A twelve-year-old boy has been crowned Britain’s youngest drag queen after winning a local competition.
Redvers Stokes, who goes by the stage name of Naughty Nora, began wearing women’s clothes before he started primary school.
He has now been crowned the Carnival Drag Queen of Sticker, a small Cornish village, after competing in its annual competition.
Bra
But Deidre Sanders, an agony aunt with a popular national newspaper, said that she “would have been wary of letting a 12-year-old publicly label himself as a drag queen”.
“He’s about to head into the turbulent teenage years,” she said.
The 12-year-old wears his mum’s bra, a tight pink dress, a wig and high heels as part of his routine. He must now perform drag queen duties in the village for the next year.
Worry
Georgie Stokes, Redvers’ mum, said: “We did worry at the beginning about whether it was right for him to segregate himself but we decided to let him get on with it.
“He is totally happy and it is so funny to see him dressed up. His Naughty Nora routine is very convincing and he was so delighted when he won.”
His father Matthew added: “We think it’s hilarious.”
Contest
The village of Sticker, which has a population of around 1,000, started its annual drag queen contest two years ago because not enough girls were competing to be the carnival queen.
Earlier this year it emerged that Stonewall, a homosexual activist group, had sent a teacher training pack to primary schools. It featured a teacher suggesting that boys should be encouraged to wear frocks.
Another teacher urged schools to instruct children to be resilient to the values of their parents and grandparents.