Democratic Representative Lorena Austin, a woman who identifies as “nonbinary,” allegedly deceived House leadership into booking a conference room for a Planned Parenthood-lead drag story hour.
As a result, House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican, announced on Tuesday that Democrats had lost their ability to book House meeting rooms. Toma stated that the drag story hour was part of “dangerously perverse” and “radical” ideology.
“Use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker,” said Toma. “As a result, I’ve ordered that Democrats have lost the privilege of accessing House meeting rooms until trust can be restored.”
The Senate GOP criticized the event as a radical waste of taxpayer funds.
“Your taxpayer dollars are hard at work to push child indoctrination and woke ideology onto our citizens,” said the Senate GOP. “The madness must stop.”
The event occurred ahead of Wednesday’s planned LGBTQ+ Youth Day at the Capitol. OnenTen, an organization for LGBTQ youth activism, will assist with the event.
OnenTen encouraged youths aged 13-18 to attend. Their X account was suspended, but their Instagram remains live.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona (PPAZ) claimed that the event represented a “safe learning literacy space” of which they and Austin were proud. PPAZ encouraged the public to “educate” themselves with their resources promoting LGBTQ+ ideology. Among their resources was the controversial Q Chatrooms (also promoted by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman), where minors are encouraged to discuss their sexuality and gender issues with adults.
Other resources included tips for minors to undergo gender transitioning and explore their sexualities.
“This is just another example of Speaker Toma showing how out of touch he is with the values of Arizonans & their support for the LGTBQ community,” said PPAZ. “At Planned Parenthood Arizona, we are proud to offer gender-affirming care services and provide essential health care to everyone.”
In addition to Austin, those present for drag story hour included ASU professor and Drag Story Hour Arizona founder David Boyles, PPAZ abortion doula Paige Daniel, and House Minority Whip Nancy Gutierrez.
The drag performer conducting the controversial reading discussed how it took 35 years to figure out what gender they were.
“Adults change pronouns all the time,” said the drag performer. “Adults as we grow and as we mature and as we figure shit out, we may go from identifying as within the binary and then we say you know what that isn’t me.”
Gutierrez later posted on X that Toma’s response amounted to “political mudslinging.”
Austin said in a press release of her own that it was “ridiculous” she should be perceived as “dishonest, deceitful, and perverse” for wanting to host a drag story hour in the Capitol. Austin also claimed that she had been transparent in her application to reserve the room as an event for the LGBTQ+ Caucus.
Two genders and unlimited number of mental disorders.
Never ask, ‘How perverse and corrupt can Democrats get?’ – they’re taking it as a challenge.
“Adults change pronouns all the time,” said the drag performer.”
No. No they don’t.
Tolerating them is one thing. Putting them in positions of power and authority is another.
Few places in world would tolerate, much less allow to exist, people like this trans freak. God bless American conservatives for their patience and tolerance with the lowest members of humanity.
What Ben Toma is doing is not out of touch with the values of Arizonans. Most don’t support the LGTBQ community because their ideology is perverse and pro-pedophilias. They seek to indoctrinate children and emasculate them before they’re old enough to understand what’s happening to them. There should be intense scrutiny of their actions to make sure they do not prey on children.