An American accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a church hosting drag shows in Ohio, in the northern United States, has been indicted by federal justice as debates on gender issues tense the country .
Aimenn Penny, 20, was arrested and charged on March 31 with charges including “arson” and “possession of an incendiary device,” according to a statement from the US Department of Justice released Monday.
Aimenn Penny is accused of trying to burn down a church after learning that she was preparing to host several drag shows, events where drag queens perform by adopting exaggerated codes of femininity, such as wigs, shimmering dresses, stilettos and makeup.
The young man was part of a neo-Nazi group and took part in a demonstration in early March against the holding of a “Drag Queen Story Hour”, reading meetings for children where the storytellers are drag queens, in the northern Ohio town of Wadsworth, according to court documents.
At the event, Aimenn Penny carried a Nazi flag and shouted “racist and homophobic slurs,” according to the same source. Aimenn Penny, who admitted to the facts, assured the federal police that he was “looking to protect the children and put an end to the drag show” after watching videos of French drag shows.
This case comes at a time when drag queens have become the new targets of American conservatives, on the front line of the “culture wars” that are inflaming the country.
Launched in 2015 in San Francisco, the Drag Queen Story Hour has thus become the nightmare of the right, which sees it at best as activism, at worst as a show of a sexual nature, dangerous for children. Aimenn Penny faces up to 20 years in prison.
