Mom dons cat outfit to protest trans school board member: ‘you can’t identify as whatever you want’
A Phoenix mother who went viral for showing up to a local school board meeting dressed as a cat said she wore the costume to drive home her point about the school’s woke agenda.
A video of Lindsey Graham, the host of the “Patriot Barbie” podcast, swept across the internet last month featuring the Arizona mother in a complete cat costume as she voiced her concerns about the confusing message a member of the school board, who identifies as transgender, was sending to elementary-age children.
“This was a local school in my neighborhood where there was a member of the school board whose name is Paul Bixler. He’s a man, he’s very clearly a man,” Graham, who sported her viral cat costume, said in an appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Tuesday.
“The only thing he does to identify as a female is put lipstick on. He grew his hair out a little bit, and he wears his deceased wife’s clothing to school, to sporting events, to school events to fundraisers, school events in front of the children.”
“Believe it or not, he actually demands on being identified one of two ways, either Paul, which is a man’s name, or Ms. Bixler,” she continued “It’s very clear he has a gender identity crisis. Not only does he appear in front of the children and insist that the children define him as a woman, but he sits on the board and he’s making decisions for these children.”
In a portion of the viral exchange that aired on Fox News, Graham asked parents and members of the school board whether they would address her as a cat if she identified as one.
“I’m a cat. Meow, meow. I’m not a woman dressed as a cat. I am a cat. How many of you believe and confess that I’m a cat?” she asked. “How many of you believe that your child or a child from this school would believe that I’m actually a cat? No one. You’re right. Truth prevails over imagination. Reality exists. Discernment is innate and something that we’re wired to have. One look at me, and you know this to be true. I’m a woman posing as a cat.”
Graham said she was trying to send a very simple message at the school board meeting.
“The point I was trying to make as a cat was that obviously you can’t just identify as whatever you want and demand that other people identify you as whatever you want,” she told Fox News host Jesse Watters. “But someone with this kind of mental illness can enjoy that mental illness all they want in the comfort of their home. But when you put them in charge of children, we’re talking about a new type of indoctrination, and that’s what’s really terrifying, is seeing these people in charge of our kids’ education.”
“This is elementary school. So these are young vulnerable minds. The teachers, the rest of the school board are identifying him as Ms. while he’s talking in just the deepest manly voice that he was born with and so to see these parents take no responsibility for the education of these kids and to teach them true right and wrong and true biology and true facts and science and truths is just so alarming that we have this in the school system,” she added.
Graham said she received a surprising amount of support after confronting the board member, recalling an exchange she had with a different member of the school board the next day.
“I saw one of the members of the school board. He looked at me a little odd. I said I’m sure you don’t want to remember who I am. He said ‘the cat.’ I thought he would proceed to chew me out,” she said. “He said, ‘You know what, thank you so much for getting up there and saying what you said. Thank you for being bold enough to speak the truth. I’ve been fighting this agenda, fighting this teacher and this school board member.’”
“There are people on our side,” she continued. “All it takes is a few of us to stand up and speak the truth and find the partners in crime if you will. We really can unite together, and fight back and save our children.“
Graham also made headlines in December 2020 for defying state lockdowns and refusing to close her popular Oregon salon, prompting a fine of $14,000 from the state. She eventually sued the governor for $100,000 in damages due to the closure and the fine issued against her, igniting a national conversation about unconstitutional lockdowns and the rights of business owners in a time of what she described as “egregious government overreach.”
“It’s my constitutional right to earn a living for my family,” she said at the time. “And I’m going to do it.”
She later published a book titled “TARGETED: One Mom’s Fight for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” in which she detailed her fight to keep her salon doors open.