Groups Clash Over LGBT Policy at Southern California School Board Meeting Before School Year Ends

The Glendale Unified School Board’s final meeting of the school year on June 20 drew dozens of parents, community members, and activists protesting over the district’s policies on LGBT content in schools.

The protest comes just two weeks after three demonstrators were arrested at a June 6 board meeting, where opposing sides clashed as the district unanimously voted to recognize Pride Month.

Ahead of the June 20 meeting, both the Glendale Police Department and Glendale Unified Board President Nayiri Nahabedian urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.

Glendale Unified parent Yeva, who preferred to give her first name only, told The Epoch Times that protesters maintained peace.

“[Parents] did not go there with intentions for violence,” she said. “We really wanted to just speak to the community and get the message out of what’s going on because many are unaware. In the end, it was very peaceful and productive and constructive.”

Police intervened just after 7 p.m. when an altercation took place between a homeless man and a Glendale resident across the street from the protest.

However, Yeva said, the altercation was not directly related to the protest.

“A homeless man agitated one of the community members, yelling ‘[expletive] your kids’ and spitting on him,” she said.

She added that the situation was “diffused” by police within “a couple of minutes,” and the homeless man was briefly detained by the officers on scene.

However, she said, some outside activists came and stirred disruption.

Though there were no LGBT-related items on the meeting agenda, dozens of people from pro-LGBT and far-left activist groups showed up several hours early to the board meeting to take up seats inside, according to Yeva.

Pro-LGBT activist group Queer Nation LA urged supporters on social media to show up to the meeting “to outnumber the fascists trying to eradicate trans and queer lives from public education in the U.S. and beyond.”

Yeva said many parents and community members also came early when they saw the activists were arriving.

“This is our board meeting,” she told The Epoch Times. “They’re hijacking our meeting for their own activist interests. But this time, a lot of parents came, and a lot of the community came out to support the parents as well and have our own message put out there.”

Glendale Unified parent Hasmik Bezirdzhyan told The Epoch Times she believed the outside activists purposely agitated parents and community members.

In one video from the protest, obtained by The Epoch Times , a topless woman is seen yelling and flailing her breasts at a parent.

“The activists were doing and yelling obscene things, trying to trigger people and get them upset so that they can turn the narrative that we were the hostile ones, that we’re homophobes and bigots,” Bezirdzhyan said.

Bezirdzhyan said parents simply don’t want their children prematurely exposed to gender ideology and sexuality.

“We are not homophobes; we couldn’t care less what adult gay people do with their lives,” she said. “We just don’t want our children to be sexualized and introduced to these topics prematurely.”

During the board meeting, Superintendent Vivian Ekchian announced she is retiring effective June 30, concluding a 38-year career in education.