THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay Public Library held Story Time with Thunder Bay Drag Queens on Saturday in the first of what will be an increased frequency of events.
The increase comes in response to an incident that occurred last month which had resulted in a cancellation of a story time event.
“Unfortunately, we had a bomb threat during the last event and so we went back, we talked with our performers, saw how they wanted to move forward, and thankfully they weren't scared off. They were emboldened,” said Dr. Richard Togman, CEO of TBPL.
“So, in partnership with the community, we decided to actually increase the pace of having more drag queen story times to really send the message that this is something the library stands behind. We're not going to retreat back into the shadows and fear.”
Mz. Molly Poppinz, host and co-creator of Story Time with Thunder Bay Drag Queens, said that the amount of love, gratitude, and appreciation from the community following last month’s incident has been much more than she and other organizers could have hoped for.
“It was made abundantly clear that not only the overwhelming majority of the city love what we do and thankful that we are doing it, but that they want to see it continue. So, we were absolutely going to go ahead with this one and all future story times no matter what,” Poppinz said.
“We definitely tried to pick a couple of stories that just reminded people that there are a lot of different people in the world who are built a lot of different ways, who want to do things a lot of different ways and every single one of them is beautiful and lovely and wonderful and is allowed to do what they are doing as long as they're doing it with love and acceptance.”
Poppinz also applauded the library’s handling of things during and after the threat incident stating the the library did exactly what they needed to do to keep the public safe.
“They absolutely made the right call. But the first thing they did after they made sure that we were all safe was to tell us that they still love us and they still appreciate the show and they still want us to come and do it and that they were not going to back down,” Poppinz said.
“No matter how many misguided, uneducated people were going to make emails or phone calls related to the subject. They have doubled down on their social media presence and made several statements reminding people that Thunder Bay has no place for bigotry and has no place for hatred.”
To find out when the next Story Time with Thunder Bay Drag Queens event is happening, check the group’s Facebook page.
