CONVERSATION
When San Francisco writer Michelle Tea launched the first Drag Queen Story Hour at the SF Public Library in 2015, it was meant to be a public service and a celebration of queer community and traditions, and it had soon moved beyond our city’s boundaries.
Then came hysteria, threats, violent confrontations, and even anti-drag legislation among the more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills that the American Civil Liberties Union is tracking. An online sewer of right-wing hate speech has now spilled over into mainstream conservative America, turning drag queens into a locus of anti-queer moral panic.
“This has never been about drag or drag queens reading to kids,” says Drag Story Hour executive director Jonathan Hamilt (aka Ona Louise). “Weaponizing drag is a way for the far right to chip away at queer rights to try to legislate us out of existence.”
Tomorrow, San Francisco will host a Drag Up! Fight Back! rally (City Hall, 11 am) to push back against the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws. SF Democratic Party chair Honey Mahogany, a drag performer who ran unsuccessfully for supervisor last year, told KQED: “Drag queens will not be silenced and we will not go back to the closet. We will not be relegated to just the back of a dark room in a club. We are here, part of the community.”
Emotions will be running particularly high. Local drag legend Heklina died suddenly in London this week, a shock to San Francisco and to the wider drag community. (So far, there are no signs of foul play, according to Peaches Christ, who was doing a show — Mommie Queerest — with Heklina.)
We caught up last week with Drag Story Hour’s Hamilt, who was getting ready for a drag Passover performance, to talk about the political landscape, security threats, the story hour’s local roots, and more. Hamilt later declined to talk about Heklina’s death, but had plenty to say about everything else.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
The Frisc: People expect San Francisco to carry the banner nationally on queer issues. Is it fair to be put in that position?
Jonathan Hamilt/Ona Louise: SF is the birthplace of so many ideas and so many queer movements. I think that it’s maybe not a duty, but as a queer person it comes with the territory. People think that the Bay Area may be this queer liberal bubble, but San Lorenzo was one of the first places we saw the Proud Boys turn out. We’re having extremists, really intense protests — this past weekend we had a lot of bomb threats. These groups that are against our organization, they’re not local, but any area can be a target.
Is this happening in SF?
For safety purposes and things, we don’t want to discuss specifics. A lot of these threats do not hold [a lot] of weight. They have to be investigated, but the majority aren’t real, and telling the public about XYZ is just giving these people more of a voice and a platform.
If the goal is to keep us from meeting and gathering, then we win if we keep spreading this message.
Do you think the fact that the Drag Story Hour brand started in San Francisco makes it easier to vilify in some parts of the country?
The bigger picture is this has never been about drag or about drag queens reading to kids. Protecting the children is a scapegoat, and weaponizing drag is a way for the far right to chip away at queer rights to try to legislate us out of existence.
Moral panics are nothing new. We can’t forget about Anita Bryant saying protect the children, the cross-dressing laws of the 1970s in New York City …
What about today?
It could make a difference. I guess saying it’s from SF is code for some people, but that only lives within their own communities; it’s not spreading outside of their own echo chamber.
What about the inverse: Is it important that Drag Story Hour is marching on in San Francisco?
With these bills and laws coming in, we need to keep Drag Story Hour going. We are expanding the SF chapter; we now are able not to serve just SF proper, but to go out to more of the Bay Area that have been asking for story hour for quite some time now. We’re working on a system to train volunteers to help de-escalate and have additional eyes and ears and legal observers around.
Have you had to change your practices locally?
I’ve been with the org since 2016, and it was a very different world back then. In the beginning, the biggest problem I had to worry about was the hairline for my wig, not an active shooter contingency.
Back in that period it was “Here’s some best practices, here’s some favorite books, go forth and do your thing.” Now it’s too risky to organize things by yourself. People want story hour, but they don’t think about the precautions you have to take.
What are some examples of how you have to coach people?
I don’t want to give away our measures publicly. We also don’t want to overwhelm people with the doom and gloom. It’s like the commute: You only hear about the drivers who crash, not about everyone who made it home safe and sound. People think our events keep getting shut down, but that’s not true; if anything, people say they want us at more events. The attention is helping us grow.
What about institutional responses? Do you feel like you’re getting support from the city, the state, the police?
Each community has a different relationship with the police. The bigger picture to remember is the history of cops and drag do not mix. Cops are not our friends, they’re not there to protect queer people, that’s been very apparent through time and action. At some points they need to be called in, but if we’re having an event at a library or City Hall, there’s probably going to be cops there anyway.
You’ve mentioned de-escalation, but I know you get offers from people to be armed security and form a perimeter around an event. We’ve seen that in other cities. How do you manage those conversations?
De-escalation techniques are good, but obviously if you’re in a situation that’s already escalated, trying to talk someone down who has a firearm pointed at you is not going to help. We’ve had groups of gay vets who want to help us with firearm training, and internally we have to kind of figure out what our relationship with firearms is. It might be useful to know how to unload and load a gun.
Our main thing is keeping people safe. It’s good to teach yourself different things, I’ll just say that.
Do you think we’re going to get serious legal intervention from the state or federal government at any point?
I honestly have no idea. I think that as long as white supremacy and patriarchy prevail, they’re never going to see a white cis man as a terrorist. We’ve always had to deal with hate and gaybashing. It’s like the media just found out, “Oh, people hate gay people?”
It depends on what the news cycle is going to focus on in the future. Once the far right has something else to complain about or pretend to care about, we may be yesterday’s news — I hope.
Are you exhausted talking about national politics?
The political landscape keeps changing almost on a daily basis, but it’s very charging, and more so that people want to talk to our org. So as exhausting as it may be, there’s no rest for the wigged.
Corrections: A previous version of this story misidentified the East Bay town where a Drag Story Hour was disrupted. And Hamilt said “no rest for the wigged,” not “wicked.”
Adam Brinklow covers housing, development, and more for The Frisc.