Local complaints have prompted a child-focused charity in New York to ditch a drag event for kids set for next Sunday – and its cancelled drag queen host is not happy.
The Child Advocacy Center of Greater Rochester, a nonprofit “dedicated to giving children a voice and putting an end to abuse,” announced last week it would not hold its “all-ages,” “drag bingo” fundraiser.
Its scheduled cohost, drag queen “Mrs. Kasha Davis,” in reality a man named Ed Popil, took to a Rochester news station and said the cancellation was giving into “hate.”
Popil described his comments in a phone call to Mary Whittier, the charity’s chief executive officer, when she informed him the event was off.
He told the ABC affiliate, WHAM:
I said on that call, well, then we’re letting hate win. Because pretty much on a daily basis, unfortunately, as a drag artist, as a performer, especially when I do story hour, and most recently I was at a Pride festival, and I brought the kids up and we’re dancing, and then when you look at the comments, the hateful, negative, angry comments were plentiful.
Even after the cancellation, which included a formal, obsequious statement by the nonprofit that apologized to “our LGBTQ+ partners, allies, and supporters,” critics continued to pounce.
“Inclusion of LGBTQ should have NOTHING to do with a non profit whose ‘supposed’ mission is to advocate for our communities most traumatized youth. NOTHING!!,” a New Yorker named Michele Fischette wrote on the group’s Facebook page. “Why is this even a thing? Wildly inappropriate…”
Hellbound and Down 