Texas mom 'grateful' for armed Antifa militants outside 'Transgender Storytime' event for kids
A trans activist says she's “grateful” for a group of armed Antifa militants who stood guard outside a North Texas bookstore event during so-called transgender awareness week while she read books about gender and sexuality to a group of young children and their parents.
The “transgender storytime” event was held at Patchouli Joe's Books & Indulgences in Denton, about 30 miles northwest of Dallas and was coordinated with the help of local couple Amber and Adam Briggle, who have a trans-identified teen son.
During the event, video and images shared on social media captured a handful of apparent Antifa militants in black bloc armed with what appeared to be AR-15 rifles and holding rainbow flags.
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Others were seen wearing LGBT rainbow patches with the symbol of a rifle and the words “DEFEND EQUALITY” on their uniforms.
The current scene outside of Patchouli Joe’s in Denton, TX where a Transgender Storytime for Children is being hosted. pic.twitter.com/Xhlj9SGgOY
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) November 19, 2022
The Denton-area mom shared images from the event on her Facebook page of her reading books to a group of young children and their parents, adding she was “grateful for the protectors,” in an apparent reference to the armed group outside the store.
Briggle wrote: “Grateful for the community who came today to celebrate literacy and authenticity. Grateful to trans kids who have taught me to live my truth courageously and out loud. Grateful to the protectors outside the bookstore who kept us safe.”
The event included readings of Neither by Airlie Anderson, which tells the story of a creature who is “not quite a bird and not quite a bunny,” and Calvin by J.R. and Vanessa Ford, a tale about a trans-identified boy’s first day of school.
Guests at Transgender Storytime reportedly received goodie bags and rainbow flags with stickers, among other items.
Neither Briggle nor Patchouli Joe's responded to requests for comment from The Christian Post as of Monday afternoon.
The storytime event was coordinated to coincide with the last day of "transgender awareness week," which is described as “a time for transgender people and their allies to take action and bring attention to the community by educating the public,” according to LGBT activist group GLAAD.
Briggle, who twice ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Denton City Council, gained local notoriety after she invited Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to have dinner at her home in 2016, just as controversy was heating up over a state law protecting single-sex private spaces by banning boys from entering girls' bathrooms (and vice versa) on school campuses, the Texas Tribune reported.
Earlier this year, the Briggles and other parents who support prescribing experimental puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and body-mutilating surgeries that can render children sterile and deformed, said they were being investigated by Child Protective Services for allowing these drugs to be prescribed to their children, which they describe as "gender-affirming care." This came after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a Feb. 22 directive for the state's Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who allow their child to be sterilized through the use of puberty blockers or undergo genital mutilation surgeries, as The Christian Post reported. In March, a judge temporarily blocked the directive.
Paxton, in a formal but non-abiding opinion issued in February, said that certain sex-change procedures “can legally constitute child abuse under several provisions of chapter 261 of the Texas Family Code.” Such procedures include castration, including chemical castration, the removal of healthy body parts, and the prescription of experimental puberty-blocking drugs, among others. “Beyond the obvious harm of permanently sterilizing a child, these procedures and treatments can cause side effects and harms beyond permanent infertility,” he stated at the time.
The Briggle family was also featured in a Disney commercial by GLAAD called "Protect Our Families" in which she accused Americans who support bans on genital mutilation surgeries for children and the teaching of LGBT ideology in schools of trying to “tear our families apart.”
In the video, Briggle discusses her child's interests as she narrates a background video of her daughter, who identifies as a boy named Max, in an effort to persuade those watching the ad that society should support parents who want their children to be given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, saying a trans child “is no different than yours.”
“There are some politicians who are trying to tear my family apart, simply because my [daughter] is transgender,” she asserts. “Trans kids don’t have a political agenda. They are just kids. They just want to be left alone.”
Ian M. Giatti is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ian.giatti@christianpost.com.
