This deranged transphobe thinks after-school clubs are secret cults
Debunking Erin Lee
Content Warning: This piece discusses transphobia
Erin “Karen” Lee
Meet Erin “I need to speak to the manager” Lee, a Colorado mom who has made it her mission to rail against such divisive and dangerous topics as self-acceptance and safe spaces.
She began sharing her “story” in 2022, but gained more attention after she sued the Poudre School District in 2023, alleging that her child was “recruited… for [a] secret after-school gender and sexuality club,” according to a Fox News article. Her outrageous lawsuit was, however, rightfully dismissed in 2023. Judge Nina Wang said in her dismissal that “while parents have a right to decide whether to send their child to public school, they don’t have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.” This ruling doesn’t seem controversial. It feels like common sense.
But this hasn’t stopped Erin from continuing her temper tantrum in the right-wing media circus. Just months ago, she did an interview with the Daily Citizen, a branch of the far-right extremist network Focus on the Family. For some context, the Daily Citizen previously published an article of supposed signs a child has been indoctrinated by “trans activism,” including “red flags” like artistic interests or reading Wings of Fire.
So, this interview, posted on the Daily Citizen’s official YouTube channel as “Parenting Through Gender Confusion, Public Schools,” features Erin, who one can only describe as bearing a haunting resemblance to Marjorie “Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Body” Taylor Greene, sharing her story. The description says, “Colorado mom fights back against ‘gender cult’ at government school that tried to brainwash her 12-year-old daughter into believing she was ‘trans.’ #pronouns #christian #school #colorado.” Despite the cartoonish number of hashtags, this video only has 365 views, but it is also available on the startlingly popular Daily Citizen and parent Focus on the Family websites; still serves as a perfect, succinct encapsulation of everything wrong with the transphobia movement—and reveals why the transphobes never seem to win in court.
So, Why Is This Important?
This interview is obviously only one in the transphobic, “gender critical” media sphere. But this story received some national attention after Erin filed her lawsuit against the school district, including from “mainstream” right-wing news like Fox News.
From the surface, it’s easy if you’re a right-wing conservative to believe her wild accusation that the school indoctrinated her child with “trans propaganda.” But, not only does dissecting the interview she did with the Daily Citizen reveal why this argument is false, it also demolishes so many common anti-trans arguments.
But beyond this, it seems like transphobes don’t seem to get a lot of court victory—unless it’s a right-wing court, but that’s besides the point. The reason for this is because of the fallacies discussed in this piece—namely, that most of their arguments, as you will soon see, devolve not into real science, but instead the Christian persecution complex.
If you don’t have the time to read this piece, that paragraph can be your TL;DR. But, if you want to read on, you’ll gain a lot more perspective on what these transphobes are saying, and, if you didn’t have some already, you might gain some new insights into how to combat transphobes that use these talking points—because spoiler alert: the points Erin raises are the same points used by every transphobe. Seriously.
With this in mind, let’s have a look at Erin Lee.
The Interview
The video begins with a distraught Erin staring at the family photo of her precious children frolicking in the park, yet to be turned into the green-haired liberals consumed by the woke mind virus she thinks the Democrats are.
“I’m a mom in northern Colorado, and my little girl, at just 12 years old, was targeted with gender ideology in her public-school sixth-grade classroom.”
Right off the bat, we’re hit with the buzzword of the conservatives: “gender ideology.” This is as ridiculous as the “gay agenda.” Gender affirmation and transgender identity is supported by every major medical organization. To say there’s a “gender ideology” would be like claiming there’s a “schizophrenia ideology” or “anxiety ideology.” It’s not ideology—just healthcare.
“She thought she was attending an art club, and when she got there, it was Gender and Sexuality Awareness Club, or GSA, and an outside activist had been brought in to talk to the kids about puberty blockers and polyamory.”
Here’s where things really go off the rails. Both of her claims are incorrect.
First, she accuses the school of luring her child into a GSA club by billing it as an art club. But this is false. In a piece by another far-right extremist site, Parents Defending Education—think a spiritual cousin of Moms for Liberty—it is even admitted that the club was run by the art teacher. So, what likely happened is that the art teacher invited Erin’s child to a GSA meeting, and Erin spun the story so that her child was baited into the meeting. Her child may have told her that her art teacher invited her to a meeting and Erin hastily concluded that it was an art-club meeting, only to be shocked when it wasn’t. This feels more like feigning horror rather than any manipulative tactics from the school.
Next, she claims that an “outside activist” attended to discuss “puberty blockers and polyamory.” This is also false. In the article from Parents Defending Education—which I should once again stress is not a reliable source, but this article is the only source on Erin Lee that gives more information—the “outside activist” is identified as Kimberly Chambers, the director of SPLASH. SPLASH is not outside activism—it’s part of the public health agency of Larimer County, which contains Poudre School District. And to say Chambers was brought in to discuss in some graphic or explicit manner about puberty blockers and polyamory is overwhelmingly unlikely. SPLASH is, according to its own website, a place that “offers safety [and] fun for LGBTQIA+ youth.” To scrape off the parts of LGBTQIA+ that seem the most grotesque to you is a logical fallacy and cannot be representative of the organization or Chambers.
“They told her if she’s not fully comfortable in her biological sex, that means she’s trangender. They told her because she didn’t know who she’s sexually attracted to, that means she’s queer.”
This is, once again, a fallacy. These are the dictionary definitions of transgender and queer—so she can’t claim that these are just what Chambers wants them to mean—but gender identity and queerness are both fluid terms that people have to figure out for themselves. Just because Chambers told Erin’s child about what these words mean doesn’t mean there was any indoctrination. I would venture to guess that most straight people know what these words mean, but they have yet to be recruited by the alphabet mafia (of which I am a proud enforcer).
“They handed out a contact number to reach the activist, and they told her parents might not be safe and it’s okay to lie to your parents about this meeting.”
On SPLASH’s website, a contact email and phone number is given. The number to reach the so-called activist is not private information.
Additionally, Erin whines that it must be a cult because the GSA club said it’s okay for her child to lie if she doesn’t feel safe. But this is just common sense—if anybody feels unsafe in a situation, it’s okay for them to lie to escape, especially if they feel like they’re in danger. And queer kids are in danger. Anywhere from 20% to 40% of homeless youths identify as LGBTQ+, disproportionate for the total percentage of LGBTQ+ people. So, if a queer kid thinks they may be disowned, kicked out, or otherwise hurt because of their identity, they may lie for their personal safety. But Erin, because she’s the perpetual victim, cannot see past the blinding light of the halo she put on herself.
“Nothing in life prepares you for that moment when your child comes home from a regular Tuesday at school and they’re completely confused with transgenderism [sic], which is something we had no knowledge of prior to that day.”
“Something we had no knowledge of.” Ding, ding, ding—we cracked the code. This was in 2021 or 2022. How could you not know what transgender identity is by then? Because Erin was living in a bubble.
“People fear what they do not understand.” —Bruce Lee
I’ll also note that the child is not featured and pronouns cannot be known for sure, so I am using “child” and “they/them” when possible.
“It was, you know, a range of emotions. We were… we were scared, we were angry that this had happened to her, we were sad that she was already in this deep state of confusion.”
When I learned as a child what it meant to be transgender, it didn’t launch me into a deep state of confusion, because, while I am gay, I am not transgender. This sort of discussion—especially after supposedly only one GSA session—shouldn’t have caused Erin’s child to question their identity so deeply unless they did actually have doubts or questions about their gender identity—something Erin is refusing to even consider.
“And we hadn’t been notified that any of it was happening, and so we tried to do things the right way and follow the proper channels by reaching out to the school and the school board, and we got no answers from them. In fact, we got pushback. Um, and all of the avenues that we took led to them being proud of what they had done with our daughter.”
It is not a public school’s responsibility to notify individual parents of when all clubs are taking place. However, all this information should be publicly available on a school’s website—club information was at my school—so this was not the subterranean Illuminati clan meeting Erin thinks it is.
Secondly, Erin “Manager! Manager! I’m having problems” Lee thinks that the school board is so spineless that a breath of wind from her complaining will topple their convictions and force them to prostrate themselves before her. She has such a God complex that she thinks that because she doesn’t like something, everybody must be immediately outraged. Of course she’s going to get pushback—she’s wailing without evidence about how her child was indoctrinated into a secret school-sponsored “gender ideology” cult. She needs to grow up, put down the crown and scepter, and realize people will not bow to her every whim.
“Unfortunately, gender ideology takes a stronghold of vulnerable children, and she really identified with the transgender label. And it took nine months to pull her out of the dark cloud.”
Again, when I first learned what “transgender” means, I wasn’t thrown into turmoil about my gender identity, because I’m not transgender. I would strongly assume the only people that would be so confused and lost would be those who are actually questioning their gender identity. Just a thought.
“So, after the nine months of dark-clouded confusion had been lifted and she began to realize what had happened to her, she was angry. We watched the What Is a Woman? movie, and she said, ‘Mom, why didn’t I understand this was happening to me when it was happening, and what can I do to make sure this doesn’t happen to other little girls?’ ”
Never once, in any of the interviews or press pieces Erin has done, has the child been interviewed. This may or may not be true, but it’s difficult to trust anything coming from Erin’s mouth.
And even if it is, it still doesn’t invalidate transgender identity. Transphobic activists hiss and spit at transgender people by parading around “detransitioners” as some smoking gun exposing “gender ideology” for the cult it is. Homophobes used this exact argument with the ex-gay movement, and extensive research and media coverage revealed abhorrent flaws within those organizations, including ex-ex-gay former members, inaccurate and astonishingly anti-science data, and even admissions from within organizations that conversion therapy didn’t work.
And the film that Erin mentions by name, What Is a Woman?, is in no way a credible source. It is a 2022 online film by conservative commentator and guy-who-said-lesbians-can’t-do-three-pushups Matt Walsh. WIAW features no scientific information or interviews, instead peddling unfounded conspiracies such as that LGBTQ+ activists can’t even answer the titular question of what a woman is. So if this is Erin’s “credible source,” she needs to try a lot harder.
“And I said, ‘You let me tell your story.’ And so it’s with her full support that we have been so vocal and public with what happened to us because we feel an obligation to protect others.”
It cannot be stressed enough that the child was never interviewed in any of the publicity pieces Erin did. Erin is the only source.
“I cannot express how scary it is to go public with a situation like this that pertains to your young child, and what I’ve learned is that there are thousands and thousands of parents like me, just in the state of Colorado alone, who’ve been affected by this agenda, and they’re afraid to speak up.”
According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, 1.4% of youth ages 13 to 17 in the US identify as transgender. And according to the US Census, 21.9% of the population is under 18. Now, of course these statistics don’t entirely match up, because under 18 also includes very young children that can’t be expected to identify as transgender yet, but using this as a rough estimate, there are approximately 17,702 transgender youths in Colorado from ages 0–18.
So, with this statistic, it’s easy for Erin to say that thousands of kids have been hit by an “agenda,” but it could also be that, since more youths are identifying as transgender, she just can’t process this new development and has instead resorted to backwards bigotry to justify why she clings to the past and stamps her feet when confronted with the real world. Yes, more youths are identifying as transgender—but not because there are more transgender people, but because we finally have terminology that can articulate the experiences gender-diverse people have always lived through.
“So, when we went public, you know, of course there was a lot of hate that came at us. We were called bigots and haters and murderers. But what we found also was there’s so many people who care about the issue and they’re appreciative that we’re speaking up.”
“Transgender youth often experience a combination of abuse from family members, sexual harassment, and bullying or school violence. They are also disproportionately placed in foster care and welfare programs compared to their peers. Adult transgender people regularly encounter sexual violence, police violence, public ridicule, misgendering, or other forms of violence and harassment in their daily lives. These issues cause many trans people to feel unsafe in public. Other issues include healthcare discrimination, workplace discrimination or feeling under siege by conservative political or religious groups who oppose LGBT-rights laws.” —Wikipedia page on transphobia, CC BY-SA
Erin, honey, maybe when you’re called a bigot, a hater, and a murderer, it’s because it’s true.
“Parental rights are under attack throughout the country, but especially here in Colorado. I feel like we’re ground zero for, you know, the government taking authority over our children. There are laws in Colorado that were mostly passed in 2019 that really usurp parental rights and enable twelve-year-olds and up to be the steward of their own mental-healthcare decisions, that require therapists to only affirm gender-confused youth. And so, when we reached out to doctors for help and therapists for what had happened to our daughter, it made things worse because of these laws and because of the mentality that, as parents, you must affirm gender confusion, that you are hateful and bigoted and you will harm your child and cause them to be suicidal if you don’t go along with the gender confusion. And we knew, as parents, that was the not the right answer for our child, that we had to stand between this confusion and her well-being.”
There are so many issues with this, it’s difficult to know where to start.
Parental rights are not under attack anywhere. The information she has previously claimed the school tried to hide from her, such as the after-school GSA meeting or the health professional coming to speak at the meeting, were not secrets. All schools have public information, usually on their website, about club activities—they cannot be expected to privately notify every parent about every club activity in the school.
As for the laws she discusses, there are two that match her circa 2019 timeframe. One banned conversion therapy, a practice that has been denounced by every major medical organization, and another allowed people to more easily change the gender marker on their drivers’ licenses or birth certificates.
Erin claims that the 2019 mandates therapists “affirm gender confusion,” but all it does it ban conversion therapy, which, again, has been denounced by every major medical organization. So, in a way, therapists do have to affirm transgender identity, but that’s because there’s overwhelming scientific evidence for it. She says that these new laws allow children to “be the steward of their mental-healthcare decisions,” but this is just common sense. Of course individuals should be stewards of their own health decisions.
But of course, with her God complex, she has placed her pedestal above therapists, doctors, and science, because facts and science just weren’t right for her child.
“So, we immediately pulled her out of school; we took the approach of not affirming her male identification; and we sought help from church, from, you know, family organizations who were faith-based; we removed the negative influences in her life and replaced them with positive influences, because affirming children in this confusion only leads to more harm.”
This is actually really important for understanding how transphobia works. It’s total isolation on the transphobe’s part—cutting themselves and their families off from the world, from other people, from “negative influences” as Erin calls them.
So, when doctors and therapists and scientists all say that affirming children leads to a decreased risk of suicide, Erin would rather sequester herself and her family and holler that affirming actually makes things worse, because when you’re in an echo chamber, your voice bouncing back at you can be easily mistaken for a credible source.
“So, after this happened, I learned the power of public-record request, which I had not ever done before, and I learned that our governments, beholden to us, we can see their emails, their calendars, what they’re doing behind closed doors.”
She literally just disproved her earlier claim that this is a secret agenda. If something is behind closed doors, why would you be able to know what it is with a simple records request? This is idiotic.
“And what I found is that there’s a deep agenda to transition children behind parents’ backs. I found a 15-page transgender toolkit that has a gender-support plan within it, and the very first question in this plan is, ‘Are the parents supportive? If no, how do we accommodate?’ So their plan is to transition kids and lie to parents right off the bat.”
I’m sorry, I missed the memo in this alleged “transgender toolkit” about how the school wants to transition kids behind parents’ back. Nobody’s goal is to make as many people transgender as possible. All schools and school districts like Poudre want to do is make sure as many people are accepted and accommodated as possible. All this claim is is just another iteration of the Christian persecution complex.
“When your child suffers gender confusion, you are… the world tells you to go along with it, that you must affirm it or you’re a bigot, you’re a hater, you’re unloving, you’re unsupportive, and I’ve received all of those criticisms.”
Again, the Christian persecution complex comes to mind.
“But now on the other side, that my daughter… the dark cloud has been lifted, and she’s back to her old self: a new, improved, stronger version of herself. I understand that we have to trust our instinct as parents and that the best thing we can do is not lie to our children.”
And yet, Erin, you lied to your child about the harmful effects of the conversion therapy you were trying on her and how negative it was on their mental health that you didn’t affirm their identity. You didn’t tell her about any of the science—or bother to look it up for yourself—so you’re in no position to call yourself a truth-teller.
“My daughter is thriving. She has completely desisted the transgender identity. It’s been almost three years now, and so she’s had a lot of time to heal and to reflect on what happened to her, and she’s even in a place now where she has a desire to minister to other kids who are going through this confusion. If she sees someone who is clearly suffering gender confusion, she’ll approach them and pray for them and give them advice, you know, help them get to the root of where the confusion came from and just share her story of overcoming.”
Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m not invalidating Erin’s child’s story, but it’s oddly suspicious that the child has not been interviewed or even seen a single time. Every press piece, every interview, has only been little ol’ Erin Lee.
And besides, “detransitioners” are not the smoking gun transphobes and TERFs think they are. It’s not anybody’s business why they transition, detransition, or retransition, but nothing proves that transgender identity is just a hoax or a sham. Only a minute percentage of people detransition, an even smaller percentage detransition permanently, and there have been no studies proving transition—even if detransition occurs—has any negative health outcomes.
“Prior to this happening, I would self-describe us as sleepwalking parents blindly trusting the schools as lazy Christians. I mean, I was raised with rituals, not relationship with Him. My husband was raised in an almost anti-religious household. And this happened and the only way we could have gotten through it is with God’s grace, is his guidance, and so our whole family has embraced relationship with Him. We have really grown in our faith, and it’s, it’s something that we all share together, and we’re, we’re a better family because of it.”
This is how conspiracy theories are born: “They’re out to get me,” “We shouldn’t just blindly trust them,” “They’re all in on it,” “We need to escape from it.”
What it sounds like Erin has done is isolate herself and her family and create an evangelical echo chamber, shunning doctors and teachers—“blind trust,” as she put it. And of course, she took the opportunity to make her family even more right-wing evangelical in the process. Transphobia is a feedback loop.
“This battle on our children with gender ideology is a spiritual battle, and truly we saved our family when we recognized we’re not fighting people, we’re fighting powers and principalities; that this is not an earthly fight and there’s no way we could have made it through to the other side without faith. And I think the most important thing we can do for our children is to teach them God’s truth: that we are made male and female, that God does not make mistakes when he makes you.”
So, should everybody give up glasses because God didn’t make a mistake when He made your eyes? Should they give up braces because God didn’t make a mistake when He made your teeth? Or asthma inhalers because God didn’t make a mistake when He made your lungs? The “God makes no mistakes” argument only supports queer identities. Born this way, baby!
We’ve also arrived at the part of the video that’s blatantly, unapologetically proselytizing—which means we’ve arrived once again at the Christian persecution complex. “This battle… is spiritual.” “This is not an earthly fight.” “There’s no way we could have made it through… without faith.”
In essence, Erin’s message goes beyond schools indoctrinating her child—it’s an entire world devoted to the Devil dedicated to crushing Christianity.
“[Bible scholar] Candida Moss has argued that the notion of persecution is all but essential to Christianity as a worldview, tracing the discursive construction of martyrdom from Antiquity and up to the present, pointing to its constitutive role for the self-understanding of Christians as embattled minorities — even while numerically superior.” —Helge Årsheim
I am not transgender and am not speaking for the transgender community, but as a gay person, I think I can speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community when I say: you’re not that important. We’re not spending our days in our evil lair, plotting our diabolical schemes to turn your children gay or trans, infiltrating school boards and setting up our pawns for the final epic good-vs.-evil battle during the apocalypse. Sorry, honey, you’re not that special. We have other stuff to worry about than indoctrinating your children into some LGBTQ+ cult. We just want love and acceptance for everybody.
“It’s the way that we can safeguard our children because this is such a cultural issue. It’s coming at them from every angle—if not in public schools, they see it on TV, in commercials, on billboards. It’s just coming at them from every angle, and so we’ve got to equip our kids with the knowledge that God made us perfectly.”
This is the end of the interview, and this comment is an amalgamation of all the logical fallacies, nonsensical arguments, conspiracies, and propaganda Erin has mentioned thus far. In her evangelical bubble, the world is out to get her and her family, and all she and other concerned “mama bears” like her can do is teach their children “God’s truth”… and holler and yell in school board meetings, threaten libraries and public spaces, and intimidate those you disagree with.
You know, for the children.
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