These Umbrella-Twirling Drag Defenders Are Protecting Libraries from Bigots

On a Tuesday afternoon, police encircled the Elmhurst, Queens public library in two layers of crowd-control barricades. Next to arrive were the volunteers, carrying rainbow umbrellas and brightly colored posters. “Libraries are for everyone,” read one sign.

Then, minutes before a family-oriented story time was set to begin inside the library, the right arrived. Bearing “Don’t Tread On Me” flags and “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirts, the dozen or so demonstrators paced the sidewalk shouting slogans and obscenities as library patrons maneuvered the cops and fences to access a public building where, for the next hour, a drag performer would read books to children.

Pauline Park, a longtime Queens-based LGBTQ rights organizer, watched the anti-drag demonstrators, a rainbow poster in her hands.

Read more at The Daily Beast.