CAMPBELL - AUGUST 10: The Campbell Water Tower is photographed near Campbell City Hall in Campbell, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. (Randy Vazquez/ Bay Area News Group)
A drag queen story time event this week at a Campbell bookstore was brought to a halt when protesters disrupted it and berated the host, organizers said.
Drag queen Tori Tia had just finished reading her first book to the 20 children or so in attendance when a man raised his hand and questioned her at the Wednesday event held at Books, Inc, Stern said.
“He said, ‘I looked you up on the internet and I saw pornography,’ which was ridiculous,” Stern said. “I thought, ‘wow, that’s not a word I usually use in story time.’”
Tori Tia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Mercury News, but told NBC Bay Area that the man was “saying some really transphobic stuff.”
“He was calling me a ‘transvestite’ and I shouldn’t be let around children, and the parents should be ashamed of themselves,’” Tori Tia told the outlet.
Stern told The Mercury News that she and others began drowning the man out, chanting “story time, story time,” Meanwhile, representatives from the nonprofit organization Silicon Valley Pride put up pride flags to obscure the man from the children’s sight “just to diffuse the situation,” the organization’s chief marketing officer Saldy Suriben said.
“All of the anti-LGBT protesters (were) outside with their signs,” Suriben said. “One of the signs said ‘groomer’ with an X through it, and another said ‘protect childhood.’”
Suriben said around 10 anti-LGBT protesters showed up at the event. As store employees and volunteers from Silicon Valley Pride tried to compel the protesters to leave, Stern worked on keeping things positive, even leading the crowd in a rendition of the song “Baby Shark.”
“We went on and did some songs, everyone’s waving rainbow scarves, the kids were having a great time,” Stern said. “Someone else said something disruptive, and that was the time I decided we’re going to sing ‘Baby Shark,’ because no adult really wants to hear that song and I figured that would encourage them to leave.”
“It drowned it out, and all the parents and all the kids are singing it super loud — I could tell some of the parents wanted to yell too, but we’re going to keep it positive, we’re going to keep it loving,” Stern said.
Security personnel from The Pruneyard, where Books, Inc. is located, eventually removed the protesters from the store, according to Stern. The pride flags remained up, blocking the children’s view of the protesters outside, Stern said.
“It was really upsetting at first,” Suriben said. “[The protesters] shouldn’t be doing that, but unfortunately they did. But we were there to support the event, to protect the kids and protect Tori Tia. We’re all about love and acceptance, and we’re just happy no violence occurred and that everyone’s safe.”
The incident followed several similar ones at other bookstores and libraries earlier this summer. On June 21, a story time event at the Castro Valley Library hosted by drag queen King Art Babe was also interrupted by anti-LGBT protesters. Another disruption at an event held at the San Lorenzo Library was investigated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office as a potential hate crime after drag queen Panda Dulce was forced to briefly flee for her safety.
Stern and Suriben said Books, Inc. had received antagonistic phone calls in the weeks leading up to the event, and that one person spit on a chalkboard outside the store promoting it. To prepare for a possible disruption, event organizers and bookstore staff asked for extra security ahead of time and came up with an “escape route” for Tori Tia and the event’s attendees in case it was necessary.
“We just want to exist,” Suriben said of the LGBTQ community. “It’s similar to when you go to a children’s party, there’s characters. Drag queens are like characters, and they’re just reading a book … we’re just promoting acceptance and love.”
After the protesters left, the event continued on as planned. Stern said Tori Tia “didn’t bat a beautifully-painted eye” and continued to read books and lead the children in song.
“[The kids] did not look back,” Stern said. “Their eyes were on the pretty lady at the front, and that was all that mattered to them. I saw some of the parents noticing [the protesters] for sure, but it’s our job and their job to keep those kids focused forward, and that’s what happened.”
She added that the store would like to host more events like this in the future, in spite of the incident.
“A drag queen to a child, in an appropriate situation — in a store, reading children’s books — is full of sparkles and rainbows and glitter and love, everything kind of accentuated,” Stern said.
“What I take from a child being able to see that is a child that’s able to understand and see all kinds of people in our community. It’s okay to be different, it’s okay to express yourself, it’s okay to be you.”
Originally published at Vandana Ravikumar