No one ever pays attention when you’re handed a flyer at the fringe. It’s only when I take a proper look that I realise I haven’t been handed a promotion but a protest. Offered with a smile, the leaflet is designed to look like medical information but warns, avidly, against the dangers of drag, LGBTQ+ sex education and “what they’re teaching our children”. Too flustered to be angry, I give it back, politely (too politely) tell the gathered group I disagree with them, and run to the show I’m late for.
At this year’s Edinburgh fringe, LGBTQ+ artists have made the majority of the joyful, audacious, uplifting work I’ve been lucky enough to see. In fact, this is such an overtly queer-positive festival that while the blatant anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation is at first deflating, it then feels almost ridiculous. Good luck being heard above all this gloriously gay noise.
