Rarely has a reading for children in a library received as much attention as in Munich. Hundreds of demonstrators, many police and numerous journalists accompanied the event with two drag artists.
In front of the door there are expressions of sympathy, whistles and angry protests, inside picture books are read with the message: Dare to be the way you are. But because the readers in a Munich city library are drag queen Vicky Voyage and drag king Eric BigClit, the AfD and representatives of the lateral thinker movement, among others, have called for protests.
“Keep your hands off our children” says the poster, others warn against early sexualization. However, the number of supporters of the reading is more than twice as high: around 500 young people, many with colorful make-up and costumes, raise their voices against hate speech and for diversity and tolerance – loudly but peacefully, as the police note.
For children from the age of four, the library offered readings with the drag artists, who, with their costumes and eye-catching make-up, slip into an artificial character like an actor into a role. And who deliberately play with the fact that a man wears women’s clothes. “We need role models who show that it’s okay to be different, that’s the simple message,” says the director of the city library, Arne Ackermann.
One participant sees this differently with the opponents. “A man who disguises himself as a woman and calls himself big clitoris – just when he introduces himself, he transports a sexual excitement that he forces on the children,” complains the psychotherapist. In the meantime, seven youths from the Identitarian Movement gain access to the library. They can’t find the reading, it’s in another area. Shortly thereafter, the police led the youths away.
Laugh, sing, tell
Provocative clothes, genitals and sexual suggestiveness – they don’t exist in the reading. none. There is laughter, singing and telling. Vicky Voyage floats in in a princess dress with a swinging skirt and braided wig. It quickly becomes clear who she is: “Let go now” she sings, Princess Elsa’s song from the film “Frozen – Completely Unfrozen”. Her companion introduces himself to the children as Prince Eric, dressed as “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Spellbound, young and old alike listen to the message not to bend over backwards and not to care about the opinions of others. In “The Boy in the Skirt” a boy goes to kindergarten in a skirt. “Real boys wear trousers,” the children sneer. Felix is unsure – until his father has an idea. And in “Flora and the Honey Kiss” a princess doesn’t want to marry any of the frogs that her parents introduce to her one after the other. Torment for Flora – until Mila shows up.
Angry protest against ‘child eaters’
The opponents have been making mood against the reading for weeks, in addition to the AfD also representatives of the CSU and Bavaria’s Free Voters boss Hubert Aiwanger, who called for alleged child welfare endangerment after the youth welfare office. And a storm of indignation raged on social media: there was talk of “perverts”, even of “child eaters”.
The wave of insults was obviously too much for the trans author Julana Gleisenberg. The 13-year-old wanted to read from her book “Julana, Finally Me”. But the hostility had increased so much in the past few days that she had canceled her participation, the library said.
Death threats against drag queen
Library manager Ackermann also reports threats. “It got to the point where we were asked if the library had bulletproof windows,” he says. Vicky Voyage even received death threats. That pulled the ground out from under her feet. “The AfD is currently creating a mood through fear and ignorance,” says drag queen Pinay Colada, “that the queer community is now running around here like the Pied Piper of Hamelin and trying to sexualize the children too early.” The drag queen emphasizes: “It’s just important for us to show that it doesn’t matter how you are, how you feel, that you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt or offend anyone.”
In her childhood there were no such readings. “If I had had something like that as a young, young, queer foreigner, I would have dared a lot more to be myself,” says the black drag queen. “We are perfect. We are as beautiful as we are. And we want to carry that forward.” The AfD wants to destroy that. “They use the word child welfare as a cover for some nonsense.”
An opinion in the spirit of the readers. “We have made the world a bit more colorful today, we stand for diversity and tolerance and diversity,” says Vicky Voyage happily. Eric BigClit agrees. He cannot understand why his stage name caused a stir among many. “Don’t be afraid of the clitoris,” he says. This is nothing more than a medical term for a body part. “She doesn’t do anything, she doesn’t bite, she’s just there.”