Headed by 25-year veteran schoolteacher Brenda Lebsack, California’s Interfaith Statewide Coalition is another shining example of a pro-parent organization fighting for traditional education in the nation’s public schools. The Coalition promotes education “free from indoctrination and ideologies that attack religious faith, and family and religious values,” and encompasses people of all faiths. Its purpose is “to unite as concerned parents, clergy, and community leaders of many faiths, races, and language groups in order to increase parents’ rights in our state.”

Readers of Education Reporter met Lebsack last month when her work was mentioned in an article about sexualized ‘suicide prevention’ programs that may actually endanger rather than help troubled youth. Recently, we spoke with her directly to learn more about her group’s success in removing one of these programs, The Trevor Project Crisis Hotlines, from all K-12 schools, as well as from counselors’ business cards, in the Santa Ana, CA Unified School District (SAUSD).

Lebsack described how she discovered the Trevor Project, which targets LGBTQ youth and those who may be “questioning” (hence the ‘Q’) through “metallic posters bolted onto the tiled walls in the bathrooms” at the schools where she teaches.” She is a physical education (PE) teacher for children with disabilities at seven different elementary schools in the SAUSD.

The posters advertised The Trevor Project, telling schoolchildren “We care” accompanied by a rainbow heart. Lebsack was taken aback by the overt promotion of the hotline and began researching it. She texted the number appearing on the posters, pretending to be a child uncertain of her gender and fearful of going through puberty.

Her inquiry resulted in a referral to the “gender affirming” online platform TrevorSpace. “They asked for my age but didn’t push when I did not give it,” she said. “I wanted to find out if they would at least attempt to verify my age, but they did not. The site is supposed to be for 13-24-year-olds, but they failed to rule out that I was a mature adult seeking to access chat rooms supposedly intended for kids. It’s obvious that adults and younger children can access their chat clubs and interact with other online users, putting kids of all ages in harm’s way.”

Lebsack chronicles in detail on her website the disturbing interaction she had with TrevorSpace after submitting that she was 13-years of age, noting that children that young are now classified as “young adults.” She explained that “It was super easy to do, no questions asked. I got in and took screen shots of the online clubs and noticed many conversations that said, ‘I’m lonely and need a friend!’ and a random stranger would reply, ‘I’ll be your friend!’ You don’t have to be a detective to see the red flags....”

She continues: “Worst of all, when I checked out the Crisis Text Hotline by texting HEARME to 839863, the counselor said I could share my phone number with people in Trevor Chat Space after I ‘build trust’ .... The text counselor even gave me the green light to lie about my age if I was not 13 yet and assured me that everything is confidential and that my parents don’t have to know about my chats.”

The site advertises itself as a place to meet LGBTQ friends and that it is an affirming international community for LGBTQ young people. [Emphasis added.] “And so you have predators potentially accessing the site from around the world, not just the U.S.,” Lebsack points out. “The danger could come literally from anywhere.”

The chat clubs themselves are disturbing. As Lebsack describes: “There was a Witchcraft Club, A Furries Club, A Gay Men’s Club with the tagline ‘let’s talk about boys!,’ a Guilt and Secrets Club, a Polyamory Club, Nonbinary Pals, Roommates Squad, Chosen Family Club, and others.”

Lebsack also gained access to what she called “Regressor’s Space,” where visitors can pretend to be a younger age or identify with a younger age. She reports that the organization Gays Against Groomers “checked out TrevorSpace and called it a ‘pedophile’s paradise.’”

She further discovered that disgraced Biden Administration deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Nuclear Energy, Sam Brinton, is listed by The Trevor Project as a sex expert for kids. “Can you imagine?” she asks. “Sam Brinton is considered an ‘expert’ in LGBTQ issues and advises students in TrevorSpace, all while identifying as gender fluid and known to advocate for every sexual kink imaginable. He was fired in December 2022 for stealing women’s luggage in airports. Yet, this person mentors students through our schools’ online mental health resources.”

Almost every intrusive or sexualized program involves surveys, and Lebsack references The Trevor Project’s 2019 mental health survey on the Coalition’s website. The survey claimed the existence of over 100 sexualities. “When I asked in an email that they provide me a list of the 100+ sexualities, they refused. I can only assume that the kink identities promoted by Sam Brinton were included.”

The Trevor Project removed from SAUSD

When asked to describe how the Coalition got The Trevor Project removed from the SAUSD, Lebsack recounted: “In early 2023, we showed the district superintendent and school board members screen shots from TrevorSpace, proving how easily the site can be accessed by adults, including online predators seeking to exploit naïve young people in crisis situations."

She applauds her school district officials for removing the promotional posters out of fear of liability, once the obvious pitfalls were pointed out to them. “They used their common sense,” she said, adding that her group “is grateful that our district leaders trust their instincts rather than blindly trusting government officials’ recommendations of The Trevor Project.” Even so, she concedes that although the SAUSD removed the phone numbers, the program “is still promoted by the 988 hotline and the Orange County LGBT Center,” so the information remains available.

Nonetheless, the removal of the hotline from the SAUSD is a victory for the Coalition, of which Lebsack should be justifiably proud. It emphasizes the power of persuasion when parents present facts that reveal the reality behind the left’s flowery façade of propaganda, laying bare the true agenda and its dangers.

Another key to the group’s success was its presentation of the screen shots and information to the Pacific Justice Institute. After reviewing the documentation, the conservative law firm “wrote a letter to the [SAUSD] District Superintendent and board members stating that TrevorSpace could be a serious liability issue for the school district.”

The Trevor Project is billed as “a suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ students,” which the federally funded “988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline” recommends, and which is supported by a variety of corporations that Trevor calls “partners.” These include the retail giants Macy’s, lululemon, and Abercrombie & Fitch, as well as AT&T and Google, among many others. At Macy’s department stores, for example, customers are asked to “round up” the amount of their sale to the next dollar to support The Trevor Project. No doubt countless shoppers who have no idea of the potential threat posed by the project do exactly that.

Other Interfaith Statewide Coalition projects

Working with leaders of various faiths and other groups, the Coalition gets involved in many issues impacting California parents and students. One of these is exposing the content of so-called “banned books,” which have come under fire from parents due to their pornographic content.

Lebsack described one such book, called This Book is Gay, which she found in her elementary schools and which “teaches kids about dating apps such as Grindr, that provide instructions about having sex.” The app tells users it’s for adults, yet “the California Teachers Association (CTA) recommends it for minors.”

This is in lockstep with the willingness of the CTA as well as California lawmakers to codify the prevention of school employees from informing parents about a child’s gender identity, unless the child gives consent, which has increased the concerns of parents and community leaders about the treatment of gender in schools overall.

Lebsack’s group further worries that changes in curriculum and policy, particularly with regard to gender, will be lost on non-English speaking parents who as a result may be unable to make informed decisions about their children’s education. “Santa Ana is one of the highest non-English speaking cities in California,” Lebsack explains. “With translation services limited, parents may not understand the gravity of the danger these policy changes pose for their children.”

After discovering This Book is Gay in middle and high school libraries as well as the bookmobile, Lebsack attempted to find out why a book that tells that tells readers “to upload a picture of yourself to sex apps like Grindr” so that the app can access the youth’s location and find others to “chat and meet up,” is placed in K-12 school libraries. She says the city library director told her “they are pressured to do so.”

The book mentions that Grindr has an age minimum of 18 years, but that again, savvy kids can lie about their ages. As Lebsack asks rhetorically: “If this information is meant for ages 18 and up, why is it in our publicly funded K-12 schools?”

She notes that “even National Public Radio (NPR) published a piece against Grindr in 2021.” NPR found that “the dating app is supposed to be for men seeking men. But many underage boys are using it to hook up with adults, and that can put them at risk of exploitation and trafficking ... Grindr is one of many online sites where minors can be stalked. Boys and girls are victimized. But researchers say the number of male victims is vastly underreported, in part because boys are less likely to disclose their abuse.”

So far, Lebsack’s group has had no luck removing This Book is Gay from their school libraries, “because in September 2023,” she notes, “Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1078 saying schools cannot censor books due to concerns related to racial or LGBTQ+ themes because it stifles inclusivity and ‘academic freedom.’”

She adds that “more and more racist and sexually explicit books, and books about witchcraft and spells, are appearing on library shelves.” Yet the Coalition soldiers on. Lebsack urges readers to visit their website for a wealth of articles and education-related information, and then to get involved in their own school districts. “As a public-school teacher who is also a protective mom and grandmother,” she says, “here is my warning to parents: Don’t be fooled by the political rhetoric, there’s a razor blade in the shiny school apple."

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