This Pride Month was a little different for Rogers Park residents Sky Goodman and Chelsea McFadden. The two took a leap of faith and became a family earlier this year, but as Pride month rolled around, they found themselves struggling to find family-friendly spaces to celebrate their community.
On June 24 they ventured out to try something new. The family of three headed north to Evanston where they danced, listened to stories and mingled with other LGBTQ+ families at the Evanston Public Library’s Drag Queen Storytime.
“We just had a baby, a 5-month-old, so we thought it’d be a great way to meet some other queer families and have story time,” Goodman said.
Chicago-based drag queen Coco Sho-Nell, who was on season four of Out TV’s “Camp Wannakiki,” read a variety of books speaking on the need for self-acceptance and preserving LGBTQ+ history — all while dressed as Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus.”
Among these books were “I Like Myself” by Karen Beaumont and “Stonewall: A Building, An Uprising, A Revolution” by Rob Sanders. Beaumont’s book spoke about oddities kids may have ranging from warts to fleas and encouraged kids to think positively about themselves, even if they are bullied.
“I may be called a silly nut or a crazy cuckoo bird — so what? I’m having too much fun, you see, for anything to bother me,” Beaumont’s book reads.
Sho-Nell says the book served an educational purpose to teach kids to be accepting and empathetic at a young age. She says the early exposure could prevent hateful acts down the road.
“It’s an important way to show young ones that it’s OK to be the different kid. It’s OK to not be like everybody else,” Sho-Nell said. “It’s important to educate youth because even if they aren’t different, maybe they have a friend that’s different so they can understand others better.”
Sho-Nell and library staff took a historical approach by teaching LGBTQ+ history as well. Attendees learned about the 1969 Stonewall Riots through the children’s book “Stonewall: A Building, An Uprising, A Revolution.” The book started out describing New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood’s history as an accepting community of artists with diverse residents before telling the youth about the LGBTQ+ community’s struggle with police oppression and violence, saying many in the community got arrested for displaying their true selves.
“Leading up to the 1960s, our neighborhood welcomed gays and lesbians — men who loved men, and women who love women,” Sanders’ book reads. “We were a home for people who were told they didn’t fit in or belong.”
Preserving the history of LGBTQ+ individuals and other marginalized groups is a goal of the Evanston Public Library, according to Communications and Marketing Manager Jenette Sturges.
“LGBTQ+ history is everybody’s history so our staff is specifically skilled at developing collections and promoting books that represent our entire community,” Sturges said. “What’s really important about highlighting things like Stonewall is ensuring that anyone who comes to our library can see a diverse representation of history.”
Evanston’s library system wasn’t alone in hosting LGBTQ+ events, the Wilmette Public Library also had a variety of offerings. On June 14, Wilmette hosted author Lindz Amer for story time with kids and a conversation regarding gender identity with parents.
“Exploring one’s identity is a fundamental part of growing up and we wanted to give parents and caregivers an opportunity to explore what it means to raise queer-friendly children in a gender-affirming space,” Auston said. “(We wanted to help) give a framework for families to discuss this topic in a supportive environment.”
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Amer provided advice on raising children without bias or affirming outcomes for before youth become aware of their identity, Auston said
The Evanston Public Library brought “extra eyes” to supervise the event, Evanston’s Robert Crown Branch Manager Robin Sindelar said. She said the library’s Pride month event was a tradition before drag queens and youth LGBTQ+ programming became a contentious political topic. While she had minimal worries about Evanston residents disrupting the drag queen event, she said precautions were taken just in case.
Drag queen and LGBTQ+ youth programming has become a contentious issue with book bans targeting LGBTQ+ content finding momentum in states like Georgia and Tennessee. The Illinois State Legislature passed a policy aimed at preventing book bans earlier this year. Drag queens face political scrutiny in states like Florida, Texas and Tennessee as state legislators moved forward with anti-drag queen proposals. Federal courts blocked several of these proposals after the bills were approved by state legislatures.
Chicagoland is no stranger to anti-drag queen activity itself. The Downers Grove Public Library canceled an October drag bingo event after it received a threatening letter that included a bullet and the words “more to come.” The Lincoln Park Zoo also faced backlash for organizing a drag story time for its Fall Fest program and Plainfield saw protests regarding drag acts performing at the community’s first Pride Fest last October.
A November report by GLAAD, a media monitoring organization focused on LGBTQ+ issues, ranked Illinois as third on a list of states with the highest number of targeted or threatened drag events. Of the 141 incidents included in the report, eight were in Illinois.
Despite these movements looking to limit public LGBQT+ representation, North Shore organizations and event attendees are happy to host the community.
“It’s nice the kids see that all different types of people are represented in the world,” attendee Kathy Dunn said.
“They can have a person dressed as a princess, so why not have a drag queen?” Dunn’s friend Kathy Lucas added.
Corey Schmidt is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.