New York Public TV Erases Drag and Trans-Themed Episodes
WNET removed three "Let’s Learn" episodes featuring LGBTQ content after GOP lawmakers threatened to pull funding from public broadcasters.
New York PBS affiliate WNET has removed three educational episodes addressing transgender identity and drag expression from its archives, following threats from congressional conservatives and the Trump administration to defund public broadcasting.
One targeted program was a 2021 episode of the educational series Let’s Learn, titled “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.” The episode featured drag queen and children’s author Lil Miss Hot Mess reading from her book of the same name—a playful take on the classic nursery rhyme “The Wheels on the Bus.”
The episode was blasted by conservatives, including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.
Greene and others argued that the episode was an example of how public broadcasters have been spending taxpayer money to push radical social agendas.
“PBS News is not just left-leaning, but it actively uses taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical, left positions like featuring a drag queen on the show,” Greene said, calling Lil Miss Hot Mess a “child predator” and a “monster.”
Following the initial airing of the episode in 2021, PBS distanced itself from Let’s Learn, saying that the series is “not funded or distributed by PBS.”
The Let’s Learn series is produced in partnership with the WNET Group and the New York City Department of Education.
“The drag queen was actually not on any of our kids’ shows,” PBS CEO Paula Kerger said, claiming that the episode was placed on the PBS website by mistake. PBS later followed up with a letter saying it had “removed all remaining references” to the episode in question on March 26, 2025.
When the controversy first broke, the WNET Group posted a disclaimer at the start of the episode, writing that the Let’s Learn series was made available to public television stations, which “are free to broadcast [it] at their discretion (or not).”
“Drag is a performance art that can inspire creative thinking and the questioning of stereotypes,” the disclaimer continues. “Lil Miss Hot Mess is the author of the book, ‘The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish’. She serves on the global leadership team of Drag Queen Story Hour and has hosted readings at numerous libraries, children’s museums and schools across the country.”
A WNET spokesperson defended the episode, noting that Let’s Learn seeks to “incorporate themes that explore diversity and promote inclusivity.”
According to The Intercept, following the DOGE hearing earlier this year — and in the face of increasing calls from Republicans to eliminate federal funding for public television and radio — WNET reversed course, and quietly removed all mentions of the episode from its platforms. The video is listed as “private” on WNET’s YouTube channel, and the station has instructed search engines not to list the episode’s old webpage, although the episode can still be viewed via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
According to The Intercept, following a congressional DOGE hearing earlier this year — and amid growing Republican pressure to defund public broadcasting — WNET reversed course and quietly scrubbed the episode from its platforms. The video is now marked “private” on WNET’s YouTube channel, and the station has blocked search engines from indexing the episode’s original webpage. However, it remains accessible via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
WNET also removed two other Let’s Learn episodes that featured a book with a transgender character.
In the November 2020 episode “Max and the Talent Show,” author Kyle Lukoff reads his book of the same name, in which a white transgender boy named Max helps his Black male friend Steven prepare for a talent show and “find the perfect gown, shoes, cape, and tiara,” according to a summary provided by the School Library Journal.
WNET also removed “Brain and Same Both Have Long ‘A,'” flagged because it features students reading the book Max and the Talent Show in order to practice reading words featuring the long ‘a’ sound.
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