One NYC Council Member Criticized Drag Queen Story Hour. She Faced Threats So Severe She Requested Police Protection

Drag Story Hour (DSH) NYC, a program funded with over $200,000 of taxpayer money, has drag performers prompt children as young as three years old to pick out their “drag name” and “circle their pronouns.” When one lawmaker decided to stand up against DSH, she received threats severe enough to have police deployed to guard her office and home.

In June, New York City Council member Vickie Paladino called DSH programming for children “grooming” and “sexualization,” saying it’s “unacceptable and grotesque” in a statement on her private Twitter account. She then received death threats in the form of calls to her office and messages on social media, and was lambasted by her fellow council members and Mayor Eric Adams, as being anti-LGBTQ.

“At a time when our LGBTQ+ communities are under increased attack across this country, we must use our education system to educate. The goal is not only for our children to be academically smart, but also emotionally intelligent,” Adams said in a statement. “Drag storytellers, and the libraries and schools that support them, are advancing a love of diversity, personal expression, and literacy that is core to what our city embraces.”

People on Twitter called Paladino a “fascist,” a “diseased animal,” and a “bigoted pig,” and threatened to “send drag queens” to her home and office. She also received threatening calls.

Paladino has refused to retract her comments, telling National Review that she has nothing against drag queens and the LGBTQ community, but she does “have a problem with them pushing gender fluidity into a five year old’s head.” Drag queens and members of the gay community have contacted Paladino in support of her comments, she added, agreeing with her that drag is “adult entertainment” and has no place in children’s lives.

New York City lawmakers and the New York Public Library sponsor DSH events held in over 200 locations across the city, including public schools and libraries. The lawmakers claim it’s an opportunity for children as young as three years old to engage with the “play of gender fluidity in childhood” and to learn about “love” in a “safe space.” The lessons feature men and women dressed as the opposite gender reading books, making crafts, and singing songs.

Implicit within the lesson plans, however, is a focus on deconstructing the gender binary, expansive definitions of what “drag” is, and lessons encouraging children to become drag performers. Performers featured on the DSH NYC website pose partly nude on Instagram, and the executive director of DSH NYC, who took home half of the money donated to the organization in 2020, is a self-identified former “sex worker” who has built her career on talking about strippers and the sexual empowerment of children.

While she received threats that required the police to circle her home and office for a week, Paladino said the public reaction to her comments was largely positive, with teachers, parents, and religious leaders thanking her for standing up when no one else in a position of authority was willing to. Other council members also supported her privately but didn’t issue any public statements voicing direct support, she added.

People want “kids to be kids and enjoy a childhood, not be introduced to things that they know nothing about!” she said.

Drag Story Hour’s performers, however, push a definition of drag that is so expansive as to imply that kids do know about drag and are already drag queens. While every DSH video sponsored and published by the New York Public Library features men wearing female accessories, wigs, prosthetics, and cosmetics to invert their gender presentation, DSH’s performers teach children that being “in drag” is equivalent to dressing up as your “favorite made-up character.”

Children are told that everyone is a drag queen, including themselves, and that being a drag queen is the same as being a “superhero.” Dressing up in Halloween costumes, wearing superhero capes, and pretending to be Disney characters all count as “drag,” according to the performers.

Wearing any clothing at all — even what you’re wearing right now — also counts as “drag,” according to one of the drag queens highlighted on the Drag Story Time NYC website, psychotherapist Leon Silvers. Silvers claims he invented “drag therapy,” and says he refers to children as “drag berries” to avoid the binary terms of girls and boys.

“We are all in Drag everyday. Whether or not you realize it, you’re in Drag right now,” Silvers says on his website, claiming “drag” is “simply a way to express one’s self through appearance, action and dress.”

The videos also feature an accompanying “educational” book called the “Dragtivity Book.” Inside, there are “educational” activities including “finding your drag name” and “circling your pronouns.” The pronouns include he/him, she/her, they/them, ze/zir, and ey/em.

Many of the drag performers go by alternative pronouns during their performances, including “fae/faer” and “it/its.” One storyteller uses the description “trans and gender non-conforming rainbow unicorn princex hailing from the Queendom of Bushwick.”

Another performer on DSH’s website, Oliver Herface, says he’s a “Nonbinary ADHD Boricua Drag King.” Herface’s public Instagram posts include him dressed in costumes fully exposing his behind and breasts.

One video shows him pretending to stab his breasts with scissors.

Drag Story Hour’s website pushes for educators to buy several “Dragtivity Books” for the classroom, saying it’s “an educational tool for engaging kids in conversation about gender and identity.”

Beyond the activities encouraging children to choose their own drag names and pronouns, the music portion of Drag Story Hour also encourages children as young as three to move their hips like drag queens with the song, “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”

Gender fluidity is an issue “that parents should talk about with their children. That’s not for the government, or the city government, or any government. They don’t belong in your bedroom and they don’t belong taking your young child and making them think about things they don’t even know they’re thinking about,” Paladino said.

Rachel Aimee, the executive director of DSH, got interested in drag queen story hour when she saw a similar event organized in San Francisco. She organized the first DSH event in NYC in 2016 and quickly rose to the rank of executive director.

In 2020, she earned $30,352, taking home nearly 50 percent of the total revenue of the organization that year, according to documents reviewed by National Review. No other full-time employee got paid in 2020, and all the drag performers combined, working as “independent contractors” took home $39,304. Aimee’s salary has significantly grown over the years, up from earning $21,760 in 2019 and $8,640 in 2018.

Aimee is a former stripper and has published numerous articles and books on “sex work” and how to talk to kids about sex, including “How to Talk to Kids about Sexy Dolls Without Slut-Shaming” and “Thoughts On Deciding Whether Or Not To Tell Your Kids You’re A Sex Worker.” She was also the former editor in chief of $pread magazine, a publication by and for “sex workers” with articles featuring news and commentary about the sex industry. 

She has a personal website featuring a child doing a cartwheel front and center on the page, exposing their bottom in tights under their skirt. She describes herself as a “queer writer and editor,” and argues that it’s okay for girls to expose their underwear when they are playing, and that girls should be able to have their shirts off if boys are allowed to. 

Aimee writes that she is “out” as a former sex worker and does not keep it secret from her daughter. She also has an article promoting the book Sex Is a Funny Word, meant for kids above the age of seven. Sex Is a Funny Word exposes kids to the idea of sex and has illustrations of butts and anuses. Aimee did not respond to a request for comment.

New York City’s funding of Drag Story Hour can be stopped if people resist loudly enough, Paladino told National Review. She has started an initiative to hold Story Hour in her district as an alternative to DSH.