LOCAL

How ‘Drag Storybook Hour’ set off culture wars at a Virginia community center

By Antonio Olivo
Yesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The trouble at the McLean Community Center started last summer, after the Northern Virginia cultural facility co-sponsored “Drag StoryBook Hour” for children during Pride Month.

Some in the affluent D.C. suburb of nearly 50,000 were outraged, accusing the center’s leaders of imposing their liberal ideology on the preschoolers who listened as drag queens in makeup and brightly patterned outfits read aloud books about gender fluidity.

Now, in an example of how nothing is safe from the nation’s raging culture wars, there is a power struggle underway at the 47-year-old Fairfax County community center whose board is usually occupied with such matters as whether to purchase a ping-pong table for the building or how plans are going for the annual McLean Day family festival, where the board’s elections take place.

Although the volunteer board with no taxing authority is hardly a steppingstone to higher office, this May’s election for three open seats — a contest that usually turns out about 300 voters — has attracted nine candidates. Among them: Katharine Gorka, a former Trump administration official who — along with her husband, Sebastian Gorka, an ex-aide to President Donald Trump — has railed against social equity and inclusion policies such as the one the community center used as a guide in selecting the drag event.

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By Antonio Olivo
Antonio Olivo covers government, politics and other issues in Northern Virginia. He has also reported from Afghanistan and Mexico after joining The Washington Post in 2013. Twitter https://twitter.com/aolivo