The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the state’s largest public school employee union, will host a program titled “Drag is not a Crime: The Past, Present, and Future of Drag” at its Nov. 7 NJEA Convention in Atlantic City.
Organized through the NJEA’s Consortium—“proudly supported by an NEA (National Education Association) grant” and “on a mission to put diversity and representation at the forefront of curriculum development.”
According to the event advertisement, the program “explores drag's history, cultural significance, and future, showing how it serves as art, resistance, and activism — challenging norms, advancing LGBTQ+ rights, and promoting social justice and community.”
Additional Consortium offerings aimed at inclusive curriculum next week include “Unlocking your Future through Breathwork and Visioning,” “Cultivating Equity Centered Schools through Action,” and “Reimagining Inclusion: Mindset Shifts for Equitable, Neurodiverse School Communities.”
The schedule also lists sessions on using AI to design “pluralistic instruction,” illuminating “New Jersey's mandated narratives,” and a workshop focused on “Teaching Palestine.”
The NJEA Consortium and its planned workshops are slated for just days after the 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial election, in which the Democrat-controlled General Assembly’s seats are also on the ballot.
The Consortium has previously hosted similar pro-LGBT programming, including a “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the 2022 NJEA Convention.
That 2022 event featured drag performers Astala Vista and Vinchelle reading controversial pro-LGBTQ children’s books and appearing “to answer questions from the audience, take photos, in all their dazzling iridescence,” according to the organization’s website.
Workshops that year emphasized incorporating LGBT-affirming materials into lesson plans, including a session focused on “healthy teen sexuality.”
Teachers unions promoting LGBT ideology have emerged as a recurring international theme in recent years.
In 2023, the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI)—founded by two former Trump administration Department of Education officials—released a report on pro-LGBT topics advanced by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.
DFI concluded that the unions sought “to train teachers to affirm every gender identity that conflicts with a student's sex, ignore basic biological facts, hide the training from parents, and shape school policies to force others to do the same.”
