Panti Bliss’ memoir follows their journey in becoming the drag queen we see today
A school in South London has added drag queen Panti Bliss’s memoir to its curriculum to diversify its teaching.
As per Extra, Alleyn’s School announced that the memoir aims to achieve “genuine diversification.”
Panti Bliss’ memoir, Woman In The Making – Panti’s Memoir, will be taught to Year Nine students, who are normally aged 13-14.
This book is aimed at teaching students about diversity and “queer theory.”
The private school stated they want to challenge “white-centric, patriarchal and cisgender ideologies.”
They’ll achieve this “by adopting non-binary writers as part of a drive to diversify its teachings and explore queer theory.”
Rory O’Neill, known as Panti Bliss, spoke up upon hearing the news:
“I’m delighted that my book is being read by young people.
“I would hope that anybody who reads the book would learn about queer people and the difficulties about the time [of which] I was writing.”
Alleyn’s School will include literature discussing toxic masculinity, such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Tempest, which looks “through the lens of colonialism.”
The synopsis of ‘Woman In The Making – Panti’s Memoir’ reads
‘Woman in the Making is the unforgettable story of how a little boy from a small Irish village in the west grew up to become Panti Bliss,
‘Queen of Ireland and voice of a brave new nation embracing equality, all the colours of the rainbow and, most of all, a glamorous attitude.’
The book’s prologue, written three days after the Marriage Equality referendum, reads:
“Today, as I walked through Dublin city centre, I saw gay couples casually holding hands as they strolled,
“And kissing each other goodbye at bus stops in the late spring sunshine, and it seemed to me that all was changed, changed utterly …”
