AZ Superintendent Sued Over Secretive Sex Chat Rooms For Students

Maricopa County, AZ Superior Court case number CV2022-093889, presided over by Judge Peter Thompson, is a lawsuit suing the Arizona Department of Education Superintendent Kathy Hoffman for “encouraging the grooming of young children.” This comes after Hoffman advertised links to a secret chat room intended for minor students to discuss sex and gender with “experienced staff who work at LGBTQ+ centers around the country,” likely behind the backs of parents.

The chat room is called Q Chat Space and “provides online discussion groups for LGBTQ+ teens ages 13-19,” and even includes a “quick escape” feature that immediately closes the chat and redirects away from the page at the click of a button to hide the content of the chat, presumably from parents.

According to their website, upcoming chats include “Sex and Relationships Q&A,” “Coming Out,” “Sex Ed, Round 2,” “Queer Interracial Dating,” “Allyship,” “Let’s Talk About Pronouns!” and “Gayborhoods and Building Inclusive Community,” to name just a few. The Arizona Free News defines the organization as “a collaborative effort of Planned Parenthood, the LGBTQ+ support network organization PFLAG, and LGBTQ+ community center organization CenterLink. 

The Arizona Department of Education also promotes a chat site called ‘Gender Spectrum,’ which offers “online pre-teen group” discussions for kids as young as 10 years old.

Peggy McClain, the Arizona parent behind the lawsuit, alleges that Superintendent Hoffman violated provision 1-602-11-C of the Arizona Parents’ Bill of Rights regarding the restriction of “governmental interference,” which states,

“Any attempt to encourage or coerce a minor child to withhold information from the child’s parent is grounds for discipline of an employee of this state, any political subdivision of this state, any other governmental entity or any other institution, except for law enforcement personnel.”

Children are also encouraged by the chat site to provide personal information, not just about their sexual identity and interests but also their email address, birth date, and ZIP code. McClain alleges that the personal data collected from the children by the chat website, likely without the knowledge of their parents, puts the children in danger from potential predators who might hack or buy such information, or who could even be present in the chat rooms.

Here’s Superintendent Hoffman making sure the school children of Arizona get an amazing virtual Pride month during COVID. Because, priorities.