Dragging kids towards tolerance of gay and transgender people

Before many children know what gay means, they often use it as an insult. A play, starring one of the country’s top drag queens, is hoping to curb that, writes Caomhan Keane

THE domestic life of drag queens is being explored in a new show for children aged 7-13 that hopes to celebrate difference and promote tolerance in pre-teens before the rot of homophobic and transphobic ideas take root.

“People might say that children are too young to be exposed to this kind of talk,” says writer Sian Ní Mhuirí, “but the truth is that they are taught gender roles since before primary school – through the media, ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ toys, and through Panto Dames, who we are told are figures of fun, something to laugh at. They don’t know about sexuality, but they do already know about gay and it being a bad word.