Pride Month reading hour to be attended by supporters, police, neo-Nazi protesters
(Read the live link here at oleantimesherald.com) Published Nov. 19, 2017. Read the follow up here.
OLEAN — While the Olean Public Library has been celebrating Pride Month and the LGBTQ community all June, one event in particular has captured public interest and inflamed a local debate over introducing children to the concept of drag.
Flo Leeta, a Buffalo-based drag queen, will read children’s books about self-expression and answer questions about gender at 6:30 p.m. today at the library during a Drag Queen Kids Party. She will read “Jacob’s New Dress” and “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress,” children’s literature that Olean’s Programs Director Jennifer Stickles said has been on the library’s shelves for years.
While the event was announced at the beginning of the month, Stickles said negative social media posts began trickling in last week, as well as phone calls to the library and roughly 10 visits by those who wanted to share their disapproval in person.
Also, a Pennsylvania leader of the National Socialist Movement announced plans on social media to protest the event with others.
“It’s been rough for me this week and last week, too,” Stickles admitted.
However, she and Library Director Michelle La Voie said they are committed to hosting Flo Leeta. In fact, the number of people who expressed interest on the library’s Facebook page jumped from an expected dozen or so to more than 200 as of Tuesday.
“I’m worried about the event, because I don’t want families to show up and have an upsetting time,” La Voie said. “But I think it’s also educational for people to see what’s risen to the surface, and what we have to contend with as a society.”
STICKLES SAID SHE was inspired to host this reading after seeing news articles about Drag Queen Story Hour, an organization that began in San Francisco in 2015 but has since spread to cities across the country. The concept that drag queens could be invited into educational venues to read to children was lauded in professional journals she read, and she also saw that such a January reading in Binghamton was received very positively — an official with the Broome County Public Library said over 200 people attended their event.
And because the Olean library’s other programs representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community had been embraced over the last few years — including Rainbow Alliance for LGBTQ youth support group, which launched in February 2017 — she wanted to see how locals would respond to a program for even younger kids.
“It’s just like any other storytime program in our library,” she said. “The difference being the person reading the book happens to be dressed in age-appropriate drag and reading picture books that show kids of LGBT families that they’re normal.”
Stickles noted that it was a plus that the performer who brings Flo Leeta to life, Benjamin Berry, has for years hosted multiple events for children as a hula-hoop instructor, entertainer and drag queen. He is also an Alfred State graduate and now part of the roster of Young Audiences of Western New York, a nonprofit that works to pair teaching artists with opportunities to instruct kids in creative programs.
For more information, visit www.benjaminberry.com.
Flo Leeta — who is not affiliated with Drag Queen Story Hour — said her program is going to be “equally entertaining and educational,” and she’s excited to spotlight LGBTQ people in a rural area.
She said the event will not only include reading, but also a lip sync performance to “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen” and a question and answer session about what it’s like to be a drag queen as well as any LGBTQ topic. She said both kids and adults can ask questions.
“That part of the program may go over, because I think the community has a lot to unpack,” she said.
Flo Leeta said many of those speaking out against her appearance in Olean seem to misunderstand the point of it. She said the purpose is to humanize members of the LGBTQ community and make children comfortable with how they want to express themselves.
“For me, drag is all about confidence,” she said. “It’s about being as loud and bold and colorful as you want, so I want to set that example for the kids, and I also intend to send out the message that when people are being bullies — like there might be some really big bullies outside of the library — I want to show them that you need to be the bigger person and not punch back, and just be who you are and not be afraid of them. Because then they win.”
STICKLES SAID THERE have been many rumors surrounding what kinds of controversy have been stirred up as the library’s drag queen event neared. She clarified that no threats of violence have been directed at her or the library, to her knowledge.
However, a protest is planned, according to Daniel Burnside of Ulysses, Pa., a regional director for the National Socialist Movement. Burnside — who said his region of the neo-Nazi organization covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware — told the Olean Times Herald on Tuesday he planned to protest the event with about half a dozen others.
“I’m planning on being right there in the area to basically see what’s going on,” he said.
Burnside said he and the protesters joining him all have children, making them feel it’s their “responsibility to make an appearance.” He said the literature Flo Leeta planned to read is “poison” that was part of a “Marxist agenda to create gender neutrality.”
“I think a guy should be able to go there in a National Socialist uniform and read Julius Streicher’s ‘(The) Poisonous Mushroom,’” he said, referring to an anti-Semitic children’s book published in 1938 meant to teach children to fear Jewish people. “It’s no different than what they’re doing. So, you know, it’s completely wrong. It’s wrong, the wrong place to be doing it — not a public library.”
When it was said that some attendees were worried the protest could turn violent, Burnside responded, “Why, is antifa going to be there or something?” referring to protesters who commit anti-fascist violence and who often engage neo-Nazi organizations. When told no, he said, “Oh, well then there probably won’t be any violence. I haven’t met a Nazi yet that perpetrates violence.”
Olean Police Chief Jeff Rowley said “one or two” officers will be at the library today to make sure everyone at the event is “well behaved.” He added he is prepared to call in more officers, including those with the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office, if he deems it necessary.
Rowley said his office hasn’t previously had to deal with any issues relating to the National Socialist Movement, adding this is the first time in his memory he has faced this type of activity.
Director La Voie said when she initially spoke with Rowley, he suggested she cancel the event.
“I said I disagreed because I felt that would be giving in to forces, and showing them that when they do these kinds of things they can make people back down out of fear,” she said.
Rowley said while he did recommend cancelling the event, he did not do so in his capacity as chief of police, but as someone concerned for the welfare of the children attending the event.
“I understand both sides of it,” he said. “People don’t want to give up their freedom of expression or their speech, and if they allow the haters to cause them to cancel it, then the people have lost their freedom of speech.
“But when it comes to children, I think you need to step back and think about it a little more.”
La Voie said while she is also concerned that young people at tomorrow’s event might be exposed to neo-Nazis, she thinks it would be worse for her to cancel an educational event that “hit a nerve in this community” — especially because she fears it could encourage protesters to continue using strong-arm tactics to shut down other LGBTQ-related events.
“It’s just the wrong thing to do,” she said.
There will also be a collection of counter-protesters. Officials said the library was contacted by a community member who began organizing people to come early to the event and make attendees feel safe.
Stickles said the group includes people who are planning to bring rainbow umbrellas in order to block the view of protest signs, and those who will offer to escort attendees to the library if they feel scared. The point of the group, she said, is to “be here and be supportive and make it feel safer for those that are bringing their children.”
The organizer declined to speak to the Times Herald on Tuesday.
Rowley discouraged unofficial volunteers who might try to protect event attendees.
“We (the police) will handle the situation — we would rather not have a self-appointed group of security personnel show up. It could just complicate matters,” he said.
However, he added those who could not be discouraged from offering protection should at least identify themselves to officers once they arrive at the library.
While La Voie stressed counter-protesters were not requested by the library, nor affiliated with it, she didn’t seem to mind the support.
“I don’t want people to get into trouble or start anything,” she said. “However if we have hate groups that are going to be here, it doesn’t bother me we’re going to have good people here, too.”
BURNSIDE WAS ONE of multiple locals who spoke out against the event. Several voiced objections to Flo Leeta’s program online, with reasons ranging from religious beliefs that LGBTQ people are sinful to the idea that dressing in drag is abnormal behavior. Others said a program featuring a drag queen is inherently sexual and therefore inappropriate for young children.
“This is a shameful use of our hard-earned city tax dollars that sexualizes the otherwise beautiful act of storybook reading to children,” wrote Jonathan Smith, of Olean, in a letter to the editor sent to the Olean Times Herald. “How does the library justify using public funds for the sexualization of children?”
Stickles, who is a lesbian, said one person recently visited the library and told her she was a danger to the children because of her orientation.
“We have people calling saying, ‘I know you have a lesbian there running your programming,’” she said. “But I don’t know why my private life matters to them… I’m still going to provide the community with programs they need and want.”
Stickles and La Voie said they have been trying to focus on the overwhelming amount of positive feedback from people in the area and outside of it, which included several library officials and former local residents from as far away as Oregon.
“I think it’s great that people support the library. It’s always great to see people support the library for something that’s good and to see people step up,” Stickles said.
Meg McCune, an associate professor at Jamestown Community College with a PhD in anthropology, said she’ll be attending the the drag queen story time with her young child.
“I’m thrilled the library is having this event,” she said. “If I don’t support it, I feel the people attending the protest win.”
While she respects other parents decisions not to go — “I’d rather not bring my daughter around Nazis,” she said — she sees the event as a way to give her child access to diversity as well as something that increases the value of the community.
“Plus it’s just fun,” she added. “At the end of the day, you have a trained performer for kids.”
(Contact City Editor Danielle Gamble at dgamble@oleantimesherald.com. Follow her on Twitter, @OTHGamble)
Danielle Gamble 