A Melbourne cafe owner was forced to cancel a children’s Easter event hosted by drag queens after vigilante bigots threatened to find and share the performers’ addresses.
Alice Rebel’s Cafe and Bar was going to host an event called “Colour me Egg-cited” — basically an arts and crafts station for kids run by drag queens — when owner Meg Anderson had to make the decision to call it off after a series of “strange, bigoted phone calls”.
“It’s disgraceful,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I didn’t want me or my staff to be attacked by anyone.
“We have a very strong relationship with these girls [the performers], and I have gay staff members. They see us having to cancel and it’s a ripple effect. They’re going to feel uncomfortable and wonder if their safety is OK.”
Anderson said she decided to hold the event after parents who attended the cafe’s previous drag shows asked if they could bring their kids.
She was reduced to tears after she was bombarded with hateful messages about drag queens, but it gets more cooked: SMH and The Age also obtained screenshots from a Telegram group chat which showed conspiratorial right-wing protesters threatening to stalk and dox drag queens.
After one member suggested staking the joint out and asked if anyone could “get a crew down there on short notice to make a bit of noise”, another said they should note down the number plates of any drag performers.
They claimed they had a contact at VicRoads who would give them the addresses linked to registration numbers for $500.
The group then discussed “[crossing] their paths everywhere [to make their] world rather small”.
“As they crumble you’re smiling like a shark, preditors [sic] become prey,” the message said, per SMH.
VicRoads said it would investigate the matter with its integrity unit, but the increase in hateful and threatening behaviour directed at drag queens and the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole is fkn terrifying.
It’s only in recent weeks that literal Nazis aligned themselves with a transphobe and showed up at Parliament to counter a pro-trans protest.
In March, a ‘Christian Lives Matter’ mob of more than 200 people allegedly attacked 15 queer protesters.
Earlier that month, self-proclaimed Christian Lives Matter protesters also marched through Newtown in Sydney to protest WorldPride. They were escorted by police.
And just yesterday, a NSW Police officer posed with a man wearing a t-shirt that had an anti-gay slur.
Really, who is it here at actually needs protection?
If you’d like to talk about the issues raised in this story, you can call the QLife LGBTI peer support hotline on 1800 184 527 or chat online.
QLife operates between 3pm and midnight daily.
Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
