Protesters on Cedar Springs Road had the wrong date and the wrong library in June 16. (Courtesy Lee Daugherty).

Protesters come from out of state to protest last year’s Drag Queen Story Hour

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

Eight people traveled from Alexandria, La., last weekend to protest Drag Queen Story Time in Dallas. The group stood in front of ilume on Cedar Springs Road, across the street from the Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library Sunday afternoon, holding signs to protest the event on the anniversary of the date and at the place where the Story Hour took place last year — and about four-and-a-half miles from where Drag Queen Story Time will take place next month.

While protestors claim Drag Queen Story Hour exposes children to perverts and pedophiles, Jo Giudice, director of the Dallas Public

Library, said anyone who volunteers to perform at a Dallas library first goes through a thorough background check. Then anyone who will be reading to children who isn’t already an early childhood professional goes through a training class.

Jenna Skyy

LGBTAccording the protesters’ website, “The goal [of Drag Queen Story Hour] is to provide children with queer role models and impose upon them the acceptance of sexual deviancy.”

But according to Giudice, the goal of any story time program is reading literacy for children and giving parents tips on how to engage their children when reading to them.

The two drag queens who participate in the Dallas library’s program are Jenna Skyy and Cassie Nova. And when the children look at them, “Children see Disney,” Giudice said, “two beautiful princesses.

When she and Cassie read for Drag Queen Story Hour, Jenna said she was dressed as the Disney character Maleficent, while Cassie was dressed as a fairy princess. Both, Jenna said, had over-the-top big hair.

“It wasn’t about cleavage and tight dresses,” she said.

On their website, the protesters accuse the drag queens of teaching the children sexual deviancy. “This is done by bringing in men dressed as women to read gender-bending stories to little children at public libraries,” they claim.
One of the protesters called Giudice and asked if he could read a book from his church. She told him he was welcome to perform, but just as

Jenna and Cassie had done, he’d have to pass a background check and go through training. Then a librarian would choose age-appropriate books that teach a general lesson, not one sent from any particular church.

Jenna said Sablack worked with her before the first event. “He read to us like we were the children,” she said, adding that she learned to ask close-ended questions and keep control of story time.

Sablack taught her how to sit and how to hold the book. They discussed inflection and including the parents. And although Jenna has two degrees in education, she said Cassie was the one who was a natural at holding the children’s attention.
Jenna said she loved the parents who came because they wanted their children to have fun, be who they are and be safe from bullying.

Cassie and Jenna presented a workshop on Drag Queen Story Time at the annual conference of the Texas Library Association. Theirs, Jenna said, was the most widely-attended session of the conference, and, she added, everyone was taking notes.

And Jenna said she’ll continue performing as long as the library will have her. She choked up describing the parents who brought their kids to hear her read as unconditionally loving their children: “In 15 years, those kids will look at their parents and realize they’re awesome,” she said.

Drag Queen Story Time will be presented for adults on Friday, June 21 at the Dallas Museum of Art and for children on July 13 at 1 p.m. at Grauwyler Branch Library, 2146 Guilford St.