The Daily Citizen joined several other Colorado Springs locals last week to watch Art Club, a new documentary illustrating the pervasive power of gender ideology in public schools.
Former Colorado state senator Kevin Lundberg attended the screening with his co-producer, Erin Lee, who stars in the movie with her husband, John. Erin’s daughter experienced months of debilitating gender confusion in 2021 after attending a Gender and Sexuality Awareness (GSA) meeting at her middle school.
“I heard [Erin’s story] at a meeting with pastors up in Fort Collins nearly two years ago now,” Lundberg reflected on his decision to create Art Club. “When I heard her story, I thought, ‘This is powerful, this really tells the real situation.’”
“[Our daughter] told us it was art club,” John recalls in the documentary. “We didn’t think twice about it.”
The Lees were bewildered when their daughter declared herself transgender that same night and horrified to learn she had attended a GSA meeting, not art club.
Colorado Open Records Act requests and interactions with teachers, administrators and school board members later revealed what the school-sponsored, pro-LGBT speaker had taught the 12-year-olds that day, including:
- Asking who the kids were sexually attracted to.
- Explaining the kids were “queer” if they did not know who they were sexually attracted to and “transgender” it they were not fully comfortable in their biological bodies.
- Giving kids bracelets, flags and other toys if they chose to adopt an LGBT identity.
- Informing kids being “queer” and “transgender” made them more likely to kill themselves.
- Talking about puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and polyamory.
The speaker also discouraged kids from talking to their parents about GSA.
“I emailed the woman who had been invited into her art club, kind of desperately like, ‘Tell me what you did. What happened in this classroom? I need to know what you told my daughter,’” Erin recalls, continuing,
Though the Lees pulled their daughter out of public school, her gender confusion only got worse, culminating in her becoming suicidal.
Only when the Lees prayerfully confronted their daughter’s gender confusion prayerfully did she begin to heal.
“This is a horror story with a happy ending,” Erin said during the question-and-answer portion of the screening, explaining:
Now, Erin and John’s daughter ministers to other gender-confused girls.
“It’s still hard to believe my school did this to me,” her voice concludes Art Club. “I’m lucky and I’m grateful for my parents who helped me through [my gender confusion]. My only hope with our story is that it can save other girls from going through what I did.”
Lundberg hopes Art Club will spread awareness about the ways gender ideology is smothering parental rights in schools across America.
“I didn’t want to show John and Erin’s story because it was an exceptional, unusual thing — no, it’s because its’ far too common,” Lundberg remarked, calling gender ideology a contagion that must be confronted.
To that end, Lee and Lundberg pack the film with testimony from experts, including:
- January Littlejohn, a licensed counselor whose local school allowed Littlejohn’s teenage daughter to socially transition without informing her.
- Alex Newman, journalist and author of Indoctrinating Our Kids to Death.
- David Barton, historian and founder of Wall Builders, an organization teaching Americans about our country’s constitutional, religious and moral roots.
- Quentin VanMeter, former President of the American College of Pediatricians.
- Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies Family Research Council.
- Mike Farris, former President of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Each supports Lundberg and Lee’s central claims:
- That gender ideology is based in critical theory, not fact.
- That schools and governments are subverting parents’ rights to push gender ideology, leading to potentially life-altering transgender medical interventions.
Lee and Lundberg ask parents concerned about gender ideology in schools to share Art Club. The documentary is free to watch on YouTube, Rumble and its own website — “for when we get de-platformed on those other outlets,” Lee laughs.
Lee also encourages families and teachers with similar stories to share them widely and loudly.
“These school boards don’t like bad press,” she remarks. “They respond to it.”
Ultimately, she recommends kids not attend public schools at all, contending that the government’s system is broken beyond repair.
Parents can find more resources on combatting gender ideology and rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) on Erin’s website, stopgenderideology.com
Coloradans interested in investigating gender ideology in their community should school board meetings; local school boards have more authority to determine curriculum and administrative policy in Colorado than in other states.
Lee encourages all concerned taxpayers — not just parents — to attend meetings, emphasizing, “[School board members] get paid with your tax dollars.”
Citizens interested in changing Colorado laws that allow schools to subvert parents’ rights should visit protectkidscolorado.org. Created by Lee and Lundberg, Protect Kids Colorado started several initiatives to eradicate gender ideology in Colorado schools and protect Colorado women’s sports. People interested in passing these initiatives can volunteer and sign petitions on their website.
Art Club illustrates the hold gender ideology has on public schools across the nation. Citizens should vehemently oppose laws and policies that allow gender ideology to flourish. Former senator Lundberg says it best,
Erin and John’s lawsuit against Colorado’s Poudre School District is ongoing. You can read their original complaint here. The Daily Citizen will keep you updated on the suit’s progress.
Additional Articles and Resources
Focus on the Family resources for people struggling with transgenderism
Focus on the Family resources for people struggling with homosexuality
Daily Citizen articles on gender ideology
