she does economics," Hays huffed: "How fitting that lefties show more respect to the idea of cross-dressing than the American flag" then finally concluded: "After all, what's more American than drag queens and Ocasio-Cortez? Well, literally anything else."

Well, certainly more American than Hays' vicious yet rather lame insults of anything that's different from himself.