Drag Queen Story Hour hits Scotland

You can’t leave Scotland alone for five minutes without another front opening up in the gender wars. Between legislating for doctor-free gender changes at 16 and housing trans rapists in women’s prisons, the Scots are apparently eager to rebrand themselves as the world’s most achingly progressive nation: Canada without the mounties. Even Justin Trudeau would find all this allyship exhausting. 

The latest skirmish is over one of the more colourful imports from the US culture wars, Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), in which drag artists read to children down the local school or library. Some say this is inappropriate while others insist it’s no different from pantomimes, except Widow Twankie is reading the kids some Dr Seuss. 

Douglas Ross disagrees. He does not like it here or there, he does not like it anywhere, but most of all he does not like it in Elgin Library in his Moray constituency. The Scottish Tory leader objected to Moray Council’s announcement of a DQSH event this Saturday for children aged 0 to 6.