On Friday, the pro-family group MassResistance revealed that a performer at “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the Houston Public Library (HPL) is, in fact, a convicted child sex offender. HPL confirmed the report, apologized, and insisted the drag queen was never alone with the children.
MassResistance revealed that 32-year-old Alberto Garza, who goes by the stage name Tatiana Mala-Niña, was convicted in 2008 for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy. The library had not run a background check on any of the drag queens.
“If they had done their job and due diligence, they might have said wait — maybe it’s not a good idea to have a sex offender who at 200 pounds and 5-foot-11 assaulted an 8-year-old boy,” Tracy Shannon, a leader of the Houston chapter of MassResistance, told reporters on Friday.
MassResistance noted that members of the Houston City Council supported Drag Queen Story Hour, shooting down worries from parents. Mike Laster, an openly gay member of the city council, asked, “What are you afraid of?” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told parents with MassResistance that drag queens are “role models” for the Houston community.
“Most parents would not allow that individual to sit in this library and be held up as a role model to our children,” Shannon added. “Shame on you, Mayor Turner!”
The library did not deny the claims, KHOU 11 reported.
Instead, the library released a statement pledging that “this participant will not be involved in any future HPL programs.”
“In our review of our process and of this participant, we discovered that we failed to complete a background check as required by our own guidelines. We deeply regret this oversight and the concern this may cause our customers. We realize this is a serious matter,” the library statement continued.
HPL insisted that Garza was never alone with any child. “Every program sponsored by HPL is supervised by HPL staff, and all children are accompanied by a parent and/or guardian. No participant is ever alone with children, and we have not received any complaints about any inappropriate behavior by participants at storytimes,” the library said.
HPL assured parents that it is “taking the appropriate action to ensure that the status of every participant in every program throughout our system is verified. We will continue to review our process to ensure that this cannot happen again.”
While the library has promised this will never happen again, the fact that this sex offender was able to read to children at a “Drag Queen Story Hour” confirms many parents’ worst fears about the event.
Last November, a Louisiana drag queen performer testified about “Drag Queen Story Hour,” saying, “This is going to be the grooming of the next generation.” He defined “grooming” as teaching “people to be tolerable, to be patient, to be loving,” but “grooming” means something far worse in a sexual context.
MassResistance announced that it would be releasing more compromising information about other drag queen performers in the coming months. Parents should stay vigilant to make sure that sex offenders are not “grooming” their children.
“Drag Queen Story Hour” defenders claim these programs are necessary to get children to stop bullying LGBT people, and that is indeed a noble goal. “Drag Queen Story Hour” goes beyond anti-bullying, however. Such programs blur the lines of gender for young children and push LGBT messages at young ages. Even if no sexual abuse takes place, kids may be encouraged to embrace a gender identity opposite their biological sexes, taking hormones and surgeries that will leave them infertile and permanently scarred.
