Hundreds of far right protesters, including neo-Nazis and members of other white nationalist groups, stormed a drag queen story hour at a park in Wadsworth, Ohio, on Saturday.
The all-ages show, dubbed the “Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour,” was held at the city’s Memorial Park. The event was held to promote a Humanist children’s book, and concluded with a “short Rock-n-Roll drag celebration performance,” a description of the event said.
The park was chosen for the event because a private venue had refused to host it, organizer Aaron Reed said. Proceeds from the event were donated to survivors of the Club Q massacre and the B. Riley House, an LGBTQ addiction recovery center in Cleveland.
The event was interrupted by hundreds of far right protesters, some of whom waved swastika flags, threatened violence and spewed Nazi jargon — including “seig heil” and “there will be blood.”
One call and response was “Weimar conditions, Weimar solution” — a blatant call for the mass murder of LGBTQ people. Germany’s Weimar era, which took place immediately before Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power, was known for the sexual liberation movement, which included advocacy for LGBTQ rights.
Members of Parasol Patrol, an LGBTQ advocacy group from Colorado, also attended the event, using umbrellas to shield children from the protesters. But far right protesters vastly outnumbered those in support of the performers, Reed said.
According to journalist Ford Fischer, who documented the event through videos on Twitter, the far right protesters included members of “White Lives Matter” Ohio, the Proud Boys, and Patriot Front. (Other reporters documented that members of Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group, were also present.)
Though non-affiliated protesters of the event claimed they were only there to protest the drag show, they ultimately “weren’t at all ashamed to stand shoulder to shoulder with that kind of hate,” Reed said.
Two individuals at the event — one in support of the drag show and one against — were arrested by police for disorderly conduct. A person in support of the drag show used mace on a person who charged toward them wearing chainmail armor from the direction of the anti-drag protesters. Shortly after, an anti-drag protester pulled out what appeared to be a handgun. (It was later revealed to be a pepper-spraying device shaped like a gun.) That person was later arrested when they used their white nationalist flag as a weapon against a person in support of the performance.
In addition to anti-LGBTQ slurs, protesters repeatedly used the N-word. A Black journalist from The Akron Beacon Journal had to leave the event early out of fear for his own safety.
“Bring a journalist with social anxiety is one thing, but being a Black journalist subjected to the Wadsworth anti-drag show protests who were more fired up for anti-blackness is another,” Anthony Thompson, a Black journalist with that publication, said on Twitter. Thompson didn’t confirm whether he was the journalist who had to leave early.
The response to the drag queen story hour comes as right-wing lawmakers across the U.S. have introduced legislation to restrict drag performances — a blatant attack on LGBTQ people and a clear violation of the First Amendment. Just this past week, Tennessee’s legislature became the first in the country to pass a bill banning drag performances in public venues.
Earlier this month, right-wing commentator Michael Knowles called for the eradication of transness at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a statement that trans advocates have said is outright genocidal.
In response to these attacks, LGBTQ advocates have been mobilizing to defend themselves. Members of the left-wing community defense group Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club provided security for a drag show in Texas last month, for example, defending performers and guests from armed Christian nationalists.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.