Lipstick and heels: Stockholm deputy mayor protests far-right opposition to drag queen story time
euronews.comJan Jönsson looks nothing like the picture on his campaign poster: a bespectacled middle-aged man with a receding hairline wearing a sensible blazer.
The 45-year old Liberal party politician was prompted to get dressed up in high drag to show his support for reading events at the Swedish capital's public libraries hosted by drag performers, which have come under fire in recent weeks from the far-right Sweden Democrats. "What I found out was that it really hurts to be a drag queen because you need to wear a corset, and just putting on the makeup took two hours, and I couldn't eat or drink or go to the toilet for six hours!" Jönsson tells Euronews.
As someone who had never dressed in drag before, Jönsson got professional help from Admira Thunderpussy, the winner of the first season of the Drag Race Sverige reality competition, which aired on television in Sweden this spring.
But behind the fun that Jönsson clearly had doing a photoshoot and recording a video, was a much more serious message. "We have seen a worsening situation for LGBTQ persons in general, but against transsexual people specifically.
