City-sponsored 'drag ball for kids' for 'toddlers to teens' to dress up, meet drag performers
Children's book author, Drag Queen Story Hour board member among performers
A Southern California city famous for the Rose Bowl hosted a city-sponsored “drag ball for kids” event where children were encouraged to “dress up” and meet local drag artists.
The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, located about 15 miles north of Los Angeles, hosted the “Play House” on Sunday, a free event billed as a "community drag celebration" where children and families were invited to dress up in wigs, props, jewelry and costumes, meet local drag artists, and participate in activities centered on self-expression.
The event took place at the Armory’s Old Pasadena campus and was organized by Armory Teaching Artist and Education Coordinator Austyn de Lugo-Liston, who received an individual artist grant from the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the city of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division to stage the program.
Described on the Armory’s website as a “community-sanctioned, family-friendly event,” the “Play House” page — which featured an official city of Pasadena logo — announced that “wigs, props, jewelry, and costumes are available for photo ops” and urged attendees to “dress up, express yourself, and celebrate self-expression in a safe, family space.”
In addition to what was billed as “age-appropriate” activities focused on “self-expression to affirm [transgender] and gender-expansive youth,” the “Play House” event also featured local drag performers, including University of Arizona professor Harris Kornstein, who goes by the performer name of “Lil Miss Hot Mess.”
An undated YouTube video shows Kornstein — who is listed on the Trump Kennedy Center website as a board member of the controversial “Drag Queen Story Hour” — in drag makeup and costume at what appears to be a local library or bookstore.
Kornstein’s work has previously drawn national attention. In 2022, then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, publicly criticized one of his books and a related Drag Queen Story Hour event at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, describing it as placing children in proximity to “adults who are intentionally and explicitly sexualized.”
In a March 31 promotional video for the event posted on Instagram, de Lugo-Liston said he was “hosting a drag ball for kids” and wrote: “HAPPY TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY!! PLAY HOUSE is a free event open to the public at the Armory Center for the Arts on April 12th from 12:30p-3:30p! ... Thank you SO much to everyone who has donated so far and continued to spread the word about this event.” The video included him sharing a number of event supplies he recently purchased, including a “big pack” of devil horns which he wore in the video.
About a week earlier, de Lugo-Liston shared a flyer for the event and wrote, “This is an ALL ages event — play is for everybody from toddlers, to teens, and all the grownups in their lives who support them.“
It’s not clear whether the event was paid for using taxpayer funds. The Armory did not respond to a request for comment by The Christian Post.
Founded in 1989 and housed in a historic 1932 California National Guard armory, The Armory is a nonprofit whose stated mission is to “advance equity and social justice through arts education.” More than 80% of its programming serves socioeconomically disadvantaged youth and families, according to the site.
The Armory also features a “Cultural Equity & Inclusion” (CEI) page, which “acknowledges our presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Tongva peoples” and states that “racial inequity is central to most societal issues, particularly when it comes to the distribution of resources.”
