On June 2, 2023 the Leave Our Kids Alone movement officially launched, with a rally outside Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood. The protest was scheduled in response to a planned June Pride-related assembly in which a storybook, The Big Book of Families— which acknowledges that some families have two mommies or two daddies— was to be read to students.
The Instagram account connected with protest organizers, @saticoyelementaryparents first posted on May 19, 2023 with an announcement to “Keep your kids home on June 2nd.” Early posts indicate those behind the account opposed all mention of LGBTQ+ individuals and all sexual education curriculum while claiming to speak for the Christian Armenian and Hispanic members of the school.
In captions, @saticoyelementaryparents used hashtags for “gaysagainstgroomers” and accused LAUSD of “grooming.” On May 24th Fox11 LA covered the protest and it was also promoted on AM870 TheAnswer— the radio show hosted by David Hernandez of Los Angeles Hispanic Republican Club.
While the Saticoy Elementary Parents account was a new arrival on social media with a small following, they were heavily promoted by @gusd_parents_voices- the account run by agitators who began attacking Glendale Unified School District and its inclusive policies and curriculum in 2021.
Setting Up The District For Controversy
On May 29th, @saticoy elementary parents shared a post originally published by @gusd_parents_voices on May 28th which showed a Saticoy teacher’s classroom display which included the Armenian flag and Pride flag. The Saticoy page claimed this display “traumatized” a student.
On May 31st, the LA Times and ABC7 reported that a Pride flag on the Saticoy campus had been removed and burned. The incident was investigated as a hate crime. That same day the GUSD Voices page posted about the incident, compared it to “Jussie Smollet” and implied the attack was faked.
Violence Errupts As Extremist Picket
On the morning of the protest, June 2, counterprotestors, comprised of parents and members of the LGBTQ+ community, allies, and clergy gathered in front of Saticoy Elementary school in North Hollywood. Across the street a large truck pulling a trailer covered in red LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE banners was parked. A table on the sidewalk had large boxes from which the now familiar Leave Our Kids Alone t-shirts were freely distributed.
Early in the day, counterprotestors outnumbered the anti-LGBTQ side but as the morning wore on, many left to go to work or bring their own children to school and the matching-shirt brigade grew.
The Leave Our Kids Alone (hereafter, LOKA) crowd was dominated by men, though women were present and vocal. Individuals connected with GUSD agitators and their amplifiers (including the WiseNuts Podcast, right wing streamer Anthony Cabassa, and 180.shift, a media project of the CA Hispanic Republican Alliance) were present. Gathered around the large trucks, they shouted homophobic and anti-semitic slurs and threats at counter-protestors. Individuals known from past right-wing anti-lockdown and “Stop the Steal” rallies joined the LOKA crowd. Eventually the protestors crossed the street, confronting counter-protestors, hurling verbal abuse, and beating an unhoused person until he was unconscious. Police made no arrests.
The violence begun at Saticoy on June 2nd further exploded at the June 6th GUSD board meeting when LOKA and the GUSD Voices group joined forces, supported by Tony Moon, various Proud Boy associates and other far-right agitators. A brawl instigated by men wearing LOKA shirts resulted in 3 arrests, one of a man who sprayed bear-spray into a crowd.
Since June, LOKA has become the mantle of previously disparate anti-public school, anti-government extremists. The Saticoy and GUSD groups, through online outreach and social media, joined with groups already active in Temecula, Chino Valley, Murrieta and beyond as well as collaborating with other far-right groups including those opposing abortion, vaccines/lockdowns, and known anti-semites and racists.
Sharing videos and other content, the groups also attended school board meetings at Temecula, Chino Valley and elsewhere. They hosted a screening of the propaganda film Sound of Freedom, joined anti-LGBTQ+ agitators and far-right religious groups at a Dodger Stadium anti-pride event, harassed attendees at Glendale’s Cruise Night, and marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles attempting to force their way into an LAUSD board meeting.
In the background, they hosted or received trainings from organizations ranging from the Leadership Institute, Moms for America, Moms for Liberty, PERK, and the FreedomAngels as well as organizing with the California Policy Center and California Family Council. Members of LOKA are currently running for school board and state assembly roles. Individuals from the group have appeared on Fox News, OANN, AM870 The Answer, Alkarma, and numerous far-right podcasts and streaming shows.
History Repeats Itself
While LOKA maintains its aims are the protection of “parents rights” their rhetoric and actions are rife with anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, conspiracy theories, violent threats, intimidation, and anti-Semitic and racist dogwhistles. Like so-called “parents rights” movements extending back to the Red Scare, opposition to desegregation, comprehensive sex education, and tax funding of public schools broadly, the phrase masks the true goals of defunding public education, preserving power hierarchies, and limiting rights and access to those considered out-groups.
Media narratives have mostly failed to acknowledge these goals framing LOKA as “concerned parents” rather than part of a coordinated effort to take control of public schools in order to implement standards and policies linked to Christian nationalist ideals and the removal of LGBTQ+ people from public spaces and access to public resources.
On August 18, in Lake Arrowhead, local business-owner and mom of 9, Lauri Carleton was murdered after she confronted a man trying to remove the pride flag she displayed at her boutique. The gunman, Travis Ikeguchi, was later killed by police after he fled the scene of the crime. Accounts associated with LOKA amplified misinformation that the killer was a family member and was not motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ hate. However, once officially identified, review of Ikeguchi’s social media reveal a man driven by beliefs in a Christian holy war, frequently using slurs and hate speech in posts, and favorably repeating, “LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE.” Attempts to separate the “Parents rights” movement from violence fail when the social media created by groups like LOKA are inextricably and repeatedly linked to extremists who commit crimes against innocent people, and no one will be shocked when LOKA is officially designated as a hate group.
-Contributing writer, Mildred Wilde.