20 Sep Drag performers hold a seminar in Swedish Parliament!
Rainbow Riots founder Petter Wallenberg and his drag theatre company “Bland Drakar och Dragqueens” (“Amongst dragons and dragqueens”) have been invited to hold a seminar for the country’s politicians in the Swedish Parliament. The seminar is being organized in collaboration with Civil Rights Defenders, Jan Jönsson, City Councilor in Stockholm (L), Ulrika Westerlund (MP), and Anna Starbrink (L) from the LGBTQI network in Parliament.
“Now we can’t fight alone anymore,” says Petter Wallenberg, founder and director of “Bland Drakar och Dragqueens.” “We want the country’s politicians to stand behind us in the fight against hatred. Therefore, for the first time, we will share our experiences of hate and threats in the Swedish Parliament.”
The theatre company “Bland Drakar och Dragqueens” established the phenomenon of storytelling shows for children performed by drag performers in Sweden and is the largest in the genre in the entire Nordic region. Since 2017, they have been touring the country and performing up to 200 shows a year. But they also face substantial amounts of hate and threats. For several years, the company’s performances have been targeted by a series of Nazi attacks, and they have endured long periods of online hate storms. Recently, they filed a police report against 106 individuals for hate crimes. The case is currently being investigated by the police’s hate crime unit.
Photo: Johannes Helje.
With support from MUCF