Advocates in the drag community in Kelowna, B.C., say public hate has subsided against performers, however, much of that hate is moving online.
As of recently, performers noticed the comment sections on their social media posts are plagued with hateful messages, with some people spewing death threats.
“Any of our events that have drag and when we promote a post we’re likely to get some level of hate,” said executive producer of Rebellious Unicorns, Dustyn Baulkham.
Popular drag performer Ella Lamoureux says hateful social media comments became a much bigger problem after the pandemic.
“I feel that COVID has let them find community, which is funny because it’s what we’ve been trying to find for years and decades is to find a community and acceptance,” said Lamoreux.
“They found their own online community; they have become ‘keyboard warriors’ for their cause, they’re just spouting all this negativity onto these platforms.”
While most comments appear to be harmless, Lamoreux came across some death threats.
“Some of them are very dark like death threats, saying the best thing that’s going to happen to you is a gun to your head or you should be hanging from a tree,” said Lamoreux.
“There are some that are intense and we have made police reports for those ones.”
According to advocates, last year the drag community dealt with a lot more public hate with people protesting at their in-person events. However, they say that seems to have subsided recently as most of the hate is now being spewed online.
“I don’t know which is worse, obviously they’re both bad but I feel like because social media is such a big part of people’s lives they see it all the time vs. an event that happens once or twice a month, so it’s one day concentrated,” said Baulkham. “Both are obviously impactful on people.”
Much of the hate, according to Baulkham, comes from misinformation about the drag community and its events.