The rise of extremist protest against public drag performances is a worrying trend.
Two reports from Melbourne in late 2022 show that what has become common in the US since 2017, has now become more common in Australia. One event was disrupted by protesters in September, and another postponed in December, after comments made in an online forum by extremists about plans to protest at an end-of-year event for 12 to 25-year-olds. Much of the invective against these events from protesters draws on the well-established and harmful conflation of same-sex attraction and related gender identity with paedophilia and child "grooming" that is invoked episodically to denigrate LGBTQ individuals and communities. In turn, this prejudice can dictate how LGBTQ expression is filtered, framed and amplified through social and other media platforms.
