A Bay Area bookstore’s “story hour event” was disrupted by protesters yelling homophobic & transphobic slurs Wednesday night. Drag queen Toria Tia was finishing reading a story to about 20 children in a Campbell bookstore when she was interrupted by a group of protesters. A man reportedly made it inside and raised his hand to say, “I looked you up on the internet and I saw pornography,” a claim organizers have called “ridiculous.” Tia described the attack in an interview, stating that “he was saying like some really transphobic stuff. Like he was calling me a ‘transvestite’ and I shouldn’t be let around the children, and the parents should be ashamed of themselves.”
As the man berated Tia with transphobic slurs, adult spectators reportedly started chanting “story time” and used a pride flag to hide the man from the children’s sight.
Employees of the bookstore have said that they were receiving calls from disgruntled people in the days prior to the event, who threatened to call the police during the event if it wasn’t canceled.
Protesters were eventually forced to leave the bookstore but continued their obstruction outside. Tori Tia kept reading regardless, something she said she couldn’t have done without the support she received from the parents and other members of the LGBT community that were present.