An eight-year-old boy has appeared in a report on the website of Australia’s leading LGBTQI publication, The Star Observer, as a “heartwarming eight-year-old drag queen”.
The Canadian boy, who goes by the “drag name” Lactatia, told media that he had wanted to be a drag queen since the age of seven, and had been taking “voguing classes” and performing with the support of his mother.
The Star Observer report includes a YouTube clip (below) of an on-stage interview with the boy at the “Werq the World” event in Montreal, conducted by adult drag queen “Bianca Del Rio,” star of the reality TV show, RuPaul’s Drag Race.
“You are f**king adorable, Latatia [sic],” Ms Del Rio mused, joking about the child’s “cheap wig hair”.
“Listen, your Aunt Bianca’s going to get you a good lace front (wig), b**ch.”
Asked to nominate his favourite drag queen, the child – whose real name is Nemis – nominated another RuPaul star, “Ginger Minj,” to the titillation of the crowd (because the answer was not “Bianca Del Rio”).
(‘Minj’ is presumably an alternative spelling of ‘Minge,’ a vulgar slang term for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals.)
Advisory: Language warning
https://youtu.be/VI1Zui2lXVQ
The advent of an eight-year-old drag queen also received glowing coverage in New Zealand’s most popular news outlet, The New Zealand Herald:
“With flaming red hair, eye shadow up to his eyebrows and sass to rival RuPaul’s, eight-year-old Lactatia has become a celebrity among the LGBT community and beyond,” the report says.
“Fortunately for Lactatia, whose interest in drag began at the age of seven, his parents are in complete support of their son’s decision: His mum helps him with his makeup and takes him to voguing classes and his sister came up with his name.”
The child also features in an interview with Canada’s “LGBT in the City” YouTube Channel, telling the interviewer:
“Anyone can do what they want in life. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” Nemis said.
“If you want to be a drag queen and your parents don’t let you, you need new parents. If you want to be a drag queen and your friends don’t let you, you need new friends.”
People who reacted critically to the story on social media included Toronto Psychology Professor Jordan B Peterson, who tweeted: “Everything this child says in the first few lines of this video (the interview with LGBT in the City) is a parroted lie and well-taught narcissism.”
A spokesperson for Collective Shout, an Australian group that campaigns against sexism and the sexualisation of children, Melinda Liszewski tweeted in response to a story on advocate.com: “Let’s instead have child protective services meet with the adults exploiting & sexualising an 8 year old child.”