Over 200K Taxpayer Dollars Spent On Drag Queen Shows at NYC Schools thumbnail

Over 200K Taxpayer Dollars Spent On Drag Queen Shows at NYC Schools

By The Geller Report

Kids are made to choose their pronouns and invent drag names.

Our kids can barely read and this is what the Democrats are subjecting our children to….

New York is showering taxpayer funds on a group that sends drag queens into city schools — often without parental knowledge or consent — even as parents in other states protest increasingly aggressive efforts to expose kids to gender-bending performers.

Last month alone, Drag Story Hour NYC — a nonprofit whose outrageously cross-dressed performers interact with kids as young as 3 — earned $46,000 from city contracts for appearances at public schools, street festivals, and libraries, city records show.

Since January, the group has organized 49 drag programs in 34 public elementary, middle, and high schools, it boasted on its website, with appearances in all five boroughs.

“I can’t believe this. I am shocked,” said public school mom and state Assembly candidate Helen Qiu, whose 11-year-old son attends a Manhattan middle school. “I would be furious if he was exposed without my consent. This is not part of the curriculum.”

Since 2018, the group — previously known as Drag Queen Story Hour NYC, before changing its name early this year — has received a total of $207,000 in taxpayer cash.

The tally includes $50,000 from New York State through its Council on the Arts, along with $157,000 from the city’s Departments of Education, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Community Development, and even the Department of Transportation, city data shows.

“I am considering pulling funding to any school in my district that is implementing Drag Queen Story Hour,” said City Council member Vickie Paladino (R-Queens). “We are taking hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the pockets of hardworking New York taxpayers … to fund a program teaching little children about their gender fluidity? Not. On. My. Watch.”

Most of the money was allocated by city council members from their discretionary budgets, who set aside $80,000 for the group in the current fiscal year — more than tripling the $25,000 earmarked in 2020.

Drag queen story hours for children have been featured at public library branches throughout the city since 2017, with upcoming events scheduled at Manhattan’s Epiphany Library and the Woodside Public Library in Queens, among others.

Cross-dressed performers typically read aloud from a list of books that teach acceptance and inclusion, including children’s classics like “Where the Wild Things Are” and “The Rainbow Fish” — and some that overtly celebrate gender fluidity, like “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”

But the expansion into city schools has brought new features to the program, its social media posts reveal.

In April, the elaborately coiffed Harmonica Sunbeam wore a slinky gown to meet with kindergarteners at STAR Academy in Manhattan and color pages from “The Dragtivity Book,” which encourages kids to choose their pronouns and invent drag names.

AUTHOR

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