Public funds are being used by the city of Mariehamn and the Nordic Council of Ministers to pay for Swedish transvestites to perform for children as young as three years old.
Drag performers Robert Fux, 40, and Henrik Johansson, 44, will host four performances aimed at children 3-4 years old and 5-7 years old, at the Mariehamn city library this weekend. They call their show ”Among dragons and drag queens” and tickets sold out almost immediately. What the performers themselves call ”story time” includes political campaigning and efforts to influence kindergarten children to transsexualism.
Helena von Schoultz, from the Nordic Institute, is responsible for bringing the events to Mariehamn. She tells Ålands Nyheter that the council and the city of Mariehamn are footing the bill together. Tickets are free for children who participate.
How much will this cost?
– It costs €700 ($775) per story time.
Including sales tax?
– It is probably included.
Has the Nordic Institute previously arranged any book reading for children?
– Not during my time here, but I can’t say how things were before I began my work here. We have worked extensively with literature before, but maybe not literature for children.
What kind of work have you done?
– We’ve hosted the essay competition for high school seniors, which is now hosted by others. We started the competition.
Why are you now targeting young children?
– We’re going to focus very much on children and youth, it is one of our pervading strategies.
What do you aim to teach or offer children and youth?
– It will partly be culture for children and youth, but we are also working a lot on including them in creating culture.
Why do these men who come to read stories wear women’s clothing instead of maybe a suit?
– This is a concept that Petter Wallenberg has built, called ”Among dragons and drag queens”. He has gathered the finest drag performers of Sweden and they tour around and read norm creative stories for children. They’ve been doing it for some years in Sweden and continue to tour after fall. It has been very popular.
What about it made the Nordic Institute decide this is something good to bring to Mariehamn?
– We like the concept! Since it has been very popular and these are professional actors. Most of them work as actors and have pedagogical experience. It simply felt as something we wanted to bring to Åland also.
Would you agree this is a way that these people express their sexuality, by dressing up as women and wearing makeup?
– I cannot speak for somebody else. You have to ask them.
Drag queens and drag show – aren’t these things sexual in nature – expressing sexuality?
– Personally, to me it is just about getting to be exactly as you wanna be. And that’s why I think this concept is so nice, because it highlights that you can be just as you feel like being. That’s what these books they will read also shows, that ”you can be like this or like that”, you can be exactly who you are!
Is this something three and four year olds haven’t learned?
– I hope they learn it at home also.
The Nordic Institute has published a YouTube video promoting the event, showing an adult man lifting his dress when he is reading a book to expose his crotch to a young boy. One of the transvestites is quoted in the video saying ”it is important that children get to see a kind of diversity”.
What do they mean in the video when they say it is important that children get to see diversity?
– I think a diversity of people. We are so very many and everybody is different and that’s what is so nice, von Schoultz says.
Is it important that children get to see men dressed in women’s clothes?
– I don’t know where you want to go with this. It feels like you’re trying to question the entire concept.
Creator of the ”concept” is Swedish political activist Petter Wallenberg, who launched the performances in 2017. In the video he and the Nordic Institute has published, there is no effort to conceal the political nature of the events:
– It is something different and exciting, as well as politically necessary, a person is quoted as saying in the promotional video.
In the same video, a transvestite is seen reading Lennart Hellsing’s ”Banana book”, where ”young bananas” make a communist revolution and march with red banners.
What do they mean in the promotional video when they say that these performances are ”politically necessary”?
– I think it is very important that we show this diversity that our society consists of. And that there are others… We are so surrounded by pictures of… We often see very one-dimensional pictures telling us ”this is how you should be as a human being” or ”this is right and this is wrong”, but there exists like a sea of possibilities and it is politically important that we speak of the importance of diversity – in all contexts.
Are small children, 3-4 years old the right target audience for political messages?
– I don’t think this will be political towards the children, it’s just an amusing thing, a wonderful concept. It is about being a human and getting to be just as you are.
Do you think many children aren’t allowed to be just as they are?
– I hope everybody gets that possibility. And that’s what we’r working for, letting everybody lead a safe and dignified life and that the children can express their personalities and be accepted for being just as they are. And these matters are extremely important to highlight.
How does politics come into that?
– To get a better response you should get in touch with Petter Wallenberg, who have created the concept. He’ll give you precise information on how they have arranged it and why they do as they do.
In the promotional video a man is shown lifting his dress to expose his crotch for a small boy. Will these kind of things be included in the performances in the Mariehamn city library?
– I don’t know which promotional video you are referring to.
The video that the Nordic Institute has published. It is right in the beginning of the video that he lifts his skirt right in front of a small boy.
– I’m not aware of that. I don’t believe you.
Will those kind of things happen in the town library?
– No, this is a story time for children, where a fairy tale is read and the children participate and discuss what happens in the book. All story times are different, depending on the children. I think it’s going to be fantastic, and later the children get to dress up if they want to, it will be fabulous!
Will boys dress up in women’s clothing also?
– They can dress up just how they please – I believe. I don’t know exactly what kind of clothes will be available at the library, but they will be free to chose what clothes they want and if they don’t want to dress up they don’t have to. It is an ordinary story time… And an adult is reading a fairy tale.
Does an ordinary story time include lifting your dress and showing your crotch for children?
– I can’t answer that, it is not something I’m aware of.
Are these events ment to harm the children’s development?
– No, absolutely not. On the contrary.
– We proudly support this event. I think it is an important thing, and it has been very popular. And it’s been shown that many people here also want to go the event, von Schoultz concludes.
Among the other books being shown in the promotional material is the book ”Conrad’s dress”, written by Åsa Mendel-Hartvig to influence young boys to wear girl’s clothes.
The group behind the performances were recently given a grant of €1,7 million Swedish crowns ($176 000) by the Swedish fund into which inheritances from citizens are collected by the government when they die. The money will be used by the transvestites to write their own fairy tales for children – as well as arranging drag shows with high schoolers.