The Watertown Unified School District Board of Education voted 7-1 on Tuesday to remove an instrumental symphony piece honoring Marsha P. Johnson — the drug-addicted trans sex worker and cross-dresser mythologized by the left as a transgender icon — from the high school wind ensemble’s upcoming spring concert.
The composition, “A Mother of a Revolution” by Omar Thomas, was scheduled for the May 18 performance. Board members determined it violated the district’s controversial issues policy and referenced political violence associated with the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, where Johnson participated as a biological male drag performer and street prostitute.
The decision triggered chaos at the special board meeting, with transgender activists and self-described “children’s sexual liberation” groups packing the high school cafeteria, booing, yelling, and protesting loudly after the vote. Video circulating on social media captured the outbursts as activists demanded the school pay musical tribute to Johnson’s legacy despite his well-documented history of substance abuse, sex work, and brushes with the law.
Board Vice President Sam Ouweneel defended the move, stating it reflected the platform on which members campaigned: “ending indoctrination and radical curriculum.” Board member Christina DeGrave added, “Political violence should not be celebrated through music or song.” She described the Stonewall incident as involving rioters barricading a building and setting it on fire with police officers, media, and civilians inside. Board clerk Tammy Fournier criticized the band director for selecting the piece in the first place.
The band director notified parents in October about the potentially controversial selection and offered an opt-out. Only three students exercised it. Students in the roughly 40-member wind ensemble had rehearsed the wordless, technically challenging piece for months but received no classroom instruction on Johnson or the riots.
Johnson, born Malcolm Michaels Jr., was a gay cross-dresser and drag performer, and left-wing activists have nevertheless elevated him as a pioneer of the LGBT movement, despite his troubled life marked by homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution.
Dozens of students, parents, and local musicians protested outside the high school beforehand, waving rainbow flags and signs. Inside, public comment stretched on as emotional students, including choir member Layla Turner, argued against “censoring” the piece. One student told the board the decision felt like a rejection of LGBTQ+ community members.
Self-described progressive, Democrat gubernatorial candidate and Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad, fresh off national backlash for anti-Trump “free beer day” rhetoric tied to the president’s death, invited the Watertown Wind Ensemble to perform the full concert, including the removed piece, at his brewery. Bangstad framed the offer as support for the students against what he called board censorship, using his business once again as a vehicle for radical activism.
The May 18 concert will proceed without the piece.
