Drag Story Hour Under Attack: What Can Media Do? -
laura flanders show

As Pride Month continues, we explore the activism of drag queens and trans individuals who bore the brunt of the violence during the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and are still targets of violence and vitriol today. State legislators, so far this year, have proposed and in some cases passed, hundreds of bills that seek to restrict drag culture and queer self-expression. Proud Boys have harassed and threatened Drag Story Hour events across the country, even in the diverse borough of Queens, NY. In this episode of The Laura Flanders Show's monthly feature, Meet the BIPOC Press, Laura and co-host Mitra Kalita (co-founder of URL Media) are joined from North Carolina by Naomi Dix, an influential drag artist whose show in rural Moore County was disrupted by a sabotage attack on an energy substation - an attack that left 45,000 households and businesses in the dark for five days in December 2022. We're also joined by reporter Sam Zachar, the producer of a two-part podcast series for Epicenter-NYC on NYC's Drag Story Hours - what they are, and what they're up against. "We never thought in a million years, especially drag artists of my generation, that we would have to be facing the same things and issues that our parents were telling us that they were having to face in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and the 80s." - Naomi Dix "What we're seeing is an overlapping of the identities that our communities represent, and the approach to how we combat these forces. It's really powerful when we can say the counter protestors outnumber those who don't want us here." - Mitra Kalita "I think that Drag Story Hour as a whole gives us a great look and a microcosm of drag trans and queer worlds, because it represents how they're being attacked in terms of losing rights to exist safely, and the Proud Boys, specifically digging their heels into inflammatory, destructive and untruthful accusations against these communities." - Sam Zachar Guests: Naomi Dix: D

Duration: 26 minutes and 46 seconds

Episode Number: 412

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About Laura Flanders Show:

THE LAURA FLANDERS SHOW is an award-winning public affairs series that reports on community-led initiatives across the U.S.

creating a more inclusive society.

Host Laura Flanders - a New York broadcast journalist, author and contributing writer to The Nation - talks with experts and people on the front lines of artistic, cultural, social and economic movements.

Each episode blends reporting with in-depth interviews of leaders in the arts and small business world, profiling individuals and organizations uplifting and revitalizing their communities.