Two Lincoln drag queens feel they have been made to look like 'sexual monsters' after the high school they attended cancelled a planned talk. The two performers, Lin Gerie and Seven, had approached Toot Hill School in Bingham, Nottinghamshire in March to ask if they could talk to students about growing up queer, being bullied and becoming successful.
Seven said that the school had been initially on board with a planned assembly but appeared to change its mind on Friday, July 1. This was just one week before the talk was due to take place. Toot Hill School said that they had cancelled due to 'adult content published on their social media accounts which is not suitable for children' reports Lincolnshire Live.
Speaking with Lincolnshire Live, Seven said: "We have some things that are tongue in cheek but we aren’t these dirty, sexual monsters online which they seem to almost be portraying. We've got age restrictions on who can see our stuff, we would have been more than willing to take anything down.
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"They didn’t give us a choice, it was just a zero to 100 of 'we aren’t having you in the school'. It is discrimination essentially. We want people to know that we tried to do something, we just wanted to let people know that we were trying to do something good."
She added: "All we wanted to do was help out at least one child, who may have been struggling as we did when we were there at that school ourselves. However, we have been blacklisted as if we are some problem to society, and have been described as a safeguarding issue to children."
Dr Chris Eardley, head of Toot Hill School said: "We did initially invite Seven and Lin into our school as part of our PRIDE celebrations. Unfortunately, the decision was taken to cancel this visit due to adult content published on their social media accounts, which is not suitable for children.
"This content was brought to my attention after we had invited the drag queens into school. I would like to stress that this decision would have been the same for guest speakers to the school of any sexual orientation."
He added: "We celebrate diversity and educate all our students about the protected characteristics. We have a large diversity group at Toot Hill School that consists of students from all year groups, including the college.
"They played a large part in planning our PRIDE celebrations, culminating in a large student march on PRIDE day and they were extremely happy with the huge involvement from both students and staff. We teach our students about the protected characteristics throughout our curriculum so all students can see themselves in the curriculum and experience a positive narrative."
Seven has lived in Lincoln for seven years after first moving to study at Lincoln College. Lin has lived in the city for five years.
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