The mayor of a North Carolina town announced Saturday that a Drag Queen Story Hour event, part of an upcoming pride festival, was canceled after receiving “feedback from citizens.”
Jacques Gilbert, mayor of Apex, North Carolina, announced Saturday via Facebook that the previously planned Drag Queen Story Hour was canceled one week before the Apex Pride Festival, citing citizen feedback. Gilbert shared the feedback he received to the Apex Festival Commission, who then took it into consideration and removed the program, his announcement stated.
Drag Queen Story Hour is an organization for drag queens to read to children in libraries, schools and bookstores. The organization captures the “imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models,” according to the website.
The local chapter of Drag Queen Story Hour did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Hundreds of comments were made on the Facebook post, with one parent commenting that “[t]his was THE Pride event I was planning to attend with my toddler. Very disappointed in the event organizers who were swayed by hateful, misguided comments,” WRAL.com reported.
Town council member Audra Killingsworth commented on Gilbert’s Facebook post claiming complaints about the event had escalated into violent threats, leading to the cancellation, Newsweek reported.
“Because of those threats, the commission decided to pull the Drag Queen Story Hour from the kids zone,” Killingsworth told the outlet. “I’m disappointed and frustrated, but I do want to have an amazing Pride event that is still going to feature drag performances on stage.”
Gilbert followed the backlash with a comment of his own on his original Facebook post, saying “I will not tolerate disrespectful comments attacking others and hate speech on this page. Therefore, effective June 6th at 10:20 am, I will be disabling comments on this post after several days of observing hate speech on this post.”
Gilbert referred The Daily Caller News Foundation to his Facebook statement when asked for comment.
The Apex Festival Commission did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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