Around 50 kids and their parents listened to Drag Queen Rexy read stories and lead songs at the Los Gatos Library Thursday morning for the library’s inaugural Drag Story Hour.
The story hour was the library’s most well-attended event of the summer, and attendees were left mostly undeterred by the small group of anti-trans protesters who disrupted the end of the program.
A man entered the library with two signs, one that read “Trans — It’s not all it’s cut up to be” and another with a news article taped on it with the words “taxpayers” and “drag queen.” Library staff started singing “Baby Shark” to distract the kids while they asked the man to leave. He resisted, and families were escorted through the back exit of the children’s reading room.
Police arrived on the scene promptly, and Rexy was escorted out of the building by library staff. Two other people joined in the man’s protest outside the building.
Anti-trans protests have been occurring at drag reading hours across the country. Earlier this year, more than a dozen protesters disrupted a drag reading event in New York City, where one man was assaulted. In the South Bay, a drag queen story hour at Books Inc. in Campbell’s Pruneyard Shopping Center was interrupted by protesters last September.
Before the interruption at the Los Gatos event, the children’s section of the library was packed with families singing and smiling. Los Gatos residents Stephanie and Rhyan Lynn brought their daughter Harper to the event and said they loved the energy in the room.
“We’re part of the community. I’m trans myself, and so I wanted to be supportive of our community,” Rhyan Lynn said. “And I also think it’s important for our kids to grow up with the normalcy of people being themselves.”
Drag Story Hour is a global nonprofit organization founded in San Francisco that has drag queens reading stories to children in libraries and schools to give kids queer role models and promote self expression.
Library director Ryan Baker said he puts out a survey for event recommendations every year, and Drag Story Hour was on the list for years.
“This summer it was one of 248 events we did,” Baker said. “We try to have something for absolutely everybody, and everybody is welcomed within the library space.”
Ahead of the event, library staff prepared a game plan for what to do in the event of a protest.
“I was given some information last night of an email chain going around trying to organize a protest,” Baker said. “I thought we would get a large congregation of people protesting. I was actually very surprised that we didn’t. … We had quite a bit of pre-planning and communication with our police department and all those things. All channels had been role-played and discussed beforehand.”
Library staff communicated with walkie-talkies and had blocked off the front of the library with “no trespassing” signs to keep event participants safe.
Despite the disruption, Stephanie Lynn said she and her family enjoyed “the enthusiasm of the stories and getting everyone involved.”
“And then you can look around and see all the kids, all the families, so many diverse families, too, just having fun and coming together,” she added. “I just wish more people were accepting of everybody — just more love.”