Drag for teens, anyone?
Since publishing our Pride is Propaganda substack last week, we have learnt of a new alarming Pride event organised by InsideOut. On Thursday night 15 June, InsideOut will host a Zoom meeting for teens aged 13+. There will be a panel of four drag Queens who will, in their words, “school” the teens on “everything from beginner tips and tricks to inspiration and community”.
The details of the meeting are on InsideOut’s facebook page. Apparently, the drag artists will talk about “artistry, identity, representation and pride.”
Resist Gender Education would like to know what makes these drag queens suitably qualified and appropriate people for talking to young teens about identity?
Please look at the photos on the facebook pages of two of the drag queens, Willy Smackntush and Miss Geena.
These pages are, of course, readily accessible to any child. Are these the people you want to be giving advice to your teenaged children? How will InsideOut stop children younger than 13 from joining this Zoom?
Breach of trust
Resist Gender Education believes this Zoom meeting is a gross breach of trust by an organisation that is enthusiastically recommended to schools by the Ministry of Education (MOE) as a reliable source of information about relationships and sexuality. (See the MOE’s Frequently Queried Topics Years7-10 (p21) which recommends schools “Use resources from trusted organisations like InsideOUT or RainbowYOUTH.”)
When students are told at school that InsideOut is a “trusted organisation” they are very likely to trust everything that comes from the group and may be exposed to this kind of sexualised content without their parents knowing.
Not respectful
The foreword to the Ministry of Education’s Relationship and Sexuality Education Guide states the guide “focuses strongly on consensual, healthy, and respectful relationships”. We don’t see anything respectful about drag queens being presented as role models to school children.
Drag queens are sexualised performers who are meant to entertain adults and they have no relevance to the everyday lives of children. The girls in the audience of a drag performance are not being shown that women are admirable; they are seeing women’s clothing and mannerisms being mocked. Boys are seeing adult men portraying women as ludicrous. The sort of explicit material depicted on the above facebook pages exposes children to a side of life they are not emotionally ready to understand and teaches them that lampooning women is normal and acceptable behaviour.
No expertise
You would expect InsideOut, as a “trusted organisation”, to be run by very well qualified and experienced people from a range of professions such as education, medicine, or psychiatry. But instead, a perusal of InsideOut’s website finds that of the 35 people profiled, a large majority have no academic qualifications whatsoever. Only five of the 35 hold bachelor’s degrees and one has a Master of Education. Of note is that none of the 12 school co-ordinators, who go into schools to provide sexuality education ‘training’ to teachers, has any academic qualifications.
Only five of the InsideOut employees and Board members mention being parents themselves, yet the organisation promotes itself as having the necessary skills and knowledge to instruct teachers on how to educate other people’s children!
Funded by the taxpayer
You might think InsideOut’s widespread influence is due to a groundswell of grass roots support and private donations. Not so. According to the Charities Register, InsideOut’s income for the 2021-22 reporting year was $1.84million, of which over $1 million seems to be a grant from the MOE to provide “goods and services”. More than $800,000 of InsideOut’s income was spent on “Volunteer and employee related payments.” No other voice in the debate about sex and gender identity has a fraction of this kind of money to spend.
No safeguarding
It is a mystery how InsideOut came to be viewed by the MOE as the go-to experts on relationship and sexuality education. The organisation has been showered with money for at least five years, so that a large number of NZ schools have now been influenced by their doctrine, to the point of promoting drag queen events as wholesome family fun. For example, a ‘family friendly’ drag event entitled “Queens and Trucks”, apparently without any age restrictions, is to be hosted by Carterton School on 11 August.
When schools endorse drag events, they are setting up sexualised adult entertainers as role models. Underneath the flamboyance is the message that adults who provide fun and glitter can be implicitly trusted. This is the opposite of good safeguarding practices where children are taught to trust their natural wariness around adults acting in unusual ways. Most parents would not choose drag queens as the ideal people to teach their children about sexuality.
Breach of the law
It is an offence under Part 7, Section 124A of the Crimes Act 1961 to expose a person under the age of 16 to indecent materials.
Therefore, RGE has written to the Minister of Education to ask what action she will take to prevent InsideOut from breaching this law on 15 June, or at any later date.
We have also asked when and how the Ministry of Education will review InsideOut’s status as a “trusted organisation”, given that its actions in planning and promoting this drag queen Zoom meeting to children who are under the age of consent proves the accolade is entirely unjustified.
What you can do
Personalise this template letter and send it to:
the Minister of Education, jan.tinetti@ministers.govt.nz.
your local MP or any other MP, at firstname.lastname@parliament.co.nz.
your principal and school Board of Trustees.
the School Trustees Association, at govadvice@nzsta.org.nz