I took my son to Drag Queen Story Hour

The nice young man in the library had told us he was worried about protests when I booked tickets for Drag Queen Story Hour. We only began to hear the chants halfway through the show; they drifted up from the courtyard in front of St John’s Hall, the council building that houses Penzance library, through the window behind where my son and I were sitting. They got louder and louder – the children started looking round, puzzled, and the drag queen gesticulated at me to close the window. It took me a few moments to realise what the gestures meant – I had assumed that it was what they call ‘vogueing’ – but I eventually pushed the sash closed. But not before I heard what they were chanting: ‘Drag! Is! For! Everyone!’

It had been clear when we arrived that the counter-protestors outnumbered the protestors. There were one or two unsmiling women holding A3 placards – ‘This is not pantomime! It’s political indoctrination!’ – surrounded by a larger number of local activists. I recognised several from the Labour party stall which, every couple of weeks, displaces the street drinkers from the corner of Greenmarket outside BetFred; one was the Labour candidate in the last election. These activists took up most of the pavement, forcing my son and me on to the road until one of the bored-looking policemen told them to let us squeeze past. Some carried full-sized flags. ‘This one’s the non-binary flag,’ one of them patiently explained.

Most of the counter-protestors wore face masks. I am not sure why there is a correlation between supporting LGBT rights and Covid risk-aversity, except, perhaps, the signalling potential of both, but muffling their chants did mean we got through most of story hour without disturbance.