A mother is receiving harsh criticism for allowing her 10-year-old son to appear in Huck Magazine posing next to a naked drag queen. The boy, Nemis Quinn Mélançon-Golden, as dressed in drag for the recent photo shoot.
The Huck piece highlighted Nemis’ life as a “baby drag queen” named “Queen Lactacia.” Nemis is considered to be the most prominent child drag star in Canada.
The photo shoot also included an unpublished photo of the child posing next to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Violet Chachki. Chacki is pictured embracing the 10-year-old while wearing nothing but a wig, high heels and a piece of cloth to cover his genitals.
The photo was posted to Twitter and immediately drew backlash.
Another user simply posted a screenshot of Matthew 18:5-6, which reads: “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
But Nemis’ mother says she doesn’t care what people say. She has supported and encouraged Nemis to do drag shows since he was 8 years old. The young boy became famous after he appeared on stage with popular drag queen Bianca Del Rio in 2017. A video clip of the two on stage together went viral.
“That video happened and everyone went crazy,” Nemis’ mother, Jessica, said in the Huck piece.
Shortly after the video went viral, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro publicly criticized Nemis’ mother for sexualizing her son and choosing to “destroy her kid’s life” for “attention.”
Jessica acknowledges that drag does have a sexual aspect but says she wants her son to “feel beautiful.”
“Drag is an adult arena and that’s where people question our judgment,” said Jessica. “So we have to censor things. He knows there are adult aspects of drag that he’s not allowed to apply to his show.”
“We would never try to overtly sexualize our child. But if he wears something that makes him feel beautiful, what right do I have to stop him wearing that dress because it might cause people to think things they shouldn’t be thinking? It’s a circular problem,” she added.
Nemis is not the first child drag star to make headlines.
An 11-year-old boy named Desmond Napoles performed at a gay bar in New York City last month.
The child performed a sexually suggestive dance number while adult men threw dollar bills at him.
