By Rachel Stewart

Just what is it about the NZ Free Speech Union (NZFSU) defending the “free speech” of drag queens reading books to kids in a public library that bothered me – and many others – so much?

Well, how long have you got?

The salient points are evident to most ordinary people, but please indulge me while I try to explain to the self-appointed “deep” and “serious” thinkers at the NZFSU where they’ve got it so wrong.

First though, drag queens exist. If they want to slap on their misogynistic idea of ‘womenface’ there’s little I can do to stop it, and neither will I try. They are ultimately free to express themselves as tackily and grossly as they like. And they do. Ad infinitum.

BUT when young children are made a part of their “show” at a public venue – even with parental consent – there is simply no way that ‘free speech’ trumps all. It is a child safeguarding issue, and only a slave to an ideology – or a naive, uninformed fool – would present it as anything else.

(I won’t get into the parental consent aspect too much here. Parents who don’t see that they’re exposing their children to the equivalent of scary clowns acting out their hatred of women using hyper-sexualisation methods, well, I can’t help them. Stupid is as stupid does).

The NZFSU put out a press release chock-full of mental gymnastics about defending against the LBGTQI+ lobby attacking Bethlehem College re their beliefs around marriage – you know, a Christian School where parents consciously send their kids to learn Christian values – and so therefore they must be “consistent” and defend the drag abomination in front of kids.

What the actual fuck?

Where have they been? Have they not been made aware of the problems occurring all around the world where Drag Queen Story Hour is bringing out increasingly lewd grown-ass men flashing their full kit and caboodle at infants? In other words, what happens over there always makes its way here. Always.

And there is evidence up the wazoo that men with a thing for children tend to like to hang out with them. They often have a kink, and that kink would not be anywhere near sated if they just turned up at the library in their day clothes to read books to them.

I have seen literally so many videos of children put into a position at these events that no child should ever be placed in. Men wearing strap-on dildos, children putting money down their underwear – frilly, of course – and the surreptitious flashing of their semi-erect genitals. Sometimes the flashing is far from surreptitious. There is nothing benign about this stuff.

Now, I hate to be down in the weeds talking about all of this but it’s the reality of a growing trend. That is that paedophilia is a massive part of this whole game. Except now, we’re expected to call them MAPS – or ‘minor attracted persons’. As if to somehow sanitise a sexual predilection that most sane people despise.

To see the intelligentsia of the NZFSU somehow act like this “just can’t be”, and clutching their collective pearls on Twitter about how cerebrally sound their “serious” thinking is, was disheartening to say the least. (Not least, I admit, because I’m a paid-up member of this illustrious union and I don’t really want to believe how stupid I’ve been).

I also note that the most vocal defenders of the ‘free speech’ faith on this specific issue were, and are, men. Why? Do they simply not know what the ‘gender diversity’ trends are, and how Governments are pushing for the complete fluidity of what it means to even have a ‘sex’? These issues are fraught and complex. Mainly, for women.

The female members of NZFSU board, as far as I saw, kept their heads down and said little. Maybe it’s because women do tend to understand the politics of children, sexualisation and safeguarding on a purely visceral level that men often do not. Or, maybe it’s because the men really run the New Zealand ‘free speech’ show? Who knows, but maybe they’d like to enlighten us about what the story actually is?

As for the drag story, no matter how many folks told the NZFSU how they felt about their stance on an issue that they really coulda and shoulda stayed away from, they just doubled-down on their cute, but icy, ideological prowess. It was like, “we know all, you lowly intellectual peasants, so leave it to us.” How do they think Brexit and Trump happened? You just have to talk to people like they’re idiots, and the rest will follow.

The NZFSU’s mission statement is this: We are a registered trade union with a mission to fight for, protect, and expand your rights to freedom of speech, conscience, and intellectual inquiry.

When it comes to kids, I’m gonna call them out on the ‘conscience’ part. Because that’s what adults do. It’s our job to protect kids as best we can. And jumping to the ridiculous ‘free speech’ defence of drag queens getting their kink on, wasn’t it.

And what about the free speech rights of the lawful protesters who the NZ Police removed from the library?

One starts to wonder if it was all a calculated new demographic membership drive for the NZFSU.

Because, somewhat surprisingly, this lesbian, agnostic, un-conservative, non-alt/right woman now finds the New Zealand Free Speech Union too permissive for her taste.

Originally published on Riding Shotgun.