GOP candidate compares LGBTQ+ activists to Hitler & says demons are turning kids trans

Drenda Keesee, a pastor, right-wing extremist, and full-fledged conspiracy theorist running uncontested for a commissioner seat in Knox County, Ohio, has spent her career spreading dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda. She’s even claimed that LGBTQ+ rights activists have taken a page from Hitler’s playbook in the way they are “indoctrinating” youth.

Media Matters recently called out local Knox County media for failing to cover Keesee’s extreme views and focusing instead on her anti-solar platform. The watchdog organization then shared several clips of Keesee spouting her wild theories.

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In one clip, Keesee pushed radical anti-trans views while promoting her book, They Are Coming for Your Children.

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“You can do all kinds of surgeries on the outside but it cannot change what God created a person,” she said. “They’re either XX female or they’re XY male.”

She then claimed children are being targeted by an evil agenda and are “being brainwashed” all day long: “These children’s souls are at stake, their bodies are at stake… demonic spirits are attacking them, and satanic hordes are infiltrating them and even possessing their bodies.”

She also decried so-called critical race theory being taught in schools and claimed schools are pushing pornography on kids. (Porn is often used by the right as a thinly veiled code word for LGBTQ+ content.) She said kids “could be taken for life by these alien entities called demons” and added that trophies and scholarships are being taken from young girl athletes, no doubt implying trans girls should not be allowed to participate in girls’ sports.

Another clip from 2021 shows Keesee claiming she doesn’t hate anyone before declaring that Hell is real, there is a devil, and gay relationships are “abominations” that Satan created to confuse people into rejecting God.

It is also an abomination, she added, when people “experiment with bodies and change them from what God designed them to create — be created male and female.”

People like LGBTQ+ folks who follow Satan, she said, will suffer “eternal hell” in the “lake of fire.”

In 2023, she claimed kids are “being bombarded constantly with messaging that makes them question whether they’re male or female… Because just like Hitler, they know if you’re going to mold a child, you mold them at the youngest age you can before they have a developed consciousness of what is right and wrong.”

She said kids are being exposed and indoctrinated to “transgender ideology” and the “rainbow movement” everywhere they go.

The clips go on and on, with Keesee also proclaiming that “LGBTQ agendas” are part of a plot to destroy America and that Satan is the architect behind LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Clearly, spreading anti-LGBTQ+ ideology is a major part of Keesee’s career and identity. The plot summary of her book points to a sarcastic chant that folks yelled at a Manhattan Drag March last year to mock conservatives: “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.”

“This viral taunt from an LGBTQ march reminds us that the war against Children is raging — not only in homes, but at the forefront of today’s political agendas in an attempt to steal the innocence of our children,” the summary of Keesee’s book states.

On her campaign website, the single issue she highlights is her stance against solar farms.