2024-03-18 14:02:07
The “glitter station” in the Ballhaus is highly frequented. First the children, then the parents – there is not only a good mood, but also a good dose of glitter in the air. “Dad wants it too,” says one of the children, pushing his father forward. He sits down on a red bar stool and smiles mischievously. He holds a rainbow flag in his hands.
Then the star of the afternoon enters the premises: drag queen Freya von Kant. “Did you all come for my reading?” she asks the children, who are between four and nine years old. They nod. The little guests don’t know that the event was reported to the police.
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Premiere: The first German-Turkish LGBTGQ+ festival in Berlin
The German-Turkish LGBTQ+ Theater Festival is taking place in Berlin for the first time. Before the drag queen reading begins, Lukas, an actor employed at the Ballhaus, draws a positive conclusion. “There were no protests or other incidents, the festival was really a complete success.”
Freya von Kant has known since she appeared in Vienna last year that concerns and precautionary measures are by no means exaggerated and that registering with the police is only for your own safety. In April 2023, a reading by the drag queen became a political issue. At that time, more than 100 people demonstrated in front of the lecture building, shouted right-wing extremist slogans and tried to stop parents with children from attending the event.
Freya von Kant: “As a child, I would have wished that there were such shrill and colorful personalities like me.”Volkmar Otto
“It was incredibly oppressive,” says Freya in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung. In everyday life, she doesn’t wear pink dresses, peach nail polish and pink lipstick. Because Freya is not a trans person, but a drag queen. Given the multitude of terms and forms of gender identities, one can sometimes lose track.
When von Kant gives a reading, she “slips into a role,” wearing makeup and a wig. Most of the time she goes through the world as a man and works as a teacher. And why does she do that? “I just have so much fun, and as a child I would have wished that there were bright and colorful personalities like me.”
Opponents of such readings criticize the “early sexualization of small children.” The critics’ assumption: The children would be taught that there are no genders. Girls would be taught that they should only wear dungarees and boys should paint their fingernails. And at the beginning all participants would list their pronouns, that goes without saying.
This clichéd representation does not correspond to reality. At least not when Freya von Kant organizes “Drag Story Time for Kids”. The words gender, sexuality or identity are not mentioned once. The drag queen’s or another person’s own sexuality is also not discussed. It’s almost as if the children don’t even notice that Freya is actually a man. Or to put it another way, they simply don’t care.
The AfD spoke of “physical stress” and “gender propaganda”
But the Bavarian AfD regional association didn’t care. After the reading in Vienna, the topic really came to the fore. There were posters saying “Hands off our children! “Ban gender propaganda” was hung. The AfD warned that the little guests would be exposed to “physical stress” during the reading.
In the ballroom, the twelve children get moving and Freya begins to tell her fairy tale story. A princess has a mind of her own and no longer wants to languish in the castle and wait for a prince to save her. She leaves the castle wearing a garbage bag and has adventures. Self-love and independence – Freya von Kant teaches these values to the children. What’s wrong with that?
With their mouths wide open, the children hang on the drag queen’s lips. Freya is completely in her element. The reading is like a stage show, a performance. After almost an hour, the drag queen closes her green fairy tale book and says goodbye. Freya cannot understand the concerns of the critics: “I sent requests for discussions to politicians and made it clear that we could talk about it.” She never received an answer.
#Imagination #reality