Storytime with Betsy

Dress Up Story Hour is our once-monthly event where attendees are encouraged to wear a costume while a local actor and drag queen, dressed in a family-friendly costume, reads picture books to all ages.

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Requests: Please read this post in full before commenting (it’s a long one so I will admire your dedication if you get through it all). Unkind or bigoted comments may be removed as may those written by folks who clearly haven’t read the entire post. Please remember that everyone behind your screen is a human being and that other human beings are far more complex than we can possibly know from the outside

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With respect for any of you who’ve wondered “Why? Why would you host Dress-Up Story Hour with a drag queen?” I’m going to write a bit about that event today.

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But first I (Betsy) am going to be vulnerable and share a bit about my life.

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I was a theatre kid for many years before I became a band kid. One of my favorite things about theatre is that you can dress up as whoever you want or are cast to be! While a child/teen I routinely only auditioned for male roles because I felt like I roleplayed being a girl all the time. Theatre was the only time when I could truly roleplay being a boy or a man.

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I found out later, as an adult, that I’m Autistic. And one of the ways autism presents for me personally is that I don’t really feel like I have a gender. The official terminology is Agender. This means that I am just ME, I am MYSELF. I present femininely for the most part and people might see me as any number of gendered terms, but the only gendered term that really fits me is “mama”

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As a child I loved it when movies and shows had a character who dressed as not-their-expected-gender for any reason. Anastasia, Yentl, Mulan… there’s a huge long list on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Cross-dressing_in_film_and…

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So when Drag Story Hour became a thing and I became aware of it, the phenomenon made sense to me! Actors in costume reading to children! How lovely! I grew up knowing that female impersonation has a long and distinguished (as well as silly) history. I was raised on vaudeville, slapstick, the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, Abbott and Costello, and the Marx Brothers!

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Then… I learned that people were against actors dressing in extraordinary costumes while reading to children. I still don’t really understand why, to be honest. Humans are often very confusing to me.

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By the time my bookstore opened, the word “drag” had clearly been politicized. So for our storytime event (which is not currently associated with the Drag Story Hour organization) I distilled the meaning of “drag” down to its child-friendly essence: Dressing Up.

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From a child’s perspective, all-ages-appropriate Drag is literally watching someone play dress up. Thus: Dress Up Story Hour came to be!

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Children LOVE playing dress up. The children dress up, the adults dress up, and Margot dresses up too! Children can be whoever or whatever they want to be in that moment. And sometimes children want to be animals or mermaids or whatever else they can dream up.

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ALL children, if allowed, play around with their sense of identity, including gender expression. It’s an important stage of learning who they are and how they want to present themselves to the world.

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From the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Healthy Children website: “…cross-gender preferences and play are a normal part of gender development and exploration regardless of their future gender identity.” https://www.healthychildren.org/…/Gender-Identity-and…

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The best part about this event is that, if wearing a costume and listening to children’s books read aloud is not your thing (which is totally fine), this event is also super easy to avoid! During this month of April, Dress Up Story Hour will happen during 0.63% or 1/160th of our open hours.

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That said, we aren’t the bookstore for everyone and that’s also fine! I support people’s right to determine for themselves whether an event is appropriate for themselves or their children. I also believe that it’s an essential feature of a free society to allow other people to enjoy things even if we believe that it’s wrong for ourselves.

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It’s theatre, it’s play, it’s Dress Up Story Hour with a local drag queen!

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If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate it! If not, I totally understand.

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We look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for #IndieBookstoreDay

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~Betsy

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In this post, I’m including the promotional flyer for our Dress-Up Story Hour.