Drag Story Hour Protesters Vandalize Home of Gay NYC Lawmaker

The home of a gay New York City politician was targeted and vandalized on Monday evening by anti-drag protesters after he attended a Drag Story Hour event.

Erik Bottcher, 42, is a Democratic member of the New York City Council, representing Chelsea, Greenwich Village and Hell's Kitchen. On Saturday, Bottcher attended a Drag Story Hour event at the Andrew Heiskell branch of the New York Public Library in Chelsea, according to the W42ST news outlet, part of a series of family-friendly events in which performers in drag read books to groups of children.

Due to the increasing trend of anti-transgender and anti-drag-queen rhetoric among conservative circles, Story Hour events have become targets for anti-LGBTQ protests in the last year. The Saturday event in Chelsea that Bottcher was present for was targeted by a group calling themselves "Gays Against Groomers."

According to W42ST, the group claims to be a "coalition of gay people who oppose the recent trend of indoctrinating and sexualizing children under the guise of 'LGBTQIA+'."

Members of the group later showed up at Bottcher's apartment and, as he explained on Twitter, were able to gain entry into the building. The councilman shared a video that he said showed protesters getting into physical altercations with some of his neighbors.

"Tonight the Drag Story Hour protesters came to my apartment building and gained entry," Bottcher tweeted, alongside photos of hateful messages written on sidewalks near his home. "My super called the cops and two of them were arrested for trespassing. This is pure hate, unmasked. If they think this is going to intimidate us, they're mistaken. Our resolve is strengthened."

Prior to the confrontation at his apartment, Bottcher also tweeted the group had targeted the building where his district office is located, vandalizing walls with messages targeting him.

"Today people who call themselves 'gays against groomers' vandalized the hallway outside our district office," Bottcher wrote. "We will not be cowed. We will not be silenced. We will continue to stand up against hate."

Bottcher's situation drew reactions on social media from prominent New York politicians, including Mayor Eric Adams and Representative Jerry Nadler.

"This is outrageous. Completely outrageous," Adams tweeted. "Erik, you stand up for our city every single day and these cowardly bigots have no place here. Thank you to the NYPD for your quick work and sending the message that this hate will not go unchallenged."

"I stand with my friend [Erik Bottcher], Drag Queen Story Hour, and the LGBTQ+ community against this disgusting display of hate," Nadler tweeted. "Elected officials have a responsibility to condemn this false, dangerous rhetoric that's being used as a new way to discriminate against the community."

Jonathan Hamlit, executive director of Drag Queen Story Hour, released a statement to Newsweek saying, "Any attempt to criminalize our work is rooted in tired homophobic and transphobic hate and misinformation, and we refuse to give in to people who are too bigoted and boring to comprehend our vision for a world in which every child can be safe fully expressing who they are.

"As many of the books that we read to children make perfectly clear: words and actions have consequences. It is unfathomable that adults would terrorize advocates and our drag performers at story hours, and we are livid that conservative politicians and right-wing media are increasingly inciting violence, rather than working to end it. We remain committed to creating safe opportunities for children to learn about the diversity of the world around them and express their most fabulous selves."

Newsweek reached out to Bottcher for comment.