A pair of drag performers debated the definition of woman and whether drag queen story hours at public libraries are appropriate for kids Friday in the latest episode of Tim Pool’s “Culture War” podcast.
Maebe A. Girl, a transgender-identifying male who in 2019 became the nation’s first drag queen elected to a public office, defended drag for kids against Kitty “Hogatha” DeMure, who has been one of the sole voices in the drag community talking about the dangers of drag to kids after going viral when he asked in a video, “Why do drag queens need to read to kids?”
Things got heated on the show when Pool posed the eponymous question popularized in The Daily Wire’s groundbreaking 2022 documentary, “What Is A Woman?” Girl, who was elected to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles four years ago, equivocated while Demure dropped the mic.
“I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer that because I don’t think that there’s a singular answer,” Girl replied. “And I think it goes back into this idea that I was talking about earlier that so many people view the world through this binary lens of you are either this or that.”
.@Timcast: “What is a woman?”
Drag Queen Maebe A. Girl: "The idea of a man and the idea of a woman is actually so expansive…" pic.twitter.com/ie4CwRsSmQ
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 14, 2023
“You’re a man or a woman,” Girl added. “But the idea of a man and a woman is actually so expansive, and there is so much opportunity and nuance in between. And I think it’s up to the individual to decide … I think this idea that we have to have this definition of what is a woman I think it’s counterproductive … and meant to be transphobic.”
When Pool pressed Girl to define “female,” the drag queen official said “female would be the end of this binary that society has created.”
DeMure replied that every “drag queen can tell you what a woman is if they are being honest.”
“A woman does not have a penis, because drag queens tuck their penises,” DeMure said. “I’ve never seen one drag queen in all of my years of pageants have a bulge.”
“A woman is a human that is born with a vagina and has the capability of reproducing and giving birth, whether they can do it or not,” DeMure continued. “They have the anatomy for it. To me, that’s what a woman is. And we all know it.”
The pair also disagreed about drag queen story hour at libraries, with DeMure calling them inappropriate and suggesting that kids would rather have their parents read to them.
But Girl said it wasn’t “inappropriate” for children, and defended drag community as not a “monolith.”
“I believe that there are appropriate interactions for particular situations,” Girl said. “And I agree we shouldn’t have kids at drag shows that are taking place at night clubs, which is not happening.”
Girl disputed claims that drag performers read sexually explicit books at the events, saying “99 percent of the time” the books drag queens read to kids are age-appropriate.
But Girl acknowledged that some performers have gone too far at drag queen story hours.
“And unfortunately, that reflects on the whole community,” Girl said.
DeMure said he’s part of a tiny minority of drag performers speaking out against exposing children to drag.
“If we were going to expose children to this, why is it going to be a drag queen with their legs spread open reading to kids about hey maybe you’re a girl, maybe you’re a boy?” he wondered. “It’s like there’s no PR or head of the LGBTQ ink that is managing these things.”
Related: Tim Pool Dives Into Hot Button Issues With His New Podcast, ‘The Culture War’