A protester stood in the middle of a throng of people opposed to a Drag Storytime event and repetitively made a Nazi salute towards members of Perth’s LGBTIQA+ community, while vile comments and homophobic slurs were shouted.
The same protester paraded around with a sign reading “Destroy Pedo Freaks”, the same words that were held up by a neo-Nazi group at the ‘Let Women Speak’ event in Melbourne in March.
Around 100 people gathered outside the City of Perth Library on Wednesday to protest against a sold out Drag Storytime event hosted by the City of Perth and a local bookshop. The event took place on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).
A rag-tag assortment of protesters assembled outside the library on Wednesday afternoon. Supporters of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party were prominent, many members of the crowd held up crucifixes and bible quotes, they chanted that they needed to protect people from drag performers and called for laws to be introduced to restrict drag performers to adult venues.
Others argued that limiting drag performances to over 18-year-olds was not enough, outright bans on all drag acts were needed, another man declared that society needed to go even further and outlaw men wearing any form of women’s clothing.
While some protesters were offended by the Nazi salute being made by someone among their ranks, others shouted that they’d rank people with Nazi’s beliefs higher than queer people.
Read the article on Out in Perth.