An LGBTQ-affirming charter school in Alabama claims it’s had to increase campus security after a Republican gubernatorial candidate attacked the school for “exploiting” the youth who attend the school.
Tim James, who is challenging incumbent Gov. Kay Ivey in the GOP primary, criticized Ivey for allowing the Birmingham-based charter school of about 240 students — believed to be the only explicitly LGBTQ-affirming charter school in the southeastern United States — to receive taxpayer dollars, reports Salon.
“Now here in Alabama, we charted the first transgender school in the South using millions of your tax dollars. The faculty put on a drag show for children,” James says in a 30-second spot now airing on television that shows the faces of students and teachers at the school. “That’s not education. That’s exploitation.”
While the charter school, now in its first year, is open to all students — not just LGBTQ youth — looking for a refuge from bullying, James has accused the faculty of “abuse” for exposing children to LGBTQ-related issues, for holding the drag show, and for allowing children to explore issues of identity, which he referred to as “perversion.”
James has promised that, if elected, he would defund the charter school and shut it down. While Ivey has already signed several anti-transgender or anti-LGBTQ bills into law — including a ban on transgender athletes competing on sports teams that align with their gender identity, a law prohibiting trans youth from accessing gender-affirming health care, and a law that prohibits LGBTQ-related discussions in schools — James is hoping that capitalizing on the school’s existence will endear him to social conservatives who invariably will determine who the next governor of the heavily Republican state will be.
According to a New Gray TV/Alabama Daily News poll, 46.1% of Republican primary voters in Alabama would prefer Ivey, while James came in second, with only 12.4% of primary voters selecting him as a first choice. That result would trigger a runoff election, as a candidate must win more than 50 percent of the vote to secure their preferred party’s nomination. If Ivey continues to hold a similar lead, James’ best chance is to blame the incumbent for not shutting down Magic City Acceptance Academy, in the hope of forcing her into a runoff election where he can challenge her on a one-to-one basis.
But school officials at Magic City Acceptance Academy say James’ rhetoric has already placed a target on the school’s back and is “scaring the hell out of our kids,” according to principal Michael Wilson. Wilson says the school has had to partner with a local wellness center to provide counseling for some of the students.
“The Tim James ad is nothing short of an adult bullying children,” Wilson, said. “It’s causing more anxiety. You are talking about kids who are four times more likely than their straight counterparts with suicide ideation.”
The first week that James’ ad ran, Wilson told the Birmingham-based CBS affiliate WIAT that someone drove by the school and yelled slurs at students standing outside. In another incident, a woman attempted to film some of the students without their permission before being stopped by staff.
Screenshot of Tim James’ commercial attacking the Magic City Acceptance Academy – Photo: Tim James for Governor.
Wilson said that some of the students pictured in the ad are angry that they are being used as campaign fodder. He said a parent of one of the students pictured in the commercial sent the James campaign a cease-and-desist letter. The campaign then edited the photo to exclude only the child in question, while leaving others visible.
The James campaign claims they never received a letter, only an email from a parent angry about their child’s inclusion int the commercial, and “obscured the student from the ad” in response. But the campaign also slammed the complaining parent, saying that if she were “truly concerned about her child, she would remove her from the Magic City Acceptance Academy, period.”
Alabama Democratic Party Vice Chair Patricia Todd, a former state representative who was the first out LGBTQ person elected to the Alabama Legislature, called James’ ad “extremely dangerous to youth,” adding: “If anything happens, such as a hate crime to those kids, that will be on [James’] hands.”
Wilson told WIAT that, regardless of the machinations of politicians, the school would stand by its mission to serve as a place for students who have been marginalized or bullied in traditional schools.
“We’re an educational space for all students,” he said. “We’re built on pillars of trauma-informed care because most of our kids have faced marginalization of some kind — because they’re LGBTQ, because of color, because of the level of poverty… We’re the space where we hopefully break down barriers so that kids can continue to learn and continue to grow and eventually become the adults that they want to be.”
Documentaries generally don't need an onscreen host. The camera can play host, and real-life stories can tell themselves, with offscreen prompting from research and production, and shrewd direction and editing providing context.
If a filmmaker wants to put the prompting onscreen, there's a delicate art to inserting themselves or an on-camera host into the story without stealing the spotlight from their subject.
Ryan Ashley Lowery, director and creator of the LGBTQ doc Light Up, is anything but delicate in inserting himself and two on-camera host-interviewers -- Michael Mixx and Maurice Eckstein -- into the film's still-compelling portrait of Atlanta's "community of Black same gender loving men and trans women."
Racers, start your engines. RuPaul’s Drag Race has revealed the 14 new queens set to grace the runway for its 18th season as they vie for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar and a grand prize of $200,000.
Premiering January 2 on MTV, the season will be accompanied by another run of RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked, where viewers get the chance to get an inside look at all the tea being spilt behind the scenes of the hit show.
The new season will also feature a bit of a twist from the outset. Unlike the recent spate of season-premiere episodes that feature a talent show -- remember Season 15, when the judges were somehow unimpressed with Irene the Alien’s keen ability to make a glass of ice water? -- the competition appears to be starting with a sewing challenge.
The year's nearly out. Sometimes that calls for taking sweet stock of the past months' wonderful events. Coming to the end of 2025, on the other hand, is more like getting to that denouement in the action movie where the survivors take a breath and pat each other on the back for having made it out alive. At this stage, we are Newt getting tucked-in to her Sulaco hibernation tube.
With some effort and a pinch of luck, may we all fare better in 2026 than poor Newt's end at the start of Alien 3.
Why such a shitty year? So much of it, obviously, can be laid at the feet of Lame Duck Donald. Not that he hasn't had loads of assistance in his evil efforts to erase our transgender family and friends, colleagues, and leaders during 2025. The purge, as promised, began right out of the gate on Inauguration Day.
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