Sutton High School's ConCon Drag Show Helps Students Make the Wrong Kind of "Connections"
SPS, you're drunk on rainbow Kool-Aid. It's time for an intervention.
Over Easter weekend, we got wind that something wild had gone on in Sutton. Pictures surfaced of what appeared to be a drag queen, dressed in a pink miniskirt with ruffly underwear exposed, standing on a table in the Sutton High School library, surrounded by students. The image was simultaneously so ridiculous and inappropriate that frankly, it was almost unbelievable. Some folks online claimed the pictures had been taken from the school website(!), which also seemed far-fetched - but then again, wasn’t it all? We had to find out what had happened in Sutton. We dove right in to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of who exactly Mr. Ruffle-Bottom was, and how exactly he ended up on a table in a school library.
It turns out, information wasn’t hard to find, because everyone involved in the event seemed oddly proud of what they had done.
The beskirted man was at Sutton High School (SHS) as part of an event called the Connections Conference, or ConCon. ConCon was held at SHS on Friday March 15th, from 7:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. According to the ConCon website: “The Connections Conference is a social justice event for high school and middle school students, teachers, and administrators where we explore issues of bias, privilege, and discrimination. Through immersive, hands-on workshops, together we explore how to support each other and make our communities better for everyone. Last year we had over 700 students, teachers, and school staff join us from all over New England.”
ConCon first started in 2019, so it’s not new this year, but it continues to grow. This year, according to their website, ConCon organizers were expecting 615+ conference attendees from 56 schools.
Sutton students are not required to attend ConCon, and March 15th is a Professional Development day, so regular school is not in session. However, it’s not a PD day for all of the other districts represented at the conference, so many (or all) of those kids were missing a regular day of school to attend.
(Did all of those students have their parents permission to leave school to attend this conference? We can’t say for sure.)
This year, ConCon featured two keynote speakers, author Cynthia Leitich Smith and middle-school-aged transgender activist Kai Shappley.
The conference agenda was bookended by the two keynotes, and in between, students attended 2 workshop sessions. There were about 60 workshops to choose from, many of which were repeated during both sessions.
To view the program for ConCon 2024 on the Connections website, click here.
For a downloadable PDF version, see below. We made this PDF from the information the SPS put online, but if they provide us an official version in this format, we will gladly update it.
When learning about ConCon, one of the things that strikes you first is just how large and complicated the event really is. Planning and executing ConCon must be a huge undertaking. ConCon organizers must have spent hundreds of hours preparing, contacting nationally-known keynotes, soliciting workshop speakers, securing funding, and doing everything else needed to make ConCon happen. It requires a high degree of commitment, enthusiasm, and passion to pull off an event like this, with so many moving parts, year after year.
But while commitment, enthusiasm and passion are normally laudable qualities, if they are used to create, sustain, and promote something profoundly flawed, they should not be celebrated. And that is the case with ConCon.
Yes, the folks behind ConCon are “doing the work,” as social justice advocates often say, but it’s not good work. ConCon is a social justice warrior training camp where kids are indoctrinated from beginning to end with activist ideology. It is thoroughly political, and grossly inappropriate for impressionable students who aren’t old enough yet to discern the fact that under the guise of fighting bias, they are actually imbibing it at full strength.
The program includes sessions like “Importance of Intersectional Feminism in School,” “Substitutes for Books by Dead, Straight White Guys,” and “Patriarchy Affects us all, we can all Heal from It,” just to name a few. This isn’t the type of conference where they try to convince you that Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in K-12 schools - it’s the type of conference where they tell you why it should be. And since the purpose of this post isn’t to get into the weeds of all of the CRT and DEI-related propaganda showing up at ConCon, we’ll leave it at that for now. But let’s just say, all it takes is one quick look through the program to see that this event is ideologically biased at every turn. To the organizers’ credit though, they aren’t trying to hide that it is.
Alas, the whole reason we started looking at ConCon was because we wanted to know why a drag queen was showing his undies to kids, so let’s get back to that.
As it turns out, the drag queen presenter’s name, as well as that of his co-presenter, was in the program under the name of the session they led, “Don’t be a Drag, Just be a Queen!” The drag queen was David Higginbottom, aka Diva D. His co-presenter was David Conner.
The session description read: “Join First Majesty of the Pride Royal Court, drag queen extraordinaire, Diva D. In this workshop you will discover more about the art of drag. Drag is not a crime, but it is an outlet for creativity and empowerment. Learn how Drag brings joy to our lives and can fulfill our creative purpose.”
“Don’t be a Drag, Just be a Queen” was offered to students twice, in both Session 1 and Session 2.
In addition, we found that Diva D had posted about ConCon on his instagram, tagging Pride Worcester, the organization represented by Conner.
Students were sharing pics with Diva D as well:
Diva D apparently came prepared with multiple outfits, also sporting a long gown…
which he must have changed into after climbing on tables in the school library, surrounded by kids as young as 7th grade…
…while David Conner approvingly looked on (which just goes to show, since he’s in these pictures, he didn’t take them. So, did the school actually take these pics?).
That last photo is a screenshot from the following video, which gives a quick look inside ConCon 24. You should definitely watch this video if you want to understand the scope and size of this conference. (Update: Sutton Public Schools has since made this video private, which is really strange, especially considering how very proud they seem to be of ConCon!)
Now, while we were busy investigating how a drag queen ended up at SHS, and learning more about ConCon, those pink-skirt pictures were circulating amongst aghast members of the Sutton community. A couple of those members courageously decided to show up at that Monday’s scheduled school committee meeting and share their concerns.
A portion of the public comment, which was recorded and is available on the Town of Sutton Youtube channel, was clipped and shared the next day by Libs of TikTok.
During her comments, which have now been viewed almost 3 million times on X, the first speaker reported that the drag queen had told the kids that “his breasts are freezing, but he didn’t use the word breast,” had the kids choose drag queen names, and danced on the tables and done cartwheels, exposing his underwear. She also reported that, after speaking to the superintendent, she was informed that the drag queen had not been required to submit a CORI check.
Propelled by the exposure from Libs of TikTok, national attention became focused on Sutton. The story even made it into primetime on Fox News.
Sutton is a relatively small town, and while national exposure is always a possibility if your school system does something this crazy, it’s not necessarily the most helpful thing for the people in the community. Faceless keyboard warriors are not known for their relentless pursuit of accuracy, and it’s easy for partial truths (or flat out lies) to get mixed in with the online din.
But do the presence of occasional falsehoods make this at-school-drag-show less of a problem? Not by a long shot.
Let’s talk about the presenters of “Don’t be a Drag, Just be a Queen,” David Conner and Diva D. These two men were brought in to speak to students about Pride Worcester events, and drag in general, both of which are in line with their areas of “expertise.”
Despite the current cultural effort to sanitize drag and pretend it isn’t inherently sexual (a claim that honest drag queens dispute), the truth is that the topics presented are inextricable from a highly sexualized subculture that is not appropriate for minors. This is highlighted by the fact that Diva D, whose online presence is relatively tame compared to some of the other drag performers in his circuit, still didn’t seem to think that showing his underwear to kids would be a problem. And why wouldn’t he? Skimpy outfits and edgy performances are par for the course in the world of drag, and that’s what he was there to talk about.
And what about David Conner, who was there to tell the kids about Pride Worcester? Well, he is deeply involved in this subculture as well. Not only is he part of it, he seems to be one of the primary drivers of (LGBTQ-focused) sexualized events in the area. In addition to his work with Pride Worcester, he co-founded and continues to work with Queer the Scene, an organization that creates a variety of drag-related events and performances related to the LGBTQ arts scene. Many of these events are very risqué. Some of his events are for ages 21+ but others are open to children, including the Pride Worcester Pageant, which can be attended by kids as young as 13 without parental supervision. Kids were told about this pageant during the conference session in the library.
David Conner is very up-front about who he is and what he feels is appropriate for children. Information about his organizations is freely available online. And while normies may find it shocking that a grown man thinks it’s ok to invite 13-year-olds to view adult sexual performers without parental consent or supervision, ConCon organizers ought not be surprised by this. Conner isn’t hiding his views.
The presenters also shared info about SWAGLY, a local “social support club for LGBTQIA+ young people and allies who are 11-18 years old.”
According to its website, SWAGLY “provides a space for youth to build community, be creative, play games, complete activities, and be affirmed in their LGBTQ+ identities! SWAGLY APW is also a program for health promotion where youth above 13 receive age-appropriate information and resources on topics including sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, consent, harm reduction for substance use, self-care, and more.”
It also connects kids with resources like “Safe Homes,” which offers (amongst other things) a “Transgender Resource Center.”
SWAGLY is connected (and connects kids) to BAGLY, an organization that serves LGBTQ “youth” up to age 25. BAGLY hosts condom demonstration and giveaways, free “gender-affirming wear,” and a variety of sexual-themed offerings. Not only is parental consent not required for BAGLY events, but their online registration form asks what “Name And Pronouns Your Emergency Contact Recognizes You By”- so that even if a child decides to use their parent as an emergency contact, BAGLY will intentionally conceal a child’s social transition from the adults who care about them most.
All of this is important to know because even if the presenters were CORI checked, that would not have prevented them from using their session as a gateway to introduce minors to a culture far more sexual and far more dark than young minds can truly understand. And a CORI check would not have prevented them from intentionally connecting kids to a sexuality-themed “community” they can be drawn into after the session is over, without parental consent or knowledge. The only thing that would have prevented this is if conference organizers had exhibited enough common sense and discernment to nix the session, but they didn’t.
It’s bad enough when kids are introduced to age-inappropriate concepts and lifestyles accidentally, or through contact with a nefarious outsider. But this is worse, because it happened in a place where kids naturally feel safe and have their defenses lowered. It happened at school.
Now, this is the part of the post where a reader sympathetic to the presenters would argue, “but just because they are gay, or wear gender-atypical clothing, doesn’t mean they want to harm kids.” And that is true. We don’t know these men personally, and someone’s same-sex attraction and outside appearance does not always accurately predict who will, or won’t, harm a child (and plenty of kids have been sexually abused by “straight” people). But the form of entertainment they endorse is inherently sexual in nature (a fact recognized by other same-sex attracted folks, who are totally not cool with this type of program happening in school), and the outside groups they introduce kids to absolutely sexualize children. To deny these facts is to place ideology over common sense, to allow rainbow-colored glasses to blind you to possible dangers, and to value the feelings of adults over the safety of children.
Reasonable adults, who aren’t drunk on the queer theory Kool-Aid, agree that this session never should have happened. These two men never should have been at a public school talking to minors about adult sexual performances. But they are not ultimately responsible for this debacle, because they never should have been invited.
Regardless of the exact details of how the drag session came to be, the responsibility rests with the Sutton Public Schools. ConCon is their conference. They did the legwork to make this event happen. Their staff are in those photos.
The culpability of Sutton Public Schools has not gone unnoticed on the national stage. Some reports have indicated that school officials have received threats as a result of this event. And while recent history shows us there is a strong likelihood that any such threats are a hoax, we want to be clear that our position is - unequivocally - that threats are never acceptable.
But what happened at ConCon needs to be exposed, because nothing that any public school system does should ever be a secret, and the people of Sutton have a right to know what has happened in their town. It’s their tax dollars that are paying for the school system, after all.
As for the school system, what has their response been to the criticism of this year’s ConCon, and the drag presentation?
On April 4th, the Superintendent (Kim Roberts-Morandi) and Sutton High School Principal (Ted McCarthy) sent the following message to the SPS community:
Though (to our knowledge) no actual video has surfaced of the drag performance held during the session, this letter backs up the description of the drag queen’s behavior, as laid out in the public comment made to the school committee on April 1st. It chalks Diva D’s routine up to copying the movie “Mean Girls,” which might accurately explain Diva D’s inspiration. But it doesn’t explain why school officials would think it is appropriate for a grown man to act out a scene from a movie about sexualized teenage girls who wear scanty clothing and act flirtatiously… dressed as one of the girls.
The next day, Principal McCarthy followed up with another message, sent to the Sutton High School community. This message answered questions about ConCon, including questions raised (or allegedly raised) by the drag queen controversy:
Principal McCarthy’s description of the intent of the drag queen session doesn’t really match the description provided by the ConCon program OR the performer’s instagram posts, a fact that a charitable reader could chalk up to miscommunication, a common problem in public schools. Of course, damage control is another possible explanation, and is also common in public schools. But if damage control was his goal, the next part of the email makes no sense.
Principal McCarthy writes:
“Q- I heard she wore inappropriate clothes and said inappropriate things?
A- the presenter wore dance bloomers under her dress and also wore non-see-through tights. The inappropriate language that people are referencing was a line from Mean girls, which, to be fair, was probably more PG-13 than PG. Was the performance a bit ‘extra?’ Maybe. Do I think it was inherently harmful to kids? Absolutely not. I am almost positive that more ‘inappropriate’ content is available to students on their phones each day.”
Rather than do damage control, his comments walked him straight into a proverbial buzzsaw. His letter made it to Libs of TikTok, who pointed out that saying that because kids can access inappropriate content on their phones somehow justifies presenting them with inappropriate content during school is a ridiculous position.
And LoTT is right, of course. This is the type of justification that you would expect from a high school freshman, not from a highly paid administrator.
In fact, Principal McCarthy’s justification is even more bizarre given the fact that Sutton High School has been cracking down on student cellphone use during the current school year, ostentibly since teachers - and he himself - recognize that the still-growing brains of minors are harmed by the role that cellphones play in their lives, and that it’s not good for kids to have unfettered access to the online world in the palm of their hand, 24/7.
But Principal McCarthy’s justification for exposing kids to sexualized content - the whole “they can see worse stuff on their phones anyway” routine - is not uncommon. It’s the same justification often heard for putting sexually explicit books in school libraries. But just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s valid. It’s not. At the very least, it’s juvenile, and demonstrates poor discretion. At the worst, it opens a door to more situations where students can be sexualized and put at risk. And that’s because there is no limiting principle to this justification, and there is no limit to the graphic and disturbing nature of the darkness that exists online. It used to be common sense that school was a place that protected kids from the nasty stuff that can be found in the wider world, not that since the wider world contains nasty stuff, nasty stuff is okay in school. But the fact that some people in education think this justification makes sense just goes to show that common sense isn’t common anymore, and those of us who still remember it need to say so.
When the safety of kids is concerned, the responsible choice is always to err on the side of caution. The Sutton Public Schools, and the organizers of the ConCon, did the opposite. Rather than admit they did wrong, they doubled down and made silly excuses. It’s not okay, and Sutton taxpayers have a right to raise their voices and push for change. We sincerely hope that they do.
The sad truth is, drag queens on public school tables might not raise as many eyebrows in some far-left communities. But Sutton is not a far-left community. So how does something like this happen in a small, decidedly-purple town like Sutton?
Click here to read part 2:
How the Drag Queen Found his way into Sutton Public Schools
Last week, we told you about Diva D, the ruffly-bottomed drag queen that made national news by doing cartwheels on a table at Sutton High School last month as part of their Connections Conference (or ConCon). If you haven’t read the first part of our investigation yet, click the link below:
Did you love this post? Do you know people who would like to receive this type of in-depth analysis in their inbox, once a week (or whenever we post it)? If so, share Massachusetts Informed Parents Substack with your friends now!
Was this post forwarded to you by a friend? If so, subscribe today!
Did you know that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) is officially cracking down on “political speech,” (allegedly) due to the upcoming election? Now it’s more important than ever that MIP members (and anyone who appreciates our content) subscribe to the substack!
To learn more about Meta’s latest censorship scheme, check out this post from Massachusetts Family Institute.
What about the rights of those school employees, parents and students who are offended by woman face? The ADL recently sued the MA teachers union for anti semitic statements. We need similar organized pushback against these degrading portrayals of women and the promotion of gender ideology in schools.
Overton window is opening perhaps. Love him or hate him, Bill Maher nails it here on this issue. The part on drag queens is spot on. https://youtu.be/oGtseVUw-_M?si=IJUyltJ9mKYRJhoM