Drag queens do not belong in schools
Children should not be celebrating Pride month
June is Pride month but this year’s festivities are notably more subdued than in the recent past. The election of President Trump in the US and increased questioning of the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives has led to a notable fall in corporate sponsorship. There are certainly still Pride flags on display in my local high street but the rainbow is nowhere near as ubiquitous as it was just 12-months ago.
Sadly, it seems that some schools are yet to catch up. Many are still ‘embracing Pride month’ and proudly flying the Pride flag. Spare a thought for the children of Swindon and Wiltshire: there, primary school pupils are being taught about 300 different LGBT pride flags and the sexualities and gender identities behind each of them (mercifully, only 29 in detail). Park Grove Primary School in York has rebranded its early years centre (for children aged between 3 and 5) as the ‘Rainbow Hub’. The tiny tots painted rainbow flags and held a ‘themed party’ involving parents. Although the ‘rebranding’ had been planned for a while, the leader of the early years centre said, ‘It linked in really nicely with York Pride, which we're proud to be a part of as well.’
Katherine Warington School in Hertfordshire uses Pride month to remind its pupils (aged 11-18) that:
We have a huge selection of Pride-related texts available in the library. We have books that detail the history of the LGBTQ+ movement – Have Pride, by Layton Williams, and Rainbow Revolutions, by Jamie Lawson, for example, through to works of fiction that star LGBTQ+ characters; the Heartstopper series is currently very popular!
At Dearne Valley College, pupils could take part in ‘tote bag designing and badge making sessions’ as ‘a fun and tangible way for everyone to show their support.’ But if there is a prize for the most Pride-supporting school, it must surely go to Fareham Academy in Hampshire. Here, pupils enjoyed a non-uniform day, bake sale and face painting as well as a performance by a drag queen.
The idea of a drag queen performance for pupils as young as 11-year-olds has received some criticism. Most notably, Suella Braverman branded it ‘morally reprehensible,’ adding: ‘Schools should be places of learning, not adult entertainment.’
She’s right, of course. Drag is bawdy, highly-sexualised and provocative. A few years ago, I would have felt compelled to display my liberal credentials and add something along the lines of ‘great ribald fun for drunken adults’. But when men mimicking women routinely leads to the actual erasure of not just women’s legal rights but women’s capacity to be spoken of as a biologically meaningful group - then it’s increasingly hard to see the funny side.
LGBTQ activists brush off criticism of drag queens in schools and libraries with the retort that this is nothing more than a ‘pantomine dame’ style-performance, designed to bring ‘joy’ and glitter and ‘fabulousness’ to children’s lives. This is disingenuous. It denies the project of morally and socially re-engineering children’s beliefs and values that underpins the desire to introduce children to drag.
At a pantomime, everyone is in on the joke. Children attend with their friends and families. We laugh at the dame precisely because he is a man in a dress. The character is ridiculous! We are not expected to respect his pronouns and there is rarely anything sexual about the actor’s costume save for clumsy innuendos. Drag queens are different. We are meant to laugh with, not at, them. Their names, costumes and make-up are highly sexualised, vamped up performances of ‘womanhood’. Those who perform for young children have a captive audience. They aim to challenge children’s instinctive beliefs about what it means to be male or female and, crucially, to encourage them to question their boundaries as to what is and is not sexually appropriate. It should not need to be stated that this is absolutely not a role for schools.
But while the school drag queen has been rightly condemned, we need to go further. Schools should not be marking Pride month in any way - whether through re-naming classrooms, bake sales or tote-bag painting.
Schools already introduce children to gender ideology and ideas about sex and sexuality - that they may not be ready to confront - through Relationships and Sex Education classes, library books and guest speakers in assemblies. But Pride month events add an extra layer to the LGBTQ preaching. The message is: ‘This is fun, kids!’. Through compulsory involvement in ‘fun’ Pride activities children learn to conform with the rainbow tyranny. Face-painting and flag waving provides little opportunity for critical questions. The impact is a further erosion of the right of parents to raise their children in line with their own beliefs and values.
It is great that in 2025, Pride on the high street is a more subdued affair. But until it is rooted out of schools, there is a risk that gender ideology and woke thinking will infect a new generation.
Totally true!