Orange City Council in rural New South Wales is planning to spend nearly $126,000 on a three-day Rainbow Festival where every event involves drag queens engaging with children as young as three, and the use of books which encourage children to question their identity. Many citizens of Orange are rightly concerned for their children.

The Rainbow Festival, funded by the NSW State Government, is being promoted as the favourable response to improve mental health, social and capital skills, and even school attendance within the district. It is described online as “a weekend of fun to celebrate and support LBGTQIA+ young people while fostering inclusion, acceptance and unity.”

Many informed individuals within the Orange community are not convinced by such insipid promises, endorsed by their local representatives.

Real trauma

Councillors have been sent extensive medical evidence which raises serious alarm bells about “celebrating and supporting” a lifestyle that research and the lived experiences of many show consistently can have a debilitating effect on overall health, and can increase the risk of suicide up to 19 times that of the general population.

Eminent paediatrician Professor John Whitehall has written to the people of Orange laying out his concerns, and councillors have been sent an open letter from 35 medical specialists condemning "gender-affirming care".

These same councillors have also received harrowing stories about young adult Australians whose lives have been shattered to the brink of death as a result of exposure to sexual manipulation, sexual abuse and gender ideology during childhood and teenage years:

• Rhianne was exposed to lesbianism at age 8 through her schoolfriend’s two “mums”. She was later sexually abused for four years, fell into deep depression, and got engaged to several women, the last being a deeply abusive relationship which led to an addiction to crystal meth. She has chosen to reject the lesbian lifestyle and reports finding “ever greater security in my identity” since leaving the queer community.
• Jeremy was led by ideological medics to have ‘bottom surgery’ in 2003 and live as a ‘woman’, which he did for twenty years. He then realised he had been duped and has spoken out about “being used as a guinea pig in what amounted to a programme of mass feminisation of males”, and he expresses profound anger today at children still being “indoctrinated.”
• Another young man has spoken of suffering same-sex attraction “after repeatedly being told to ‘experiment’ as ‘that’s what everyone does,’" a common pressure placed upon minors today. He says, “I entered into a two-year relationship, and it became abusive. I was eventually mentally forced into marrying the person, given his strong hold over me and the flow of money he offered me. After being beaten and threatened repeatedly… I divorced him.” This young man, now profoundly traumatised, says, “I no longer identify as same-sex attracted, and I am not attracted to men at all.”
• Jay Langadinos, 31, transitioned to a ‘man’ in her early 20s. Today, she is suing her NSW psychiatrist for professional negligence, having been left with 'injuries and disabilities' after surgery. Her solicitor, Anna Kerr of NSW's Feminist Legal Clinic, said, “We can expect to see extensive litigation in future years related to gender-affirming cross-sex hormones and surgeries,” a pathway endorsed by the vast majority of drag queens.
• My own story is that of being labelled as ‘gay’ by “supportive” LGBTQ+ activists during my early teens. I was encouraged to enter the queer community, where I was raped by three different gay men in my mid-teens and left suicidal with several crippling addictions. I was fortunate enough to reject this lifestyle. Many of my peers took their own lives.

Shouldn’t any one of the above stories awaken councillors to the risks of launching such a festival involving minors? We were promised the same “inclusion, acceptance and unity” as minors in Orange City are being baited with. Is a possible repeat of our tragedies what Orange’s councillors really want to offer their local children?