The Gay Agenda: Plan 1: Infiltrate Rural America: Step 1: Enact Gay Straight Alliance in Louisiana High School
written by the Moon Houston
Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana, two parallel 24 mile bridges. Image shows mostly water, bridge cutting diagonally through, and the bridge is so long it fades out into the distance, giving viewers an eerie, trippy effect.
The era changes, but some things stay the same. I was a gay kid in high school in the mid-2010s, and while my experience with bullying wasn’t as bad as what I’m sure we all perceived from 80s movies, or for what some of my community members lived through, unfortunately bullying stuck around and changed its form. Lawmakers want to strip our rights. Kids raised by parents who have never interacted with a queer person before repeat talking points they heard but don’t quite understand. Children are among our most impressionable, our most discriminable demographic. Many of us understand the perspective of being the new kid in school, or being the stand out queer kid in a room full of straights, or being told not to do this or say that for fear of what other people might think!
And yet we remain, getting queerer and stronger and more resilient by the day.
Kayden R. Martinez, a self described “southeast Louisianan, queer/trans/gay something-or-other, Sagittarius, migraineur, [and] ex-barista,” grew up just outside of the big city. Surely the impacts of “more supportive takes on non-heteronormative expression” would’ve been felt in their town an hour away, however “it's also true that the school district would not allow a GSA in the junior high school, even though there was a Christian club[.]” Martinez, whose pronouns are they and them, has chosen to live their authentic life, describing the best parts of being trans as electing your own path and community, the “powerful, welcoming, revolutionary, sexy, creative, funny, wry, smart community to which you get to belong,” and, cut straight queer to the chase, “T4T sex.”
Martinez sent me many curious snippets about their background, so naturally it makes sense that these would culminate in their show. The Gay Agenda follows the new kid, Griffin, entering high school in a not quite city, not quite rural town of Louisiana. He’s a teenage kid going through teenage problems, he wants to make his dad proud, he wants to talk to girls, and what’s the way to do that? Start a gay club at school! Well, a Gay Straight Alliance. To loosely quote my high school principal, “It can’t just be an LGBTQ+ club. No clubs can be exclusionary of anyone. That would be discriminatory.” As the new kid, Griffin is looking for the space where he can fit in, and, as most of us know, especially us queer kids who had to find it within ourselves, Griffin is creating that space he can call home. Also as most of us know, there can be push-backs, misinformed adults and misguided peers, but there can also be pull-ins, the warm embrace of finding your mismatched, misfit community.
Much like a Gay Straight Alliance, The Gay Agenda is for all to enjoy. Martinez wrote this love letter to their bizarre but common experience also as a critique of the impacts of discrimination in America. Martinez felt “obligated to say that I loved high school, sincerely, even though it was riddled with homophobia and transphobia and racism and classism and also gross people making out in the hallway[.] [Trans] rights were debated in history class with a flippancy usually reserved for whether one should order Coke or Pepsi.” In our political climate, in our actions outdoors and interactions on the internet, we know how it feels to both loathe and love the place we call home. It is the lessons we take away from it, the memories we meander through, that make it meaningful.
Martinez recommends their show for:
anyone who loves Glee and know that show is evil
anyone who has had their loved one sweetly proclaim, "Her pronouns are they/them!"
anyone who did high school debate and can't seem to escape that fact
anyone who knows where the apostrophe goes in "y'all" (as they so helpfully demonstrated)
Scholars
anyone who has ever pissed in a Buc-ee's or driven the Causeway or can define the term "neutral ground" like a Louisianan should
and last, but not least,
people who absolutely love their fucked up home, and want to see it learn and grow and change. I hope they see this show.
The Gay Agenda will be at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday, April 12, 2026, showtime 2:30 pm. Tickets available at https://joywholived.com/events/the-gay-agenda
Kayden also wants you to know they spend way too much money getting their clothes rehemmed. If you or anyone you know is giving away a sewing machine and / or lessons attached to how to use one, please track and hunt Kayden down. I’m sure they will appreciate it.