Parents are infuriated after learning that Rocky Top Middle School in Colorado brought in a drag queen for the school’s career day event last Friday without first notifying them of the bizarre guest. The Adams 12 Five Star school district admits that the school should have notified parents in advance, but the district refuses to apologize.
The Daily Wire reports that Rocky Top Middle School invited drag queen “Jessica L’Whor,” who appeared in full drag, to speak to four different 6th-8th grade classes, read a book on bullying, and answer questions pertaining to “negativity and hate” for the school’s career day event. District spokesman Joe Ferdani states that L’Whor, who is a relative of one of the students, was invited to help represent “the diverse backgrounds and careers in the community.”
The district was hoping to underscore just how inclusive it is. Rocky Top principal Chelsea Behanna touted the event as one that showcased the community’s diversity.
In a letter sent to parents on Monday, she said “Jessica read a chapter from ‘Horrible Harry’ and she used the text to illustrate the damage bullies can do, the need to always put kindness and acceptance at the forefront, and the shortsightedness of judging a book by its cover.”
L’Whor is no stranger to controversy and told CBS News that he fully anticipated backlash.
“I knew it was going to be controversial because that was nothing that would be allowed when I was in middle school,” L’Whor said, CBS reports. “At the same time, it opened up a door for conversation.”
“I went to four classes. In every class, one person asked me how to handle negativity and hate,” said L’Whor. “There were a lot of kids interested in how I could have the confidence to go out looking the way I look.”
But parents were angered by both the school’s decision to invite L’Whor in the first place, as well as the school’s failure to notify parents in advance that the school would be hosting such a controversial speaker.
“Parents are in an outrage, and this is so inappropriate on so many levels,” CBS Denver was told in an e-mail.
“I was pretty appalled. I was pretty surprised. It was a shock because no one was notified,” parent Jen Payer said.
And while Ferdani concedes that the school indeed should have notified parents, he refuses to apologize for inviting L’Whor to the school’s event. Instead, he believes that parents would be less angry if they understood the “context” of L’Whor’s visit.
“Parents should have known in advance who was going to be speaking, and that didn’t happen in this particular situation,” he said. “Parents just needed to have more info, and context about what was going to be talked about, and some background on this individual, and they weren’t given that information.”
But the problem with L’Whor’s visit goes beyond parental notification. How the school treats delicate subjects like transsexuality has a significant impact on the students’ understanding of very complicated issues. Is L’Whor transgender, or does he simply enjoy wearing women’s clothing? In either case, what does that say about L’Whor’s mental well-being? Is L’Whor’s transexual lifestyle a career, which is a choice, or is it how he identifies? In this PC culture, one can only imagine how L’Whor was presented to the students. It’s unlikely that the event touched on gender dysphoria as a mental-health issue and instead presented L’Whor’s lifestyle as perfectly normal when the reality is that it’s not.
And how will this affect the young people at Rocky Top Middle School? According to Australian transgender expert psychiatrist Stephen Stathis, the trendiness of transgenderism is driving teens toward it.Stathis told the Courier Mail last year, “One said to me, ‘Dr. Steve … I want to be transgender, it’s the new black.’”
Dr. Ken Zucker, head of the Gender Identity Service at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, has observed the same phenomenon. “The No. 1 factor is the Internet,” he said. “If you’re struggling to find out where you fit, the Internet is filled with things about gender dysphoria.”
“When we ask, ‘When did you first learn about this label of gender dysphoria’, they’ll say, ‘Me and Mom watched Oprah,’” adds Dr. Hayley Wood, a member of Zucker’s team.
Even more concerning is that a study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found that transgenderism is more persistent in children when promoted by adults. Bringing in a drag queen to a school career-day event certainly qualifies as promotion by adults.
Sadly, these children are being set up for a difficult life, as the transgender community has an inordinately high rate of depression and suicide. But that matters less to the SJWs than appeasing LGBTQ activists and the PC police.
