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She
will serve a two-year term raising awareness and expanding
appreciation for drag culture, at a time when lawmakers in
several states have tried to restrict drag performances.
"At this particular political moment, when there is such a
climate of opposition to queer rights, to art forms like drag,
to trans rights, it's so important to have positions like
these," Pickle told Reuters.
"This is the death rattle of a movement that just cannot adapt
to a changing world and to a community that is saying, 'We're
not hiding in the shadows anymore.'"
Pickle's resume over the past eight years includes performing,
singing, hosting, and activism. She helped establish and run the
Los Angeles Drag Story Hour to spark interest in reading and
inclusion among children.
"Honestly, I would hope that people coming to drag story take
away a sense of play, of imagination, a love for reading," she
said, donned with three roses in her long blonde wig, pink
ruffled shorts and top, dangling blue earrings and a big green
satin bow.
Libraries staging drag story hours have faced angry protesters
calling for children to be protected from adult entertainment.
But a mother who took her son to Pickle's reading hour said it
offered a way to expand children's awareness of others.
"As long as we continue to expose them and normalize these types
of events and all of the different people that we share this
city with, then it will become part of their life and normal for
them," said Christina Cady.
Pickle, who will be inaugurated as West Hollywood's drag
laureate on July 16, will work with D'Arcy Drollinger, recently
named San Francisco's Drag Laureate.
"I really want to empower drag artists to explore their talents,
push themselves and challenge themselves, to really show the
world that drag is a powerful, dynamic and intellectual art
form," said Pickle.
(Reporting by Jorge Garcia; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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