Berlin’s Botanical Garden will host the drag festival “Queens & Flowers” on Saturday, August 23rd, with organisers openly advertising events not only for adults but also for children.
The festival, in its second year, is entirely financed with taxpayers’ money from the Berlin Senate’s Department for Economics, the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, and the tourism agency visitBerlin.
Alongside stage acts by drag queens, such as “Tessa Testicel,” whose name is a pun on male genitalia, the festival advertises “family tours” and interactive workshops.
A central attraction is the “Drag Queen Reading Hour,” where men dressed as women will read children’s books aloud.
District Mayor Maren Schellenberg (of the Greens party) praised the event as “a great opportunity for encounter, visibility, and solidarity.”
The director of the Botanical Garden, Thomas Borsch, emphasised the importance of inclusion: “Protecting and preserving diversity is more important than ever—this applies to plants as well as people.”
Critics argue that the state is now actively encouraging children to be exposed to sexually themed performances under the banner of “diversity.”
Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of the right-wing news portal Nius.de, said the event amounts to “state-organised and promoted paedophilia.”
The event in Berlin is not an isolated case.
As we previously reported, in Baden-Württemberg, the state health ministry used taxpayer funds for a drag workshop where minors experimented with costumes, makeup, and stage performances.
In Bavaria, a drag queen event for children provoked protests, leading to a political fallout inside the governing centre-right CSU party after one of its members, Markus Hammer, emphasised the importance of protecting children from hypersexualisation and the ideological use of ‘diversity’ in schools.
Earlier this year, the co-leader of the right-wing opposition AfD party, Alice Weidel, made a clear distinction between genuine gay rights and the gender ideology that is being propagated by LGBT organisations.Speaking as a woman who lives in a same-sex relationship, Weidel said, “We do not want gender representatives or drag queens in schools. We do not want our kids to be confused with regards to gender issues.”
