Over the weekend, a gay bar in Dallas, Texas drew fire for hosting a drag show in which children tipped performers and were permitted onstage. Even before the recognition of “Pride Month” and the increased visibility of grooming behavior from many LGBTQ activists, sexualized drag shows were already creeping into government education — and parents have finally had enough.
In the span of just a few weeks, The Daily Wire reported on two separate drag queen shows held in public high schools. In reaction to the shows, Carl Trueman — professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College — told The Daily Wire that children are “the perfect target for groups whose purpose is the subversion of the parent-child bond.”
Parents at both schools could not agree more.
‘I, For One, Am Fed Up’
Last month, the Genders & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) club at Ankeny High School in Iowa welcomed drag queens to perform and offer advice about gender identity to students. The school district is currently conducting an investigation and stated that the event occurred without authorization from administrators.
However, Kimberly Reicks — whose daughter attends the high school and whose three other children attend school in the district — told The Daily Wire that she was “appalled” and “disgusted” when she saw footage of the show on social media.
“When they start using the public schools to host exotic shows for minor children, that’s where I have an issue and I draw the line,” she said, adding that, to her knowledge, parents were not aware of the show.
Reicks also claimed that the school has covered up similar incidents in the past.
“I, for one, am fed up. I am done with the indoctrination and sexualization they are trying to force upon our children,” Reicks continued. “And so are hundreds of parents… I will stop at nothing to ensure our schools are once again a safe environment for all students of all backgrounds to attend.”
‘I Can’t Believe This Just Happened’
In April, the GSA club at Hempfield High School in Pennsylvania hosted multiple performers after school without parents’ knowledge, and the club’s co-adviser shared the performers’ Instagram accounts, all four of which include sexually suggestive content, with her students.
“Our concern is that grown men entered our high school with or without background checks,” Meridith Hilt, a mother of two children in the school district, told The Daily Wire. “They were dressed scantily and performed in a provocative, sexualized manner for minor children.”
According to Hilt, administrators have not yet clarified to parents whether the performers had clearances or background checks to allow them entry.
“Most parents are outraged and shocked,” Hilt added. “Parents filed a Right to Know request for details. We want to know who attended; allegedly, seventh and eighth grade children reported being present at the show. We asked for video surveillance footage and financial records for the club. The dancers were paid, and we would like to know if it was taxpayer money.”
Likewise, Stacy Hernandez — a parent with three children in the school district, including one son who attends the high school — told The Daily Wire that students initially thought the event “was a joke” when it was announced over the loudspeaker. “When he saw the videos of it that everybody was showing him, he was like, ‘I can’t believe this just happened in my school.’”
As with Ankeny High School, it appears that the drag queen show at Hempfield was not an isolated incident.
“Hempfield has a problem with spreading information out that should be going to people,” Hernandez said. “There’s been a pattern with a lot of things happening.”
‘Expressive Individualism’
Carl Trueman — the author of “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” and an interviewee in Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh’s blockbuster documentary “What is a Woman?” — explained to The Daily Wire that the drag shows at both schools were only possible thanks to the last few hundred years of Western philosophy, even if the average American may not be consciously aware of it.
“This has its roots in the impact of the thought of figures such as Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, and, more recently, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler,” Trueman said. “But few people read these characters — more relevant to the man or woman in the street is the way the message of a highly sexualized expressive individualism is preached by commercials, movies, soap operas, and sitcoms.”
The ideology of these philosophers fomented a phenomenon called “expressive individualism,” which “intuits that the true self is that which we are inside, the inner emotions and psychological feelings that we experience,” Trueman said.
“It also leads to the situation where society as a whole is required to affirm that person in that public performance since failure to do so is, in effect, to deny that someone is who they think they are,” he continued. “That, in a nutshell, is where the Western world is today.”
Indeed, for those seeking to construct a society with no sexual taboos, children are the ideal place to start.
Trueman’s final comments for The Daily Wire presented a troubling observation: “Destroy the bond between parents and children and you have destroyed the most powerful and influential pre-political bond of influence and loyalty that stands in the way of the various lobby groups trying to drive the direction of our culture.”
The views expressed in this piece are the authors own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.