‘Stand up in front of hate.’ Business steps in to help after drag queen story hour gets threats
Just two weeks before a drag queen story hour was scheduled to take place at Wild Man Brewing Gastropub, the business canceled, citing its employees were being threatened for allowing a drag queen into their space to interact with children.
Brassy Aire, the event’s trombone-playing, bearded-bookworm host said one person commented on Facebook threatening to bring an AR-15 to the Sept. 29 event. When asked to apologize, the person doubled down on their threat.
The event has been picked up by Alliance Athletics, a queer-friendly gym that opened in Olympia in 2022. Owner Scott Drapeau said offering up his business for the event was a no brainer.
“We give a safe space for people to come in and lift weights and be themselves, no matter what that expression might be, and so for us to be a part of the community is to give a safe place for other activities, too,” he said.
Brassy Aire, who asked The Olympian to keep their real name and other identifiers out of our story for their safety, said Sunday’s event will be their third-ever story hour, and none have gotten the negative attention this one has. The event flyer was posted to a Facebook page called the Olympia News Network, and it received hundreds of comments.
Brassy said the original event host, Wild Man, began receiving threats and hateful comments, as did some of Brassy’s friends and fellow performers. The event was canceled, but Brassy didn’t want to give it up.
“I think it’s important for us to stand up in front of hate,” Brassy said. “All marginalized people deal with threats all the time from people who just disagree with us existing.”
Drapeau said some might not know what a drag queen story hour actually entails. He said for some, drag can be seen as a form of dancing.
“Some forms of dancing are for adults, some forms of dancing are for general audiences, and some forms of dancing are for children,” he said. “And drag is an art form that has been around for centuries, and it can be modified to age appropriate levels.”
Drapeau said there are different forms of drag and a drag queen story hour isn’t like a traditional show.
“It is going to be just like any other story hour, reading for children would be: singing songs, playing games, dancing and hearing wonderful stories from people in fantastic costumes,” he said.
In response to picking up the event, Alliance Athletics has been receiving 1-star reviews online. Drapeau said in honor of the reviews, he was giving away basic gym access memberships for free the rest of September.
He said for every 1-star review the gym received “from bigoted people,” he would donate $20 to The Trevor Project, a national organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ young people. So far he’s donated $600.
Brassy said because of the negative response to the story hour, this weekend’s event will be more of a celebration of the queer community and Olympia than past events.
“Our intentions now for this is just to have everyone out to feel that we’re not alone, that we’re able to be together, to stand together, to exist together, and just to feel something greater amongst ourselves,” Brassy said.
Brassy said the reaction to the story hour has forced them to reflect and address large societal issues and systems of oppression, when all they’re really trying to do is have fun and encourage people to read.
“I love books, I love music, I love entertaining people, and getting them to be inspired to seek out fun themselves,” they said. “It’s not as deep as people want to make it. It’s not what people are trying to turn it into. At most, it’s someone expressing their queerness unapologetically in public and welcoming people to just be goofy with a picture book.”
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