Thanks to the emails, phone calls and letters written by ACL supporters and others, the City of Fremantle has quietly cancelled the All Age Drag Show that was scheduled to take place on Saturday 17 September!
The All Age Drag Show first came to public attention through a Facebook post from the Fremantle Youth Network (FYN), calling for expressions of interest from Drag performers who were available to participate on Saturday 17 September. FYN is a council appointed body of young people who are consulted by the city about youth related matters.
We urged our supporters to write to the Mayor and the Councillors, pointing out that Drag Shows are totally inappropriate for children on account of their highly sexualised content. Most of the councillors knew nothing about this event. Within days, the Fremantle Youth Network’s Facebook page was taken down.
Christian radio station 98five Sonshine FM hosted a segment with Christian lawyer, Simon Creek on 27 July, who highlighted that such shows were problematic from a legal perspective.
The City, realising that it was getting significant push back, announced that the event was definitely going ahead, but would not be open to children under 13 years of age. Children under 18 would need their parents’ or guardians’ permission. We thought that was at least a partial victory for common sense. Children should never be exposed to such hyper sexualised presentations.
However, we noticed that there was no advertising for the event. It was nowhere to be found on the City’s social media, nor was it listed in the ‘events’ section on the City’s website.
So one of our volunteers called the City to ask about it, and was told they needed to send an email request for this information. Our volunteer was delighted when they received the following response…
Thank you for contacting the City of Fremantle.
The City wishes to advise the following:
- There is no public event this weekend.
- There are performers coming together to perform, but not for the public.
- We do not have promotion or ticket sales for an event this weekend.
- We are not disclosing the location of this meeting as it is not a public event.
Kind Regards,
Thank you to everyone who contacted the Councillors and Mayor. It is a timely reminder that we can make a difference!
