A PBS affiliate television station out of New York has removed educational programs from its archives featuring transgender identities and drag expression. The station in question, WNET removed three educational TV episodes discussing transgender identity and drag.
WNET hosts an educational program entitled “Let’s Learn” which was investigated by the House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency this spring. Episodes that were scrutinized included “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish” in which a drag queen and children’s author Lil Miss Hot Mess sang about drag performances to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus.”
According to The Intercept, subcommittee chair, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. said of the station “PBS News is not just left-leaning, but it actively uses taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical, left-leaning positions like featuring a drag queen on the show.” She continued to call Lil Miss Hot Mess a “child predator” and a “monster.”
The removal of the content on PBS follows Trump’s targeted attacks on new stations like NPR, ABC News and PBS for criticizing him. According to The Intercept, the Trump Administration is gunning to strip these stations of funding.
Since then, WNET has removed the content from all of its platforms, along with two additional episodes about a children’s book with a trans protagonist. PBS CEO Paula Kerger has attempted to create distance between the company and the television program.
“The drag queen was actually not on any of our kids’ shows,” she said. She further claimed the episode was posted on the PBS website by mistake.
This would not be the administration’s first time stripping institutions of funding. Already this year, many higher education institutions have lost funding from the government after failing to comply with Trump’s demands.
In recent weeks, Trump has frozen over $2 billion in research grants at Harvard, and has actually banned the school from enrolling international students.
