🐱 Inside the UK's first Down's syndrome drag night

http://www.itv.com/news/2018-06-07/drag-syndrome-inside-the-uks-first-downs-syndrome-drag-night/

The UK's first drag event featuring performers with Down's syndrome will pave the way for more inclusivity in the arts, organisers say.

"Drag Syndrome" welcomed five newcomers to the drag scene, one of them being Otto Baxter, 30, an award-winning actor and filmmaker.

The Shakespearean actor is no stranger to the stage, but believes the act has helped improve his confidence and self-esteem.

"I've really enjoyed being a drag - I definitely got more confident and I'm more comfortable."

He added: "Being a drag is actually dazzling, darlings."

Credit: ITV News
Daniel Vais, the event's creative director, believes the project has challenged stereotypes and allowed many people with Down's syndrome to express themselves through a new style of performance.

While London's drag scene has warmly welcomed the event, they are aware they may face criticism.

"I think some people will find it uncomfortable because they feel uncomfortable with a different sex wearing the opposite sex's outfit in general, so it's not because they are Down's syndrome," he told ITV News.

"But you saw the artists are really up for it and this is part of their artistic practice, so this is what we focus on - on ourselves, not the outside."

About 750 babies with Down's syndrome are born in the UK each year and it is a condition that affects people of all ages and ethnicities.

According to the Down's syndrome Association, there are approximately 40,000 peoplewith Down's syndrome living in the UK.

Credit: ITV News
Otto's mother Lucy revealed her pride at seeing her son - along with his three brothers - channeling their creativity through drag.

"The reason that I adopted four people with Down's syndrome was because I used to go to an old Victorian hospital where people with Down's syndrome were just shut away," she said.

"I recognised that they were very, very talented and very interesting people who we had just shunned - so actually seeing them doing this is just what I dreamed of back then."

Credit: ITV News
Daniel now plans to take Drag Syndrome to a global audience, with numerous clubs across the world making offers to host the night.

"I think it's new for contemporary culture to include people with learning disabilities in avant-garde culture or in high culture - or in high fashion. It's quite new to everyone, but from what I see - it works really well, really, really well actually."

 

[IN 041]

I think it's time to revive the Aktion Tiergartenstraße 4 program

This but unironically.
Back in my first year of college, I was taking a speech class. The professor of it was a really typical liberal pseudointellectual type who vastly overestimates their own intelligence. I always thought he was a decently nice person until one day he started talking about his personal life. He told us how a few years back he and his wife had conceived and at a point early in the pregnancy found out that the child would be born with Down's Syndrome. He talked about how they had a conversation about whether or not to terminate the preganancy and that they initially decided to do so. This next part will stick with me until I die. He then looked up, and had the weirdest look in his eyes. He started talking about how he realized that he should try to give the kid a good life and all of this shit. In my mind I thought to myself, "You sick, twisted, fuck. You are so obsessed with seeming like a good person that you would condemn a child to a broken existence and would enslave you and your wife to take care of it. You didn't have the balls to do the right thing and now you're going to moralize to us about how virtuous you are." I find this story just existentially horrifying. To think that some people would consider such cruelty as merciful. And if I had told him my thoughts on it, he would call me the bad person.
Fucking clown world.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

I think it's time to revive the Aktion Tiergartenstraße 4 program

The map is not the territory, my dude. Does anyone here seriously think that the downies are the actual people behind this shit? Of course they aren't, they're retarded. The actual assholes are the people pulling the strings, and just like Desmond, Jazz, and all the other cases we've exhaustively documented here on the farms, the blame pretty clearly lies with the sick fuck caretakers sexually exploiting people who aren't legally competent to manage their own lives for their own agenda-driven purposes.

This but unironically.
Back in my first year of college, I was taking a speech class. The professor of it was a really typical liberal pseudointellectual type who vastly overestimates their own intelligence. I always thought he was a decently nice person until one day he started talking about his personal life. He told us how a few years back he and his wife had conceived and at a point early in the pregnancy found out that the child would be born with Down's Syndrome. He talked about how they had a conversation about whether or not to terminate the preganancy and that they initially decided to do so. This next part will stick with me until I die. He then looked up, and had the weirdest look in his eyes. He started talking about how he realized that he should try to give the kid a good life and all of this shit. In my mind I thought to myself, "You sick, twisted, fuck. You are so obsessed with seeming like a good person that you would condemn a child to a broken existence and would enslave you and your wife to take care of it. You didn't have the balls to do the right thing and now you're going to moralize to us about how virtuous you are." I find this story just existentially horrifying. To think that some people would consider such cruelty as merciful. And if I had told him my thoughts on it, he would call me the bad person.
Fucking clown world.

Hi Mr. Dawkins, welcome to the Farms.

 

[X Prime]

Honestly though, what's wrong with the ACLU these days? It seems their goals are less focused on helping people protect their civil liberties, and more focused on stuff like suing high school faculty for refusing to refer to a self-proclaimed "Satanic priest" teenage edgelord as "Reverend." I don't remember details of the case, but really, I'd be surprised if the kid was not laughed out of the room.

The ACLU was always like this. However, they deliberately maintained a PR image of political neutrality by periodically taking free speech cases for neo-Nazis and such. Most of their cases are like what you describe.

What changed was Charlottesvile. They thought they could discard the mask due to that.

 

[Pitere pit]

Did I wake up in some South Park episode? Because it seems that reality is getting nuttier every day it pass.
When I was a kid, I used to read science mags which told me by 2019 we would have cool stuff, like Thorium-based energy plants or even some space elevator. And what do we get? Downies on Drag and being abused.
If this is normal and acceptable right now, I don't want to know what will be in the 20s. I want to get out of this ride, is becoming far more stupider than I thought.

 

[kcbbq]

ACLU: freedom of association? Not on my watch, motherfuckers.

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

They probably think they're dressing like clowns or something.

"Clowns for Downs"?

 

[Scratch This Nut]

This but unironically.
Back in my first year of college, I was taking a speech class. The professor of it was a really typical liberal pseudointellectual type who vastly overestimates their own intelligence. I always thought he was a decently nice person until one day he started talking about his personal life. He told us how a few years back he and his wife had conceived and at a point early in the pregnancy found out that the child would be born with Down's Syndrome. He talked about how they had a conversation about whether or not to terminate the preganancy and that they initially decided to do so. This next part will stick with me until I die. He then looked up, and had the weirdest look in his eyes. He started talking about how he realized that he should try to give the kid a good life and all of this shit. In my mind I thought to myself, "You sick, twisted, fuck. You are so obsessed with seeming like a good person that you would condemn a child to a broken existence and would enslave you and your wife to take care of it. You didn't have the balls to do the right thing and now you're going to moralize to us about how virtuous you are." I find this story just existentially horrifying. To think that some people would consider such cruelty as merciful. And if I had told him my thoughts on it, he would call me the bad person.
Fucking clown world.

>Forming an emotional attachment to your unborn offspring and wanting to give them a quality of life that they are capable of having makes you evil.

K.

Also the fact that this troupe is directed by a neurotypical person kinda rubs me the wrong way. If this Republican primary has a history of denying service to LGBT+ people then I’d be more sympathetic.

 

[HeyYou]

Also the fact that this troupe is directed by a neurotypical person kinda rubs me the wrong way. If this Republican primary has a history of denying service to LGBT+ people then I’d be more sympathetic.

Refusing to let LGBT people into your venue to watch a show is one thing, refusing to host a group is another. It's his venue, he can do what he wants.

 

[Unog]

I thought private businesses didn't have to put up with expression and speech they disagreed with?

The complaint also claimed discrimination on the basis of sex, considering they would be performing in drag.

The most retarded thing I've read today, right here.

 

[Socrates]

I wouldn't want my name attached to this shit either knowing that there's a 99% chance of a sexual abuse scandal coming out within a decade over it.

 

[usernames can change now!]

This is literally fucking circus sideshow tier exploitation of the disabled under the guise of being "woke". I'd ask if the next step is minstrel shows but that might raise uncomfortable questions about rap music.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

claiming that he was discriminating against the performers because of their disability

That's exactly what he's doing and he's not wrong. The idea that any form of discrimination is malicious is one of the stupidest things our society has fallen for.

 

[Duke Nukem]

It's not "these days". The ACLU's always been like this, for every actually important and notable case they take, there's like a dozen examples of them suing towns because they put up a natativity display at christmas but didn't put up an inflatable santa as well, or something like that.

That's considered par for the course, complaining that there isn't a menorah next to the Christmas tree and shit. But normal rules don't apply to most modern things, Clown World rules do.

They're not known for taking the best cases, but the Clowns With Downs case we have here is certainly not helping their cause.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

What's next, the ACLU suing people for not waxing a woman's testicles?

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

ACLU unintentionally makes large donation to previously unknown Republican's election campaign.

 

[Ruin]

So maybe my galaxy brains just aren't big enough to comprehend this shit but isn't putting the literally retarded in dresses and making them dance for our amusement basically a minstrel or freak show? You know those things we got rid of because they were abusive and exploitative?

 

[NerdShamer]

Nice to see that the ACLU is still copying Canada's Civil Rights Tribunal. With that said, I doubt if this will actually go anywhere because of the 1st Amendment and lack of an actual fight.

Plus, the Brits are too lazy to remember why America was founded, nowadays.

 

[Antipathy]

Did I wake up in some South Park episode? Because it seems that reality is getting nuttier every day it pass.
When I was a kid, I used to read science mags which told me by 2019 we would have cool stuff, like Thorium-based energy plants or even some space elevator. And what do we get? Downies on Drag and being abused.
If this is normal and acceptable right now, I don't want to know what will be in the 20s. I want to get out of this ride, is becoming far more stupider than I thought.

 

[Coldgrip]

So maybe my galaxy brains just aren't big enough to comprehend this shit but isn't putting the literally exceptional in dresses and making them dance for our amusement basically a minstrel or freak show? You know those things we got rid of because they were abusive and exploitative?

"It's not wrong when we do it."

​

- Some ACLU faggot, probably.​

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

This is literally fucking circus sideshow tier exploitation of the disabled under the guise of being "woke". I'd ask if the next step is minstrel shows but that might raise uncomfortable questions about rap music.

I agree with the wannabe politician on this one. It seemed more like they're exploiting the mentally vulnerable than anything else, when I first saw this. Honestly though, what's wrong with the ACLU these days? It seems their goals are less focused on helping people protect their civil liberties, and more focused on stuff like suing high school faculty for refusing to refer to a self-proclaimed "Satanic priest" teenage edgelord as "Reverend."

ICBW, but it seems like drag shows over the years have come to have more sexual overtones. It used to be the case people in drag would dress up, perform solely for entertainment value, and that was it. Now, there seems to be such a strong emphasis on sexuality and any sexual aspects of being in drag.

While there are high-functioning people with downs Syndrome (actor Chris Burke comes to mind), the truth remains most if not all have some degree of diminished mental capacity and would do anything they're told if it's touted as fun or a good idea. They simply lack both the ability to think about what they're being told and the mental capacity to question whether their being exploited or led astray. If these particular drag shows go out of their way to be gratuitously sexual, that could be easily seen as exploitative. I can't blame Mr. Meijer for wanting to nope the heck out of hosting this event. Even if the shows aren't sexualized ( at best), the performances still come across as the type of freak shows long shunned because of their demeaning, exploitative nature.

Just as those liberals that say, "Sex work is empowering," seem to ignore those being exploited into servicing others sexually, I'd question the motives and intentions of anyone encouraging people with Downs Syndrome to add overtly sexual overtones to their drag show if that's what happens in their performances.

EDIT: And you know what? Fuck the left. They are using Down Syndrome people just as an excuse to further call this Republican running for congress a "bigot." They do NOT care about the "performers" in the slightest. Obviously.

I'd argue this is just another example of TDS and anti-Republican/conservative sentiment by the ACLU. The fact they're using people with Downs Syndrome as human shields in this spat is beyond horrifying.

Is this really news?

Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but it goes to show how much people are willing to shit on Republicans or anyone with any type of conservative values.

What's next, the ACLU suing people for not waxing a woman's testicles?

Please don't give the ACLU any ideas.
[E: Spelling & clarity]