Congrats to Conchita, and thanks from me and my kids.

For several years now, my kids and I have enjoyed watching the Eurovision Song Contest together. We pick favorites, watch certain ones over and over again, and generally have a good time. I like it both because it exposes them to a wide variety of cultures (even if only a little bit), languages, and different accents (whether singing in their native language or in English). And it's always got several big moments, and occasionally wacky stuff.
This year was a bit different, though, because the winner was Conchita Wurst of Austria (aka, "Thomas "Tom" Neuwirth. Neuwirth describes himself as a gay man and uses female pronouns to describe his Wurst character."). Wurst is an unusual celebrity, because though she dresses in drag, she wears a full beard. It's something you can't miss. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conchita_Wurst

I knew my kids would comment and have questions. So once we watched her performance of Rise Like a Phoenix, I took the opportunity to give them the basics of the situation today with the LGBT community, starting with what LGBT stands for, discussing the civil rights movement going on right regarding gay marriage, and even getting into the somewhat complicated details about Transgender variations, including differences of body characteristics, mental characteristic (what you feel like), romantic/emotional characteristics (whom you are attracted to, whom you love), and how you dress. 

All that, to get to the notion of "drag" and "drag queens". I was glad to be able to show them some pictures of some of my friends who exhibit some of these variations away from gender norms, and give them a sense of just how different people can be.

I asked them to imagine what it would be like if when someone said, "Annie likes pink dresses and long hair", or "Tommy likes to play sports and pretend to shoot guns" -- things they never *decided* to like, but just turn out to like because of who they are -- how they would feel if other people heard that and reflexively said "Ew". 

And I told them I thought the LGBT civil rights movement was the modern equivalent of the emancipation of the slaves, and giving women the right to vote. In general, people don't choose to be gay or bi or transgendered any more than their mother and I chose to be heterosexual. We never decided these things. We just are these things.

They took it really well, and were very interested. And for some reason it made them want to give me big hugs. And then we watched Conchita Wurst a second time. Really great song. Overdue educational experience.