Drag queen storyteller for kids Aida H Dee receives violent threats after home address leaks
Aida H Dee, founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK, is ‘scared’ after her home address was shared on a right-wing chat group. (Provided)
A right-wing mob threatened to bring “every weapon in their arsenal” to celebrated drag queen Aida H Dee’s home after her address was leaked on a hateful chat group.
Aida, who is the founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK, tells PinkNews that she’s been sent vile hate “day after day”, feeling like she’s been “stabbed from all directions”. But she says things escalated after someone shared her home address with a messaging group composed of thousands of right-wingers.
She says she’s now received horrific threats of violence against her if she doesn’t back down from her tour promoting diversity, acceptance and reading through kid-friendly storytelling events at libraries across the UK.
“There’s a group of 31,400 people who know where I live,” she says. “People in this group, they’ve said they’re going to protest outside if this tour doesn’t get cancelled.”
She adds: “They are threatening me. They said that they need to use ‘every weapon in their arsenal’.
“It is scary. It takes one out of these 31,400 people, one of them to do something that could damage me [or] my body.
“Throw acid. Stab me. Trash my house. Throw a brick. Push me, and I fall over and hit my head against the curb.”
Aida H Dee says she doesn’t “feel safe” in her home or in public as she’s constantly “looking around for any familiar faces” that she’s identified from the group. She says she believed some people in the group “had been arrested for impersonating officers” while others had “gone to jail for stabbing people”.
Aida H Dee says threats and hate from vile bigots has “fuelled” her to organise more inclusive events across the UK. (Provided)
Aida explains that she would feel “extremely alone” in the wake of such hate if she didn’t have thousands of people who support her. In fact, she says that the vitriol from right-wingers has actually “fuelled” her to “organise more tours across the country” and help more kids discover the world of inclusive literature.
“It definitely does wear me down, but I’m also sitting here at the same time saying, ‘Bright it on,’” Aida says.
She continues: “Because no matter how many times you call me a paedophile, no matter how many times you call me a groomer, no matter how many times you call me up and say you’re gonna come kill me – it doesn’t matter.
“Every personal attack they make is just evidence for the reason I’m doing what I’m doing, and all they do is validate why I do what I do.
“They may be attacking me, and it may get me down, but it’s also the fuel that keeps me going.”
She tells PinkNews it was important for her to be present for young queer people. Aida H Dee says she was a “victim of Section 28” and felt “robbed” of openly LGBTQ+ people that she could look up to as a kid.
“I’ve said this many times: Role models are like oxygen. If you don’t have one, you die,” she says. “You die with a lack of a role model, and you don’t realise it’s gone until it’s gone a bit like oxygen.”
Aida feels like she’s started to make a difference and says she even got a message from a young person she met years ago. She recalls how she was invited to tea by some parents to talk to their young child – who was probably “10, 12 years old” at the time – at a place she regularly performs.
Aida says she chatted with the kid about their interests, and she thought it was amazing experience.
She says the kid, who is now a teen, randomly messaged her recently saying they were “so happy” and grateful to have her in their life to look up to.
“It’s those moments which make me cry,” she says. “That’s what I do what I do. It’s so that I know these kids don’t have to go through what I went through.”
She adds: “Because all these kids who have had role models – these straight, white people – they haven’t lived without oxygen.
“It’s so unrelatable to them. They can’t grasp it, and these people sending me hate are just the validation I need to keep going.”
