Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mark 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
Luke 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Making Sodom Great Again: New York Times gushes over ‘rising drag stars of America.’ Those ‘stars’ are children.
September 9, 2019. The Blaze.
The New York Times on Saturday published a glowingly positive article on child drag queens.
Many people have insisted that allowing children to perform as drag queens and in similar fashions is detrimental to their development and an outright promotion of child abuse.
What are the details?
Titled, “Sashaying Their Way Through Youth,” the outlet’s Alice Hines wrote that the young children are the newest “rising drag stars of America.”
The feature showcased Desmond Napoles, a 12-year-old “drag kid” who has performed countless shows and has the support of his parents. Napoles has previously insisted that he is gay.
Hines wrote, “Desmond and his mother would still make it to the object of Desmond’s excitement: DragCon, the convention hosted by RuPaul in New York City in early September. It would be Desmond’s third year in a row. He isn’t a different person in drag so much as a more outgoing version of himself, he said. ‘I’m always fierce, fabulous and not playing video games,’ he said. ‘I’m being AH-MA-zing.'”
Desmond’s mother, Wendy Napoles, adds that she sees herself as a typical mother.
“Other moms are a soccer moms,” she told the outlet. “They take their kids to practice, to games, they cheer for their kids. That’s how I see myself with drag.”
Wendy most recently complained that a convicted pedophile made “highly inappropriate” remarks about her son. Wendy and her husband Andy have permitted their son to perform in drag shows and also to be featured in magazines and on websites to promote his style as well as his hobby.
Desmond appeared on NBC’s “Today” in 2018 and revealed that he began watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race” when he was just 3 years old. Watching the show, he said, changed his life.
“Drag is for anyone, no matter what sex, age, gender, identity, ability, or race,” Desmond’s mother told Pink News in 2018.
Desmond’s “innocent” hobby isn’t without its ramifications, however: He told the outlet that he has cut back on his performing because large crowds and people grasping at him for a hug have made him anxious in recent times.
You can read more about Desmond — whose stage name is “Desmond is Amazing” — here.
What else?
The feature also spotlighted a 9-year-old male drag queen named Keegan — otherwise known as Kween Keekee.
Keegan’s mother, Megan, insisted that she and her family do not aim to encourage fame in their child.
“Our goal has never been to make K famous,” Megan told the outlet. “We allow Instagram to be a public account as we don’t feel we need to be pressured to hide our child, and because we think his story could help other kids.”
Megan said that she took to Instagram in order to set Keegan up with male adult drag queens to serve as peers and mentors.
Hines wrote, “As recently as the 1970s, when dressing as another gender could lead to arrest on charges of vagrancy or ‘perversion’ in many jurisdictions, drag was an adults-only affair, relegated to underground spaces and rich in sexual innuendo.”
“But as gay culture has gained mainstream acceptance, the number and variety of locations where drag is welcome have grown,” Hines added. “G-rated story hours are now offered at public libraries. Kids — and parents intent on raising them outside of traditional gender norms — are keen to perform.”
Sashaying Their Way Through Youth
Meet the rising drag stars of America. They’re tweens.
Published Sept. 7, 2019Updated Sept. 8, 2019. New York Times.
“I’m excited!” screamed Desmond Napoles, a 12-year-old drag star who performs as Desmond is Amazing, punctuating his enthusiasm with mild profanity. His eyes darted to his phone. Then he backtracked. “Don’t put that in. Don’t put that in.” He would soon be grounded from Snapchat by his mother for what she called “sass.”
Desmond and his mother would still make it to the object of Desmond’s excitement: DragCon, the convention hosted by RuPaul in New York City in early September. It would be Desmond’s third year in a row. He isn’t a different person in drag so much as a more outgoing version of himself, he said. “I’m always fierce, fabulous and not playing video games,” he said. “I’m being AH-MA-zing.”
From an early age Desmond was theatrical, said Wendy Napoles, his mother. There were dresses fashioned out of household items like recycled cardboard, ribbons, towels, Bubble Wrap. Once, she said, at a mall food court, Katy Perry’s “Firework” came on and he broke into an impromptu dance routine.
Desmond pegs his start in the world of drag to 2015, when videos of him vogueing at the New York Pride parade went viral; at one point, a high kick sent a flip-flop soaring over the crowd. Next came gigs channeling Gwen Stefani and David Bowie, along with runway shows for Gypsy Sport and the Blonds.
“Other moms are a soccer moms,” Ms. Napoles said. “They take their kids to practice, to games, they cheer for their kids. That’s how I see myself with drag.”
Keegan, a.k.a. Kween Keekee, is a 9-year-old drag queen. (The New York Times agreed to not use the family’s last name, to protect their privacy.) “Our goal has never been to make K famous,” said his mother, Megan. “We allow Instagram to be a public account as we don’t feel we need to be pressured to hide our child, and because we think his story could help other kids.”
When Keegan announced he wanted to do drag, one difficulty his mother encountered was that her family didn’t know where to start. So she took to Instagram to find a high-school-age babysitter who does drag. She also connected with Keegan’s drag mentors: adult queens who today help with costumes (mostly sparkly) and makeup.
The ‘Drag Race’ Generation
As recently as the 1970s, when dressing as another gender could lead to arrest on charges of vagrancy or “perversion” in many jurisdictions, drag was an adults-only affair, relegated to underground spaces and rich in sexual innuendo.
But as gay culture has gained mainstream acceptance, the number and variety of locations where drag is welcome have grown. G-rated story hours are now offered at public libraries. Kids — and parents intent on raising them outside of traditional gender norms — are keen to perform.
“This is the first generation that was truly raised on ‘Drag Race,’” said Robin Johnson, a photographer, who founded Dragutante, an 18-and-under runway show in Denver. When her son, a 14-year-old who in drag is known as Ophelia Peaches, was in elementary school, they would watch “RuPaul’s Drag Race” together, for “the gowns, the pageantry, the acting, the drama.” It was “like Disney princesses,” she said.
Ms. Johnson estimated that there are more than a hundred kids doing drag around the United States, based on outreach to Dragutante and to Ophelia. Some have public social media platforms and are on their way to careers.
Desmond, with 180,000 followers on Instagram, has the largest online presence, followed by Lactatia, a 10-year-old in Montreal. CJ Duron, 12, whose mother is the author of “Raising My Rainbow,” recently appeared in a Sephora Pride campaign; although he is not a “drag kid,” he is inspired by the art form, Ms. Duron said
Mothers run most of these accounts. (Despite the binary-shattering implications of this scene, drag moms far outnumber drag dads.)
The job consists largely of filtering comments. An active subset of the internet sees kids in drag not as “the future of America,” as RuPaul has said of Desmond, but “socially accepted child abuse,” in the words of Elizabeth Johnston, a vlogger who “daily tackles the left on abortion, feminism, & gender insanity,” according to her social media bios.
Her network also helped call for the cancellation of several drag queen story hours at local libraries. Among their criticisms are that exposure to drag sexualizes children and leads to confusion around gender roles.
Nina West, a queen who appeared on “Drag Race” and who has often performed for kids, said that while drag is a form of gender protest, it is not inherently sexual. “Drag is the larger than life representation of a character,” she said.
At drag queen story hours at a library, she often reads the book “Red: A Crayon’s Story.” In it, a red crayon discovers it is wrapped in the wrong label, and was really blue all along.
In her music video “Drag Is Magic,” she performs in front of a group of kids dressed as police officers, pirates and princesses. “Colorful. Bright. Loud. Big! Those are things that kids respond to,” she said. “Who’s to say what Barney is?”
Parenting Today
Laura Edwards-Leeper, a clinical psychologist in Oregon who works with queer and trans kids, said that experimenting with gender expression isn’t necessarily linked to being queer or trans. “It’s normal at basically any age for boys to dress up as princesses and girls in male superhero outfits,” she said.
What’s changed is parenting. “When there’s no judgment, kids are more likely to feel free to explore,” Dr. Edwards-Leeper said.
“We had a kid who was a drag queen one year and a drag king the next,” Robin Johnson said. “We have had four hyperqueens, or girls doing drag.”
Esai, a.k.a. E! the Dragnificent, 14, has been “been doing drag since before she knew she was,” according to her mother, Andrea Varela, who produces burlesque shows. “There were always lots of rhinestones and boas and costumes around. It was a very colorful environment.” A few years after she started doing drag, Esai came out as trans. She now identifies as female.
“By opening their thriving subculture to children out of a misguided sense of ‘inclusivity,’ gay men risk losing a space for their expression at all — or alternatively, opening their subculture to Disneyfication,” the writer Kevan Copeland, a 38-year-old gay man in Toronto, wrote in a post on Medium.
But at least for now, kids are drag’s least commercialized niche. Desmond is Amazing has the most followers out of any drag kid. So far, his family has spent far more money than they have made, according to Ms. Napoles.
“I truly think 10 percent of his followers are there to watch every move he makes because they hate him,” Ms. Napoles said. In January a talk radio host reported Desmond’s family to Child Protective Services after he performed at 3 Dollar Bill, a queer bar.
Desmond has since pulled back on performing, though he will attend DragCon. Even there, among fans, he is not particularly looking forward to the crowds. When fans yell his name and swarm him for hugs, “it makes me anxious,” he said. He dreams of being an ornithologist when he grows up, he said, or a roller-coaster engineer.
Keegan, three years younger than Desmond, is less aware of judgments of the outside world. When his mother was growing up in the 1980s, she dressed like a tomboy and felt ostracized, she said. So when her two sons were in preschool and wanted to wear pink and take dance lessons, she was careful not to discourage them. (These days, her older son is intent on “making sure people know he’s a boy,” she said.)
When he was wearing his favorite pair of glitter shoes at school recently, Keegan recalled, a classmate said: “Those are girls’ shoes.”
“‘I know why you’re saying that,’” Keegan said. “‘It’s because you’re jealous of me.’”