Peaches Christ, a San Francisco-based drag queen, is hitting back after Google distanced itself from a performance of hers that the company initially sponsored.
Google’s reversal followed an internal petition that a few hundred employees signed opposing the event, citing religious discrimination. The performance was set to be the last of several LGBTQ+ Pride events sponsored by Google this month, however, the company removed the show from its internal events page as the petition began circulating.
“Their provocative and inflammatory artistry is considered a direct affront to the religion beliefs and sensitivities of Christians,” the petition alleged, according to USA Today.
Peaches Christ told the Daily Dot that she was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school for 12 years, and studied the Bible before embracing her “queerness after being indoctrinated to think it was a flaw or that it was something that was going to send me to hell.”
She later added: “It’s very easy to see the reclamation of things like nuns or the word ‘Christ’ or the phrase ‘Midnight Mass’ and only be offended and not look at why we’re reclaiming these things.”
A spokesperson for Google told CNBC that the show was planned “without going through our standard events process” and noted that the show was not canceled, saying “it’s open to the public, so employees can still attend.” In lieu of the show, Google set up a separate gathering at its offices, according to the report.
The company did not say if the petition played a role in its decision. Peaches Christ was told that the paperwork for Google to sponsor the show “hadn’t been filed correctly.”
The event went on as planned last night, albeit without Google’s backing—something that Peaches Christ noted she had last year when Google sponsored a drag event she produced the Tuesday after Pride.
“The recently unsanctioned Google Pride event occurred last night and it was a joyous and unapologetic display of fabulous drag artists creating art and entertainment for an appreciative audience, just like last year when it was sanctioned,” she wrote in an Instagram post Wednesday.
Peaches Christ estimated that about 75 people attended last night’s event, including queer Google employees.
“You could tell they were humiliated, they were embarrassed,” she said. “They were all apologizing to all of us queens. And, you know, we know that they didn’t have any control over that situation, but they have to go back to work at that company and know that Google did not have their back.”
Drag performances have become a hot-button issue, with some conservatives inaccurately linking drag to preying on children. Republicans across the country have pushed legislation that would restrict drag performances, as drag events and performers have faced a sharp uptick in threats of violence.
And Peaches Christ is no stranger to the rhetoric either, seeing Facebook comments telling drag queens to kill themselves and that “we’re pedophiles and that we’re grooming children and all of this insane paranoia.”
Replying to a comment about staying “away from the innocent children” under the post about Tuesday’s event, she hit back: “This sort of comment should lead anyone to believe you’ve got something to hide when it comes to children. It’s classic projection and distraction. Your obsession with us is weird for a reason.”
“I do blame the leaders who know better and are spewing this and they’re doing it intentionally,” Peaches Christ said of the increase in hateful rhetoric. “It’s calculated. It’s manipulative. It’s by design, they’re using religion to justify what essentially is going to become more bashings, more suicides, more problems.”
She described today’s climate as “a gross time all around,” because “people are just throwing gasoline on fires everywhere and they’re doing it in the name of religion.”
“Even though I love horror movies and cult movies, at the end of the day, I’m probably more Disney than most of the entertainment they consume,” she added of efforts to paint her and other drag queens as deviants or sexual. “I just happen to be unapologetically queer and they hate that.”
