Marjorie Taylor Greene Showed My Photo In A DOGE Hearing And Called Me A Monster. I’m Fighting Back.

Late last month, I was surprised to wake up to a flurry of text messages: “Girl, you’re all over Congress!” As I opened link after link, I was met with a surreal array of photos showing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene leading a DOGE subcommittee hearing, and to my surprise, behind her was an oversized portrait of me. I rolled my eyes and dreamed about going back to bed.  

As a drag queen who reads and writes children’s books, this was certainly not the first time I have faced attacks, by politicians and otherwise.  My books have been challenged and banned, events have been protested, and my name and likeness have been used in myriad disingenuous attempts to stoke fear about LGBTQ+ people, including by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. However, it was the first time that I had been directly referenced in the halls of Congress.  

My first thought to myself was: At least she chose a gorgeous photo. Ironically, it was one of my own headshots depicting a friendly smile and red, white and blue sequin stars — a stark contrast to Greene’s own scowling face that dominated press photos of her testimony. My second: It’s funny that Greene and other MAGA Republicans have yet to learn that it’s a bad idea to pick a fight with a drag queen.

Still, Greene’s comments were no laughing matter: Given her long track record as a conspiracy theorist and anti-LGBTQ+ crusader, Greene unsurprisingly spread not only slanderous hate but also defamatory disinformation. She cited me as a reason to eradicate federal funding for PBS and NPR, contending that NPR and PBS “push some of the most radical left positions, like featuring a drag queen on the show Let’s Learn.”

She continued: “[A]s a mother who raised three children, I felt confident that I could leave the room while my own children were watching children’s programming on PBS. But … if I had walked in my living room or one of my children’s bedrooms and seen this child predator and this monster targeting my children, I would become unglued.”

Needless to say, her already highly unglued name-calling insinuates claims about me that are patently false. She is correct that I once appeared on the public television program “Let’s Learn,” reading my picture book The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish — a playful parody meant to encourage kids to express their inner fabulousness. But the reality, as PBS CEO Paula Kerger made clear, is that the show was produced by local affiliate WNET, not by PBS itself.  

Additionally, her rhetoric suggesting that LGBTQ-affirmative media is a form of “sexualizing and grooming … brainwashing and transing children” is not only false, but offensive. As I noted in my initial response: This rerun is tired and boring. That is, it is part of a well-worn playbook that goes back decades, as exemplified by Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign of the 1970s, and which has sadly been mainstreamed by Republicans in recent years.

In the hearing itself, several Democratic members of the committee playfully poked fun at Greene. Rep. Robert Garcia jokingly inquired: “The American people want to know: Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party? … Because he is red.” Such a humorous response, from an openly gay politician no less, earns snaps from me: His silly approach highlights the absurdity of Greene’s own questions.

Largely missing from this political circus, however, was a strong defense of diverse public media. While Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher thoughtfully refuted false claims, they did not make a clear case for the importance of featuring diverse voices and stories. 

To be clear: I mean no shade to either of these public media leaders, as they were put in a very difficult position. However, I highlight a broader issue: We must do more than react to false claims; we must proactively reshape the narrative to make our case for diversity in public media and institutions. 

I’ll say it loud and proud: Drag performers belong on public television, in public libraries and beyond.

Of course, drag performers are not the only example of diverse artists who belong in public media and spaces: We are simply one flavor of the creativity and brilliance that exists among LGBTQ+, BIPOC, disabled, migrant, working-class and other historically marginalized and resilient communities. And we all deserve a pride of place on bookshelves, in television programming, curricula, story hours and more.

It is in this spirit that revered scholar Rudine Sims Bishop famously described children’s literature as offering windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors. In this beautiful metaphor, she acknowledged the need for children to learn about the world around them, see themselves reflected and step into stories through their imaginations. Given that all children (and adults) are a blend of intersecting identities, we need diverse media to offer multiple points of view. Any attempt to suppress such heterogeneity is not only unethical, it is also incorrect and leaves children with a partial story of the world around them.

In my own childhood as a white, middle-class, Jewish, queer and genderqueer person, it was precisely through children’s books and television that I learned about the world.  While I often had the privilege of seeing communities that looked similar to mine, I only rarely caught glimpses of queerness and gender diversity. (Still, in retrospect, queer authors and characters have always been present, but recognizing them required skills in reading between the lines.)