Dear Governor Ron Desantis and Representative Bryan Slaton,
In light of your recent remarks voicing your emphatic concern for the well-being and safety of children everywhere, as well as your ardent plans to ensure that children in your states remain protected from trauma, I wanted to take a moment to assure you that drag queens are not traumatizing your children.
But uncontrolled violence is.
Please do not cancel drag story hour at the public libraries. Instead, allow a fabulous person in a dress and heels to teach children to love reading. Give these children the opportunity to learn how to lose and find themselves between the covers of a book from someone who, like a good story, is magical and larger than life.
Take a minute to understand how damaging the visual of a group of Proud Boys wearing AK-47 t-shirts storming a library to protest Drag Queen Story Hour is to young, impressionable eyes.
Do not make it a felony for parents to allow their children to accompany them to drag shows. Do not put laws in place so that child protective services have the obligation to strip these parents of their parental rights.
The scars left on children who have been systemically and horrifically ripped away from their families by the government will be far deeper and far more enduring than any damage done by watching someone in a wig sashaying to Cher on a glittery stage.
Please consider the hypocrisy which makes it legal for children to attend gun shows but illegal to for them to attend drag shows.
Help make it so that no more family-friendly shows get targeted by homophobic fanatics with automatic assault rifles. Do not make it so easy for these fanatics to shoot and kill in front of children in the name of protecting them from mental harm.
No more murder to “protect kids from drag.”
Instead of focusing your power and attention on drag queens, I implore you to focus on the more pressing issues at hand. I implore you to consider the meaning of the word “trauma,” and how hate speech and death are far greater contributors to it than a lively lip-syncing sequin-wearing dancer.
I ask you to combat childhood trauma by making anti-violence laws that promote inclusivity and acceptance. Help spread awareness and education to stop queerphobia in its tracks instead of fueling hate to the point where drag shows are getting canceled due to bomb threats.
Help us create a world where children are taught to dance and sing and express themselves freely instead of being trained to hide under their desks.
Sincerely,
Simha Haddad
