Students of Sunny Oaks Elementary School in California were forced to cross-dress for LGBT week.

On May 19th of 2016, a rumor spread across Facebook about how students were forced to cross-dress in Sunny Oak Elementary School in California for LGBT week. It was said that a child came home complaining to her parents about how she had to dress the opposite gender and how the school was interviewed by Fox News where a parent stated, “It is bad enough that our society is now forcing us to allow transgenders into the wrong bathrooms, but for our school system to teach our kids that this is normal is absolutely wrong.” This news was first published by a website called The Free Patriot. This all seems very strange and realistic, considering how many LGBTs are coming out and becoming more generalized. Still, if you look into this story and try to dig deeper, you will tell it is a part of Fake News right away.

If you look up anything about this story, you will probably only find a small portion about it saying that it is fake news on Snoops.com and maybe on another website called truthorfiction.com. These websites will tell you that this is a false story or just a rumor. snoop.com even states that there isn't even a real school in California called Sunny Oak Elementary School, meaning that Fox News never had an interview with the staff or a parent of a child that goes to this school because it doesn't exist. There is no news story on FOX about this, nor any other news site. For saying on Facebook that it was “making headlines” with no news articles, this was a huge indicator of a fake news story.

This story wasn't very thought out, but it did cause a lot of arguments on Facebook. If you can't tell in the photo attached to the rumor, a little boy who is said to be from Sunny Oak Elementary School was—dressed as a girl. The caption linked states, “Sunny Oak Elementary School is making headlines for the absurd thing they are having their students participate in. A student came home complaining to his parent that he had to dress up in girl clothes over his clothes that he wore to school to learn about the prejudice of society against this group of people. What is your take on this?” This started many angry comments. The picture shows that it got 178 comments, 135 reactions, and 279 shares. There is no indication that the post ever got taken down or how many people have seen it, but it never gets taken down entirely once it is on social media.

This article showed how small fake rumors can impact people and how untrusting social media has become. It also keeps getting more and more toxic as the years go on. This article was from 2016. We are not in 2022, and this has not stopped or been even recognized. Social media is taking over, and eventually, we will not see the truth of anything because of all the fake news and lies we hear from it.

Work Cited

Buhler, Rich. “Elementary School Forces Kids to Cross Dress for LGBT Week-Fiction!” Truth or Fiction?, Emote.com, 2 June 2016, https://www.truthorfiction.com/elementary-school-forces-kids-cross-dress-lgbt-week/.

LaCapria, Kim. “False: Sunny Oaks Elementary Forces Kids to Cross Dress for LGBT Week.” Snopes.com, 20 May 2016, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sunny-oaks-elementary-forces-kids-to-cross-dress-for-lgbt-week/.