A video out of a Wisconsin high school is making the rounds on social media and raising concerns from parents.
The video shows a teacher performing in drag for students at what appears to be an assembly event, with the original poster stating it was from Middleton High School’s “Fine Arts Week.” According to the school’s academic calendar, the event took place from April 4th to 8th.
The teacher dances in what is intended to be a plunge-cut dress, with one side of the glittering blue fabric raised so short that the man’s rear is visible multiple times in the short clip while the man is posing and spinning. He appears to be wearing flesh-colored stockings beneath the dress and red-high heel boots.
Since the video’s release, one parent has come out and confirmed the man performing on stage was Matthew Kashdan, the school’s only male French teacher. Kashdan lists ‘he/him/his’ pronouns in his Instagram bio.
While the video was just uploaded within the last hour, parents have already begun to pile under the tweet, expressing outrage that such an event was able to go forward.
“Is it just me, or does it seem like teachers are increasingly becoming teachers specifically to try to gain some kind of personal validation?” One user wrote in response to the video, with another saying: “Your tax dollars at work. Your children won’t be able to read or do math, but they’ll ace drag show competitions,” a reference to the statistics on Middleton’s academic performance Lennington put in his tweet.
“There are places designated for this. They are called Drag bars. Not schools,” another user replied, with others asking whether the show had gone forward with parental notification or not.
Drag-related performances and their appropriateness for youth have become hot topics over the last few years, especially since the controversial spread of Drag Queen Story Hours across North America and Europe. In 2019, it was discovered that a registered sex offender had been performing at a Texas library for children as a Drag Queen.
The “Drag Kid” phenomena has similarly raised eyebrows amongst concerned adults, with many noting that drag performances are inherently sexual in nature. In some cases, “Drag Kids” as young as 11 have been recorded performing for adults in clubs.
Most recently, a 15-year-old boy was lauded in British media for his drag persona “Cherry West,” which he began to develop after his father brought him to a drag bar at age 10.
Reduxx attempted to reach out to Middleton High School and the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District for more information on whether parents were informed about the performance before it took place, but could not reach any staff responsible for media.
Shannon Valladolid, the District’s director of Information and Public Relations, did confirm to Empower Wisconsin that the District had so far received one formal complaint about the show.
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