Dear Tucson Community,

We want to let you know that F*ST! stands with Bookman’s, with the drag queens that provide this community service, with the trans community, and with the LGBTQ+ community at large.

The drag art form is an exciting and beautiful form of pageantry with roots in very classical forms of storytelling and theater. Like virtually every aspect of United States culture, it was popularized here by Black queer individuals, the first drag queen being a former slave named William Dorsey Swann. While originally only found in nightlife venues, we now have the privilege of seeing drag queens at their finest while they give back to our communities through events like the Drag Story Hour.

It is appalling the outpouring of hate that certain groups have spewed in response to the wholesome and community building event that is the Drag Story Hour. Drag queens have been condemned, along with trans people and anyone else who rejects the conservative view of gender behavior, and they have come under (quite literal) fire for merely existing. We are devastated that the unabashed violence has forced the event to be postponed. These recent attacks are sickening, and we simply won’t be quiet about it.

As a performing arts organization, we have had the honor and pleasure of having trans storytellers grace our stage. We have been grateful for their presence, enriched and enlightened by their shared experiences, and we actively, enthusiastically seek to continue sharing our mic and platform.

In a time where the McCarthy-esque targeting of trans folks is amounting to a government-sanctioned genocide, it is even more critical to allow everyone to live loudly in our truths, so that we can gain more understanding of each other and of ourselves, and so that we can build a future that looks better than our past. We should be teaching the next generations how to be authentically themselves and respectful of others. Instead we are seeing history repeat itself in the worst possible ways; a rise in oppressive indoctrination, an outburst of tyrannical censorship, and a withering in the potential of humanity itself.

For too long, we have been told a single story about the “right way” to exist, that there’s only man and woman, with strict boundaries to define them. But that has never been true, and if we are to achieve full happiness, we have to have open representation of other options. To quote Marian Wright Edelman, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” It has been proven over and over again, across multiple disciplines, that diversity in perspective and representation leads to better outcomes. There is a direct correlation between better mental health and access to gender affirming healthcare. Existing in our truths is what lifts all of us up.

There is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by encouraging the visibility of the drag art form, and the visibility of the bountiful ways that humans can express gender. For children especially, Drag Story Hour provides a learning opportunity about acceptance and appreciation for what is different - in others and within ourselves. But it is a subtle lesson and an undertone of the actual purpose of the event, which is pure, wholesome, sassy entertainment. Despite the fear-mongering and uninformed accusations, there is nothing predatory about drag queens reading stories to children.

We hope that you show your support for Bookman’s, their Drag Story Hour, and the trans and LGBTQ+ community.

Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/william-dorsey-swann-from-enslaved-to-queen/18722/

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/brief-history-voguing

https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/03/06/the-political-war-on-trans-people/