Canadian gay teacher suspended after showing class draq queen Christmas video

A gay teacher in Vancouver Island, Canada, has been suspended with pay after showing a class aged between nine and ten a video of draq queens lip-synching to Bette Middler’s ‘Mali Kalikimaka’, a Hawaiian Christmas song.

Teacher Joe Winkler said he showed the video to his students at Brentwood Elementary School to illustrate LGBT diversity.

“When I found the video, I thought it would be an excellent way of introducing the children to transgender issues,” CTV News reports Mr Winkler as saying to parents in an email.

“As with other LGBT issues, we have not looked at transgender as being about sex, and there was no mention or suggestion of sex in the video,” the teacher said.

The video ends with a bare-chested man eating a banana.

While some parents believe the video is fine for children to view, Al Smith said: “At the end, the guy’s peeling the banana, acting very sexually with the banana”.

Mr Winkler has been suspended on full pay pending an investigation.

• Drag
• Jan 03

Start your engines! All 16 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race US ranked from worst to best