Authored by Kurt Sovain of DQST.
Growing up in a heteronormative world as a queer kid can mess with your head. When I was a child in the 80s I didn’t know people like me existed because I never saw them in real life, on the TV or in books. The last one is especially important for me because books were my first love, even before I could read them. When I think back to that strange little bookworm, who used to read all night by torchlight under the covers, I wonder how much more welcoming the world would have seemed if I’d known that I wasn’t alone.
As well as the clear advantage of learning to smash a lipsync by the age of four, sexuality and gender diversity are common topics of conversation in our home and they’re growing up knowing that it’s ok to be different.
Now I’m all grown up with children of my own and these little pickles are a lot more fortunate than I was. For a start they’ve both been going to Shambala since they were babies but also they have a drag king for a parent. As well as the clear advantage of learning to smash a lipsync by the age of four, sexuality and gender diversity are common topics of conversation in our home and they’re growing up knowing that it’s ok to be different.
Drag Queen Story Time lets me bring these ideas to a much wider audience than just my own children and we’re very lucky now that there are so many inclusive books for children and young people. The project is necessary because it can help children find their place in the world in a way that simply wasn’t possible when I was young.
Here are a few of our favourites and I hope you enjoy them as much as we do:
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