The University of North Florida’s LGBT Resource Center held its annual sex week event March 6-13. This year’s theme was 20/20 Vision - Seeing Sex Clearly. According to the LGBT Resource Center Sex Week page on UNF’s website, the week-long event “represents a clearer, inclusive and comprehensive vision of sexual health and education.”

One of the events that took place was Reading Is Not A Drag. This hour-long program featured drag entertainers Sweet Tea the Drag Queen, BeBe Deluxe and Archer Back. Their program was divided into four different parts: “Mind Ya Business Monster,” a role play scenario, a simulation game show and a Q&A with the audience. Their presentation was centered around their life experiences and the do’s and don'ts when it comes to drag.

“Mind Ya Business Monster” was created by BeBe Deluxe as a way to show different scenarios encountered by drag entertainers. BeBe acted out life scenarios with little toy figurines, showing just how disrespectful people can be towards drag entertainers and how they need to “mind their business.”

The second act was a role play scenario in which BeBe Deluxe read scenarios off a card and Sweet Tea the Drag Queen and Archer Back acted them out. Each storyline had three different scenarios and the audience had to choose which one was the most appropriate for each situation.

“Watching them act out the different situations they’ve been in really put into perspective just how intruding some people can be. They’re normal people and should be treated that way,” said Molly-Anne Seymour, a student at UNF.

The simulation game show was a way for them to describe the different stereotypes of drag queens. One at a time, each of them walked around the room holding a card above their head with a word or phrase that people have used to classify them. The other two then tried to describe the word or phrase without actually saying it. They kept doing this until the individual guessed it correctly.

The first example they used was Queer Baiting. Sweet Tea the Drag Queen walked around the room with the phrase held up to her forehead while BeBe Deluxe and Archer Back called out examples. BeBe Deluxe described queer baiting as “that thing when a pop star needs to sell more records, so they start wearing tighter outfits. Like a guy, they wear really tight underwear or if they’re a girl, they make out with a girl in their video.”

The other phrases used in this exercise were Cultural Appropriation, Rainbow Branding, Trans-Exclusionary Feminism, Performative Allyship and RuPaul.

The presentation was then closed out with a Q&A. BeBe Deluxe requested that whoever wanted to ask a question, to say their name and what pronouns they go by.

To learn more about UNF’s Sex Week and future events held by the LGBT Resource Center, visit UNF.edu.