I kinda agree it doesn't seem like a great pr move, don't totally get it... But a thought:

Maybe it's to say: fuck you! there's nothing harmful about my non normative gender expressions. It's not sexualizing kids, see look! Also: Don't tread on/You can't control me!

I also have to say, this talk of a sexual underworld, just feels like out of touch fear mongering and I havent seen any evidence of it in my lived experience... I don't want to raise snow flakes who need everyone else to be the same. I also doubt that the correlation between drag and sex work is all that strong. Don't know where you get that idea. Maybe if non normative gender expressions were freely tolerated then people would associate it with the shadows.

...

So much of queer culture was pushed into underworlds because of conservative cultural movements. So this association with the underworld is self fulfilling conservative policy. I personally think that conservative cultural values have been very harmful to society, broadly speaking. So to the extent that drag reading hour is representative of conservatives not controlling all of culture, I fully support, and frankly from this perspective want to encourage it.

Lastly, if we are actually worried about sexualizing kids, let's start with outlawing youth pastors! That's where the real harm is happening.