Drag story hour hosts under attack

Protesters pray outside a library in New York City as Flame, a drag queen sporting a bright wig and a red gown, entertains the children inside by singing the ABCs, leading a coloring activity and reading books about how it's OK to be different.

Outside Chicago, protesters harass parents attending storytime with their children and proclaim that the staff operating the event came “from the devil.”

And in a San Francisco suburb, men invade Panda Dulce's reading at a library's Drag Queen Story Hour, shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs.

After focusing on transgender athletes and youths, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is now targeting drag storytimes — conceived as a way to educate and entertain children by appealing to their imaginations — with interruptions and other protests reported across the country in the past two weeks, since Pride Month began.

Organizers of the story hours say that social media accounts are fueling the backlash and that opponents claiming they want to protect children are actually scaring and endangering them. The organizers said they will enhance security but won't stop their programs.

The reading groups have faced pushback from the beginning, but the recent vitriol is new, said Jonathan Hamilt, executive director of Drag Queen Story Hour and the co-founder of the New York chapter.

“Being a part of the LGBT community and a queer person in general, we've always experienced hate and slurs and homophobia and transphobia. That's unfortunately just part of our existence,” Hamilt said. “All this feels different and very real, and it feels a bit scarier.”

Drag Queen Story Hour, a nonprofit, was started in San Francisco in 2015 by activist and author Michelle Tea. Chapters have since opened across the U.S. and elsewhere. Other organizations with readers in drag have also formed.