Ripple effect
Drag queen hopes his library reading inspires positive change
Stephanie Smale of Charlottetown was surprised to learn a drag queen would be reading to children at the Confederation Centre Public Library. Pleasantly so, in fact. So Smale carted her threeyear-old daughter, Ferelith, and her nine-year-old son, Callum, to Drag Queen Story Time Wednesday morning.
Most of the young children in attendance sat on the floor with adults standing or sitting in chairs to see Whatshername burst on the scene, towering high above the seated youngsters in his very high high-heeled black boots, wearing a sparkling green outfit with a purple tutu and sporting a wig of long, curly golden locks topped off with four small stacked books serving as a literary-themed tiara.
The show, says Smale, was fun.
Whatshername, aka Nicholas Whalen, also delivered a strong message both in reading the books, “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress” and “King and King and Family”, as well as through engaging in playful and thoughtful banter with the children.
Smale says she talks to her children about how differences, from culture to skin colour, do not matter.
Callum, who described the show as “pretty good’’, appears to get it.
“All people are different,’’ he observes, “and they should be able to do what they want to do.’’
Both the large turnout and the welcoming response to the unique story reading event delighted Whalen.
He just wished it did not take so long to come about.
“This is a first for P.E.I., and it should have happened many, many years ago,’’ he says.
He lauds the parents for bringing their children to such an eye-opening event that exposes them in a positive manner to someone who is different.
He describes his Drag Queen Story Time Wednesday as a pebble in the pond with the real potential teachers being the children.
“This is going to ripple out, and they are going to create the impact in the community that we need,’’ he says.
“It’s not me. It’s the kids that are going to have the impact.’’
Whalen notes that children, sadly, often discover early in life that being seen as different can result in bullying.
“You don’t fit in and as a result you get made fun of, you get beat up — tormented,’’ he says.
“And it’s tormenting to the mind and that’s just not cool, and we can’t let that happen.’’
Whalen says his family has always been “incredibly supportive’’ of him being gay.
But the small fishing community where he grew up in Cape Breton, he muses, would not have been so welcoming of Drag Queen Story Time.
“We had a library even in that small community, but I can’t imagine someone like me, looking like me, walking in there and doing this. It just wouldn’t happen,’’ he says.
“But what I will say is if it had happened it would have made my life a lot more easy and a lot more beautiful much sooner. I have an easy and beautiful life now and I need to share that with other people. And it’s now my responsibility to share that with my community now that I have the pride to be able to do that.’’
“I have an easy and beautiful life now and I need to share that with other people.’’ Nicholas Whalen