Kansas county commissioners embrace child drag show, tampons for men’s rooms, colleague alleges

A Johnson County, Kansas, commissioner is blasting her colleagues for supporting an all-ages drag queen show with a coloring contest for kids earlier this year, and for abiding men’s-room tampons in public libraries.

In an email to constituents and other citizens this week, Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara says “advertising and attending a Drag Queen Show” in June that was billed as a “family-friendly” show at a pride event is part of “Chairman Mike Kelly’s radical leftist policies.”

The drag show encouraged tips for the entertainers, akin to those at a strip club.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas City, was on the agenda to speak and attended the event, as did Kelly, O’Hara notes.

“These radical policies are supported by District 2 Commissioner, Jeff Meyers, and District 6 Commissioner, Shirley Allenbrand, both of whom are standing for re-election in 7 short days,” writes O’Hara, who also is on the ballot Nov. 5.

“This is just debauchery,” O’Hara told The Lion Tuesday. “And they were advertising for kids. They have an area set aside for coloring, and [advertised] that they’re going to have great prizes for the winners of these coloring events.

“I mean, I’m just going, ‘Oh my gosh. They are marketing right to kids.’”

Such an event is tantamount to grooming children for alternative sexual lifestyles, she argues.

“It appears that that would be a good term to use. Basically what they’re doing is that they’re normalizing this – ‘This is appropriate, these are appropriate events to take your children to.’

“This is just so far from anything that I want my grandchildren exposed to that it’s hard to process. It’s really difficult to process.”

The Lion reached out to Chairman Kelly for comment.

“That is not true and I would like to know how you heard that,” Commissioner Meyers responded via email. “Was it personally from her? I will confront her on this and it sure sounds like she is desperate.”

Commissioner Allenbrand hadn’t responded as of publication time, but she full-throatedly supported the drag show – calling the performance “free speech” in response to criticism of it at the commission’s July 18 meeting.

“I really take offense to people calling out drag queen (sic),” Allenbrand said. “I mean, I know that event happened in my district and I don’t, I’m not sure what that is saying about the people that wanted to have some freedom of speech – to call people out like that. I’m, I’m appalled at that. I hope that we’re very careful, that we take a look; all the pictures that I saw, I saw a large group of people, hundreds of people, that got together to celebrate what they believe in.”

O’Hara’s email alleged Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick also attended the event, but Hanzlick tells The Lion in an email that, “No, I was unable to attend.” Asked if she thinks drag shows are appropriate for children, Hanzlick writes, “That decision is up to the parent(s).”

“The majority of YOUR JoCo BOCC has time and money for hyper sexualization and radicalization of OUR children,” O’Hara charges in her email, “yet they turn a blind eye to the crushing burden on YOUR family of ever increasing property taxes.”

As for tampons in men’s rooms, the Johnson County Library in August announced an annual donation by nonprofit Strawberry Week Society of “10,000 pads and 6,000 tampons” for restrooms.

The county commission appoints members to the library board and approves its budget.

Pressed by news outlet The Sentinel to explain the addition of tampons to men’s rooms, the library system explained they are for men to provide to the females in their lives.

“We don’t want staff to assume why or why not someone needs access to period products,” a library spokesperson told The Sentinel, “and we acknowledge that there are fathers, grandfathers, husbands, and more who may need confidential and quick access in order to enable a child, partner, or other person in their care to remain in the library.”

O’Hara finds that an odd explanation, since it’s not as if a preschool girl needs assistance with a tampon.

“Oh, that’s so ridiculous. There’s just nothing else to say. It’s just ridiculous,” she says. “If someone is there and needs a tampon, they can walk into the woman’s bathroom and get one. Their logic is so skewed.

“It goes beyond my comprehension. And again, this is normalizing this behavior. This is the reason for the tampons being in the bathrooms. It’s all part of normalizing all of this bizarre behavior.”