Drag Queens Perform At Iowa High School, Give Students Pointers On Gender Identity
A student club at Ankeny High School in Ankeny, Iowa, hosted a drag event on Monday that featured multiple performers — at least one of whom delivered a speech intended to help students navigate their gender identity.
The high school’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club hosted the performers after school for their end-of-year meeting without authorization from administrators, Ankeny Community School District’s communications team confirmed to The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire obtained images and videos of the event from a public Facebook post via screen capture before they were removed. In one video, a drag queen explained to students that drag helped the performer with the “very beginning stages” of a gender identity “journey.”
“When I felt like I couldn’t express myself in school, or I felt like I had to look like this at school… I could be whoever I wanted to be,” the performer said. “And I started to think, ‘What is gender?’ And I realized that no matter what pronouns you use, you are who you are… I know on the inside that I am who I am.”
Ankeny Community School District said in its statement that “performers from the Central Iowa Youth Pride Pageant were invited to share a drag performance.”
Although the GSA is an approved school club, the performance “did not follow the correct protocols prior to the meeting,” the statement added. “This performance was after school and localized to the students participating in the club. It was not approved by the building administration, and it is currently under investigation.”
The Daily Wire asked the district on Tuesday whether the performers were required to undergo any form of background check before they entered school premises, whether taxpayer dollars were given to the performers, and whether parents gave their children permission to attend the event. Ankeny Community School District has not yet provided a response to these questions.
Libs of TikTok alleged that students also performed during the event. The Daily Wire asked the district about the claim on Wednesday morning; no response has yet been received.
The performer who spoke to the students about gender identity added that one’s gender identity may vary over time.
“I feel like sometimes I do identify as a male,” the performer said. “I feel like sometimes I’m more in the middle of the spectrum — not one or the other. That’s where I am right now.”
The Daily Wire recently reported on a similar drag event held last month at Hempfield High School in Landisville, Pennsylvania. The school’s Gay Sexuality Alliance club hosted multiple drag queens at the high school without parents’ knowledge, parents said. The club’s co-adviser shared the performers’ Instagram handles with her students — thereby giving students a way to reach out privately to the drag queens. All four accounts included sexually suggestive content.
A deluge of parents and taxpayers confronted Hempfield school board members at a board meeting on May 10.
“Some of you have tried to make us feel insignificant,” parent Meridith Hilt told the board. “Our concerns have been 100% validated … they are actively grooming children.”
“Our schools are overreaching and indoctrinating our children, which has created confusion and stress in the most vulnerable,” parent Stacy Hernandez added. “It’s a form of child abuse, and it’s about indecency in our schools and lack of leadership.”