“Drag Queen Story Hour — in which performers in drag read books to kids in libraries, schools, and bookstores — has become a cultural flashpoint,” writes Christopher Rufo. “The political Right has denounced these performances as sexual transgressions against children, while the political Left has defended them as an expression of LGBTQ pride.” Rufo explains the history and the nefarious purpose behind it all in a lengthy piece for City Journal.

Families with children find themselves caught in the middle. Drag Queen Story Hour pitches itself as a family-friendly event to promote reading, tolerance, and inclusion. “In spaces like this,” the organization’s website reads, “kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where everyone can be their authentic selves.” But many parents, even if reluctant to say it publicly, have an instinctual distrust of adult men in women’s clothing dancing and exploring sexual themes with their children.

These concerns are justified. But to mount an effective opposition, one must first understand the sexual politics behind the glitter, sequins, and heels. This requires a working knowledge of an extensive history, from the origin of the first “queen of drag” in the late nineteenth century to the development of academic queer theory, which provides the intellectual foundation for the modern drag-for-kids movement.

The drag queen might appear as a comic figure, but he carries an utterly serious message: the deconstruction of sex, the reconstruction of child sexuality, and the subversion of middle-class family life. The ideology that drives this movement was born in the sex dungeons of San Francisco and incubated in the academy. It is now being transmitted, with official state support, in a number of public libraries and schools across the United States. By excavating the foundations of this ideology and sifting through the literature of its activists, parents and citizens can finally understand the new sexual politics and formulate a strategy for resisting it.

Rufo discusses the work of Gayle Rubin, a lesbian writer and activist whose effort to “normalize” deviant behavior set the stage, so to speak, for a lot of modern drag. “Rubin’s project,” says Rufo, “was to interrogate, deconstruct, and subvert this sexual hierarchy and usher in a world beyond limits.” He also briefly tells the story of “a freed slave named William Dorsey Swann, who dressed in elaborate silk and satin women’s costumes, called himself the ‘queen of drag,’ and organized sexually charged soirées in his home in Washington, D.C.” His rebellion served as a template for others “to push the limits.” There are many other individuals who “contributed” to this degradation of culture, including those who pushed to make in mainstream and “family-friendly,” but Rufo eventually concludes:

Though the spread of sexually charged drag performances has an aura of inevitability, one should keep in mind that transgressive ideologies always contain the seeds of their own destruction.

As the movement behind drag shows for children has gained notoriety and expanded its reach, some drag performers have let the mask slip: in Minneapolis, a drag queen in heels and a pink miniskirt spread his legs open in front of children; in Portland, a large male transvestite allowed toddlers to climb on top of him, grab at his fake breasts, and press themselves against his body; and in England, a drag queen taught a group of preschoolers how to perform a sexually suggestive dance.

Scenes from drag events hosted across the United States in bars, clubs, and outdoor festivals have been even more shocking and disturbing [and, in some cases, criminal]. …

Advocates of Drag Queen Story Hour might reply that these are outlier cases and that many of the child-oriented events feature drag queens reading books and talking about gender, not engaging in sexualized performances. But the spirit of drag is predicated on the transgressive sexual element and the ideology of queer theory, which cannot be erased by switching the context and softening the language. The philosophical and political project of queer theory has always been to dethrone traditional heterosexual culture and elevate what Rubin called the “sexual caste” at the bottom of the hierarchy: the transsexual, the transvestite, the fetishist, the sadomasochist, the prostitute, the porn star, and the pedophile. Drag Queen Story Hour can attempt to sanitize the routines and run criminal background checks on its performers, but the subculture of queer theory will always attract men who want to follow the ideology to its conclusions.

When parents, voters, and political leaders understand the true nature of Drag Queen Story Hour and the ideology that drives it, they will work quickly to restore the limits that have been temporarily — and recklessly — abandoned. They will draw a bright line between adult sexuality and childhood innocence, and send the perversions … back to the margins, where they belong.

Read the whole thing here.