🧵Last August, I was listening to a feed of a heated North Texas school board meeting while juggling my nightly dad duties.
Which is why I was getting my 3-year-old to bed when I heard a mom make a shocking statement that @ahylton26 and I have now spent a year investigating. 1/
The mom said a teacher in Grapevine, Texas, had given her child access to information that led the teen to change genders.
As her time expired, she said, "I lost my son."
As I rubbed my own kid's back, the thought hit me: What book could separate a parent from their child? 2/
Another reason her words stuck with me: This was the exact allegation that politicians like Ron DeSantis had been leveling without evidence all year: Woke teachers convincing kids to become queer.
Here was a chance to investigate a *real* case of a mom making this claim. 3/
I texted @ahylton26 the next day, and we got to work.
The result: Our new podcast, "Grapevine," was released yesterday.
You can listen to the first two episodes by clicking here:
The story we found was different from the one the mom told at that board meeting.
We found a transgender child just wanting to be heard, a mother determined to put God first — and an English teacher caught in the middle.
But it was more than that. 5/
The podcast also tells the story of a once-fringe movement by conservative Christians — unleashed in part by Donald Trump — to take control of the "Seven Mountains" of American life. 6/
It's the story of a well-funded campaign to place far-right evangelicals on school boards all over Texas, and across America.
For those of you who listened to our "Southlake" podcast, this clip will be eye-opening. 7/
LGBTQ educators and library books have become the top targets of this campaign.
In the podcast, you'll hear from the queer educator accused by that mom of convincing her teen to become trans, and learn how that allegation turned her life upside down. 8/
You will also learn about a book called "The Prince and the Dressmaker" by Jen Wang (@alooghobi), which tells the story of a prince who loves wearing dresses.
The mom from the school board meeting says the graphic novel helped lead her child to change genders and run away. 9/
And—the part that's missing from lots of other coverage of this subject—you will hear directly the trans teen at the center of this story.
Ren has a lot to say, and @ahylton26 and I believe folks ought to listen
Please subscribe & tell your friends. 10/
Lots of others helped make this podcast happen and don't get enough recognition. @frannie_kelley is at the top of that list, which also includes Alexa Danner, @JulieShapiro, @mzMichGarcia, @elizcole, @reidcherlin, @EvaRuth, @EmilyBerk1, Janina Huang and many more! 11/
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J.D. Vance is linking up with Lance Wallanu, the man who popularized the Seven Mountain Mandate that says conservative Christians are called to rule society, and who has been warning that Kamala Harris is possessed by demons.
Want a flavor of what Vance is mainstreaming? Read my story from May about FlashPoint, the Christian TV program blending Newsmax-style political commentary with prophetic warnings about the coming end times.
A Texas megachurch pastor who advised Donald Trump — and who has repeatedly warned his congregation that Satan is at work inside public school libraries — has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a child four decades ago. christianpost.com/news/pastor-ro…
The name of the pastor, Robert Morris, will be familiar to readers of “They Came for the Schools.”
Want to understand how the mainstream GOP has changed in the era of Trump? Watch this video of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk in 2018: “We do have a separation of church and state, and we should support that.”
Kirk in 2022: “There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication.”
New this morning with @akarl_smith:
How Charlie Kirk came to embrace the Seven Mountains Mandate, and what his political and religious transformation tells us about the future of right-wing politics in America. nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…
@akarl_smith “He’s pitching his message to people who do believe that we’re in the end-times, and that if we don’t seize the Seven Mountains of cultural influence, then the other side, the satanic side, will,” @PMatzko said. nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…
The Carroll school board in Southlake, Texas — the district at the center of my new book, “They Came for the Schools” — voted last night to authorize the Alliance Defending Freedom to sue on its behalf to stop the Biden Administration from extending federal civil rights protections under Title IX to LGBTQ students.
You’ve likely heard of ADF, the powerful Christian conservative legal fund that helped overturn Roe v Wade and has fought laws granting civil rights to LGBTQ people. newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…
ADF has been leading the charge to stop the Biden Education Department from extending civil rights protections to transgender and other LGBTQ children. @mattlavietes has been on the story for @NBCNews 👇 nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna1…
My book "They Came for the Schools" is out today.
It tries to make sense of America's school board wars by showing how & why that fight exploded in one Texas suburb.
To really understand the anti-DEI backlash, I needed to uncover a much longer history.
Here's what I found🧵
First, some context: In 2021, Southlake, Texas, became a poster child — or cautionary tale — of the right’s new war on “woke.” The strategy pioneered there would be copied in towns across the nation — quietly shaping what untold numbers of children learn. chalkbeat.org/2024/05/10/the…
You’ve probably heard about some of this. The Southlake story went international after an admin, attempting to comply with new restrictions, told teachers to present both sides of the Holocaust. (The book reveals what happened *after* we broke that story) nbcnews.com/news/us-news/s…