Dozens of people rallied on Granville Island on Tuesday to support a local theatre’s drag camp for kids, drowning out a small group of protesters who believe drag and children don’t mix.
The Carousel Theatre for Young People’s four-day Summer Drag Camp aims to help interested youth express themselves through clothing, makeup and performance, according to its website. It’s offered to youngsters between seven and 11 years old.
“I’m happy to be standing with so many other people in support of children, drag as an art form, theatre, and the LGBTQ community,” said Jozy Patterson, a supporter and member of the union that represents the theatre’s stage technicians.
“It’s literally just art like anything else is, like how comedians can do children’s characters in movies and then go do adult TV shows the next day.”
Tuesday’s rally was organized by the local chapter of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees of the United States and Canada (IATSE). Julia Wiebe, a member of Local 118’s Pride committee, said the union wanted to bring “people power” to a “huge project” that’s being taken on by a smaller company.
“It’s our job to support artists and anybody who walks into the theatre, and we just want to continue supporting the community,” Wiebe said.
“We shouldn’t have to come out. It should be the most normal day ever.”
For the past few months, the Carousel Theatre for Young People’s staff have received threatening emails and phone calls related to the drag camp. In May, it even held two fundraising events to help pay for extra security during the program.
At the time, a spokesperson said the messages included “relentless” death threats, physical threats, harassment, and “vitriolic hate.”
“It’s been really difficult for our staff, who are champions and they are exceptionally good at producing incredible programming for young people. It is not part of their job to deal with hate messaging,” Carousel Theatre board president Jocelyn Macdougall told Global News on Tuesday.
“We’ve ended up having to dig into our budget in ways we weren’t planning for, but it was critical and important that we continue to offer these incredible programs that families want, that children want, but that we do it in a way that’s safe and protected.”
Drag events — including library story times and brunches — have increasingly become the site of protests across the country. According to Statistics Canada, hate crimes against the 2SLGBTQ+ community have also increased, with those targeting sexual orientation spiking 64 per cent between 2019 and 2021.
Some of those protesting the Granville Island camp on Tuesday held signs that read, “Gays against groomers,” or suggested the T and Q, which stand for trans and queer or questioning, should be clipped out of the acronym, LGBTQ.
Protester Ian Glass said he feels more people are against the exposure of children to drag performers than are willing to speak up about it.
“What I want people to know is that we are not one unified community. I’m a bisexual man and I absolutely do not approve of this,” he said in an interview.
“I do not think children should be at Pride events, I do not think we need to sexualize children for entertainment and I want to express my dissent.”
Michelle Fortin, co-chair of the Vancouver Pride Society, said children can be curious about drag the same way they’re curious about any art form, including acting — which is precisely what drag is.
“This is about arts. This is about kids accessing art. These are not families that were put under duress to come to summer camp,” she said. “They’re here because they want to be here. Happy Pride!”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
