Mom Wears Cat Costume to Teach School Board a Big Lesson: 'Reality Exists'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
She wore the costume of a house cat, but the message came through with a roar.
A woman who caused a social media stir with a feline appearance before a school board meeting in Arizona in November took the cause to a national audience Dec. 13 on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” to make a point about the absurdity of the “transgender” craze sweeping the country at the moment.
And make it clear that it has no place in the education system of the nation’s young.
Lindsey Graham, an outspoken activist who made headlines in 2020 battling the state of Oregon over coronavirus lockdown orders over a hair salon she owned in Salem, donned a full-body cat costume to speak to the board of Liberty Elementary School District No. 25 in the suburbs of Phoenix.
Mom protesting wokeness in cat costume at school board meeting goes viral: ‘Truth prevails over imagination’ https://t.co/225ekwqMFc
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 14, 2022
She did it, she told Watters, to dramatize a simple message: “Reality exists.”
That’s been a basis of Western philosophy going back at least to Aristotle, but it’s one that seems to have been lost in a 21st century miasma of make-believe in America.
It’s a premise that seems to be increasingly lost in a country where a strapping, broad-shouldered, barrel chested young man can call himself “Lia” and compete against women in the sport of swimming — and “win” a national championship, in a country where a “Miss America”-affiliated beauty pageant can be won by a stocky, 19-year-old man named Brian, and in a country where public school systems nationally appear determined to force a “transgender” agenda on their captive audiences of children.
But it’s a premise Graham brought to the school board meeting in dramatic fashion, and one she reiterated to Watters.
Check it out here:
“I’m a cat,” Graham told the board, dabbing briefly at her wrist with her tongue. “Meow, meow.
“I’m not a woman dressed as a cat. I am a cat … How many of you believe and confess that I’m a cat? … How many of you believe that your child or a child from this school would believe that I’m actually a cat? No one. You are right. Truth prevails over imagination. Reality exists. Discernment is innate and something that we are biologically wired to have. One look at me, and you know this to be true. I am a woman posing as a cat.”
That kind of theater-of-the-absurd spectacle might strike many Americans as over the top for a public meeting, but Graham clearly thought it was necessary.
Call them out! Call them out EVERY time. NEVER quit. Do NOT be gentle in your critique. Give them NO validation. They are coming for your children.https://t.co/bValXaDPj1
— Eno Onmai (@eno_onmai) December 15, 2022
As she told Watters, the school board she was addressing has its own theater-of-the-absurd example in the form of a “transgender” school board member — a man named Paul Bixler, who insists on dressing as a woman and being addressed with a feminine courtesy title.
“The only thing he does to identify as a female is put lipstick on. He grew his hair out a little bit, and he wears his deceased wife’s clothing to school, to sporting events, to fundraisers, to school events in front of the children.
“Believe it or not, he actually demands on being identified one of two ways, either Paul, which is a man’s name, or Ms. Bixler,” she continued. “It’s very clear he has a gender identity crisis. And not only does he appear in front of the children and insist that the children define him as a woman, but he sits on the board, and he’s making decisions for these children.”
However, the Liberty Elementary district apparently has no problem with Bixler’s presence on the board. In a telephone interview, Luke Garrison said Bixler, who was elected unopposed in 2020, was no different from any other board member.
“All of our board members are performing their duties as they were sworn to do,” he said.
Bixler, 72, is no stranger to the public eye. In July he was the subject of a lengthy profile in The Arizona Republic that detailed how he and his wife, Candace, had raised two children and how his wife had died in 2017.
According to the profile, Bixler’s wife had been aware of his sexual “dysmorphia,” which he’d reportedly had since he was a child, but Bixler didn’t start acting on it until his wife had passed.
In response to emailed questions from The Western Journal, Bixler wrote that he was fielding numerous journalists’ inquiries (understandable enough, considering the ratings for Watters’ show) and was “currently considering all requests for comment.”
However, he did confirm that he has no intention of resigning and that he plans to run for re-election in 2024. (He indicated he might have more to say at some point.)
Garrison, meanwhile, said calls for Bixler to leave the board had been made by members of the public before — that Graham is “not the first person to come up to the school board meeting and voice her opposition to Paul Bixler being on the board.”
But, he said, “dressing up as a cat will get you attention.”
That’s certainly true enough — it’s no doubt a big part of why Graham appeared on “Primetime” in her cat garb. But it’s an issue that demands attention from Americans who care about the country.
The clash over “transgenderism” isn’t a question of personal proclivities — of what consenting adults do behind closed doors, or who wants to mince around in high heels in front of a full-length mirror. It’s not a question of personal freedom.
It’s a question of whether human beings acknowledge that they live in a world that objectively exists — and in bodies that exist just as objectively. Surgery can change physical appearances — removing or adding appendages — but it doesn’t change the genetic reality of a male or female body any more than high heels, a garter belt, and a flashy red boa draped just so.
Of course, there’s an undeniably idolatrous aspect of it, too. To claim that deeply misguided — and deeply unfortunate — humans have the power and the right to decide they were born into the “wrong” body is to claim humans have the authority to judge creation itself.
Icarus getting seared by the sun looks humble next to that. The Tower of Babel looks like an effort of underachievers. Heck, Icarus taking off from the Tower of Babel would look like a piker compared to that.
The fact that so many progressives in the United States claim to have some metaphysical authority to determine actual physical reality is an appalling combination of arrogance and ignorance. The fact that so many dominate a field supposedly devoted to educating young Americans borders on a crime.
This is a country, remember, that relies on the sound judgment of its citizenry to decide its leaders — and with those leaders the kind of future it will leave to its children.
It’s bigger than a single school board member in Arizona, of course. It’s at the top of the federal government, where a mentally debilitated president is increasingly on board with the most progressive extremism, where a man pretending to be a woman is one of the top health officials in the country, hailed as a “woman of the year,” no less. And, thanks to the current, insane incarnation of the Democratic Party, it’s an issue of education around the country.
Fortunately, there are activists like Graham who aren’t afraid to speak up. As the New York Post reported, she wrote a book about her experiences in Oregon titled “TARGETED: One Mom’s Fight for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
So, Watters asked Graham, did her message get through to the board?
Gotta love this Cat Woman. https://t.co/BDutOmggtG via @nypost
— Lois Rogers (@lois_rogers) December 14, 2022
“This is a great story, actually,” Graham said. “The next day at the gym, I saw one of the members of the school board, and he looked at me a little odd. I said, ‘I’m sure you don’t want to remember who I am.’ And he said, ‘The Cat.’
“And I thought he would proceed to chew me out, but he said, ‘You know what? Thank you so much for getting up there and saying what you said. Thank you for being bold enough to speak truth.
“’I’ve been fighting this agenda …’
“There are people on our side,” Graham told Watters. “And all it takes is just a few of us to stand up and speak truth and find those partners in crime, if you will, and then we really can unite together and fight back against this and save our children.”
That’s a message that needs to be heard — loud and clear.
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