A group of LGBTQI advocates is challenging a prohibition by a western Sydney council that blocks events featuring drag queens reading stories to children.

In February of the previous year, Cumberland City Council decided to prohibit drag storytime events from being held in its venues, which include libraries, halls, and community centers.

This decision, spearheaded by Libertarian Councillor Steve Christou, was implemented even though no formal requests for such events had been submitted to the council.

Now, Councillor Christou is voicing his concerns as an LGBTQI organization, Rainbow Cumberland, has initiated a petition aimed at reversing the council’s ban.

Rainbow Cumberland was established in May 2024 in response to the council’s decision to retain a book about same-sex parenting in its library collection, after initially planning to remove it.

The mission of the group is to lead community actions and initiatives that combat homophobia and transphobia.

‘We are antiracist, pro-Palestine, feminist, and Covid-cautious,’ the Rainbow Cumberland website states. 

‘We live out and affirm the unique intersection of queerness with religion and cultural diversity.’

A collective of LGBTQI activists is attempting to overturn a western Sydney council’s ban on hosting events featuring drag queens reading stories to children. Pictured is ‘Ladybird’ reading to children in Brisbane this month

Protesters demonstrated outside Manly Library on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where drag queen Charisma Belle was set to read stories to children in February 2023

Rainbow Cumberland is supported by Action Network, ‘an open platform that empowers individuals and groups to organise for progressive causes’.

Cr Christou took to social media to call on mayor Ola Hamed and fellow Labor councillors to declare whether they supported overturning the drag storytime ban.

‘Let me be clear,’ he posted on Facebook on Saturday. ‘It is not normal for young children who should be playing innocently with their friends to have to worry about men dressed in dresses and wearing lipstick.

‘The Cumberland City Council community spoke in their thousands against this very proposal in the last term of council.

‘I will ensure that children’s innocence, safety, and freedoms are protected from such ideology at a young age.’

Cr Christou continued his defence of the drag reading ban in a video accompanying his original message. 

‘I managed to move a motion banning drag story reading time ever being held in council’s libraries,’ he said. 

‘The Labor Party had to be dragged kicking and screaming after initially supporting drag story reading time to occur in our council libraries.’

Cumberland councillor Steve Christou was told a drag story reading for children took place last month at Lidcombe Community Centre, despite a ban for such events in council libraries

‘These people cannot be supported,’ Cr Christou said of Rainbow Cumberland. 

‘Residents, we’ve got to stand up and fight this.’

Cr Christou said that he had been told a drag story reading for children took place last month at Lidcombe Community Centre. 

‘When I took this inquiry up with relevant council management their answer to me was less than impressive,’ he said. 

‘It was secretive and I was very concerned.’

Cr Christou urged residents to converge on the council’s chambers and insist the ban remains in place, ‘because I know, me and the community out there in the thousands are going to rally again’.

‘We will not compromise on family, religious and community values that we all like to uphold,’ he said.

Cr Christou told Daily Mail that he had been told the drag reading took place at Lidcombe Community Centre but was a private booking with no council involvement. 

Police were called to control crowds protesting against drag storytime reading outside Cumberland City Council in February 2023

A council spokesman said: ‘For clarity, Cumberland City Council has never hosted a drag storytime event. Any claims to the contrary are simply false.’

‘Cumberland City Council stands proudly with our community, united in diversity, inclusion, and respect.

‘Over the last 12 months we have worked with the people who live, work, and visit our city to build a place where everyone feels they belong.

‘Council is deeply committed to delivering programs and events that celebrate our vibrant cultures and welcome everyone.

‘Attempts to undermine this work or stir division through fear and misinformation are toxic and deeply disappointing. 

‘They do nothing to serve our community and only distract from the progress we’ve made and the work we promised to deliver.’

The spokesman added, ‘there is no place for such negativity in Cumberland’.

‘Our Mayor remains focused on what matters, bringing people together, celebrating who we are, and building a future we can all be proud of,’ he said.

Protesters against the banning of books are pictured outside Cumberland Council’s chambers

Action Network is using its website to promote Rainbow Cumberland’s petition, which on Sunday afternoon had 275 signatures from a stated target of 50,000.

‘The ban on drag sent a hateful message that LGBTQIA+ people should not be seen in public,’ the call to action said.

‘That there is no actual historic record of a drag storytime event in the Cumberland LGA goes to show that this ban was merely manufactured to incite hate. 

‘Clearly, drag bans do not exist in isolation. The attack on drag is part of a broader attack on queerness itself.’

Cr Christou told Daily Mail banning drag storytime events on council premises ‘has got nothing to do with homophobia or hatred’.

‘They can spin any narrative they like,’ he said. 

‘The reality is let kids be kids, let them be innocent. Stop indoctrinating them from an early age on sexual preferences and exposing them to drag queens.’

An amended motion to ban drag storytime was moved by Our Local Community councillor Paul Garrard, seconded by Cr Christou and passed in front of a packed public gallery in February 2024.

‘We do not support exposing children to diverse expressions of gender identity, nor do we believe in any way that it supports their natural development of inclusiveness,’ Cr Garrard said at the time.

Cr Hamed, who was deputy mayor at the time, described the motion at the time as a ‘cheap political stunt’ which amounted to ‘fear-mongering’.

Three months after the drag storytime ban, Cumberland Council reversed its decision to pull a book called Same-Sex Parents from library shelves. 

The book had been borrowed just once in five years and was moved to the junior non-fiction section.

The motion to reverse the ban, which was put forward by Labor councillor Kun Huang, was passed by 13 votes to two following a marathon debate and fiery protests outside the chambers.