‘Share far and wide’: how the far right seeds and spreads drag storytime protests

On the day of a drag storytime show hosted by the City of Perth Library earlier this month, 6PR Mornings host Gary Adshead took calls from listeners about the event.

He welcomed a caller “Dennis” who said it was “complete child exploitation”. He breathlessly ranted down the phone: “The fact that there’s even an argument that something like this has any validity shows just how far as a society we’ve gone. These people are child groomers.”

The caller was Dennis Huts, a well-known former member of the far-right extremist group United Patriots Front. He went on to gleefully share a clip of the interview on his Telegram account, and was later captured repeatedly making a Nazi salute at a protest against the drag storytime show later that day.

Huts is one of the many extreme figures and groups who use both traditional and social media to seed anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment around the country. Beyond breadcrumbing — “where a person drops nibbles of interest with the aim of engaging with someone else” as a recruitment tool — neo-Nazi figures and groups have emerged as a major instigator and promoter of drag show protests across Australia. The far right has not only been an organising force behind these protests but crucial to their spread.

Crikey has seen more than 10 examples of protests launched or promoted by online neo-Nazi figures and groups, who are not named here so as to avoid unnecessarily amplifying their reach.

In some cases, these protests were the brainchild of these far-right figures. One such example was at Newcastle Library’s monthly Rainbow Storytime which has been held repeatedly without issue. 

Earlier this month, a member of the National Socialist Network posted a picture of the online event listing to Telegram with the caption “Share far and wide. This sick agenda has to be stopped”. This message was shared across Telegram, including a channel popular with the freedom movement, and across other social media channels. This resulted in a protest against the event (albeit one that was drastically outnumbered by counter-protesters).

Another post about drag show protests from a fringe, extreme account spread across less extreme and unaffiliated groups. In another example a single Telegram post from an Australian far-right “pseudo-news” website about the Perth protest was forwarded at least 17 times through other conspiracy Telegram channels.

The far right is open about its motivation for these protests. Online, it posts about how it believes its attacks on drag shows — which are based on unfounded smears that associate drag and the LGBTQIA+ community with paedophilia — are more popular with the general public than its other views. 

“This week represents a swing of 98% of the population towards an openly ‘Nazi’ position,” National Socialist Network leader Thomas Sewell celebrated on Telegram after the Monash Council cancelled its event in response to threats of violence.

But ironically these far-right groups have also shown themselves to tolerate the views they claim to be campaigning against. Late last week, an anonymous anti-fascist researcher Alternative Media Watchers posted clips of an Australian neo-Nazi, who has been actively promoting drag show protests online, arguing, on a Twitter Space, in favour of having relationships with underage women. 

“Well I don’t give a shit about the laws of this country, according to Catholic canon law, a woman can marry at 14 and a man can marry at 16, so, to me that’s reasonable,” he said.