Two former Moms for Liberty members are running for Clark County School Board. Here’s what you need to know.
This story is published in partnership with the Queer News Network, a collaboration among 11 LGBTQ+ newsrooms to cover down ballot elections across 10 states. Read more about us here.
This piece was published with QVegas.
Two former Moms for Liberty members are running for school board trustee positions in Clark County this upcoming election, playing into the national culture wars against LGBTQ+ student rights and book bans of subjects they deem inappropriate for public schools.
The candidates, Lorena Biasotti and Lydia Dominguez, are running for District E and B, respectively, have no formal experience in education, and at least in one candidate’s history has been booted from school district meetings for being disruptive.
Who are the candidates?
Biasotti, who founded the Clark County chapter of Moms for Liberty, is running on a platform of safety, parental rights and academic success, according to her website.
She is a former realtor and current stay-at-home mom to four children.
Biasotti has declared her intention to ban books such as Gender Queer, a graphic novel detailing the author’s journey of coming out as nonbinary. The book has been listed as one of the most banned books of the last three years by the American Library Association. Biasotti says the book contains graphic content.
She has also made transphobic comments equating gender-affirming care to pedophilia, a statement with echoes of past claims during the religious revival movement that falsely claimed that gay men were pedophiles.
Though Biasotti stepped down from her role in her chapter of Moms for Liberty, she has stated in interviews that she continues to support the group’s platform, which include advocating for “parental rights” and opposing “Marxist critical race theory” in schools. Biasotti also made a name for herself getting expelled from school district meetings for being disruptive.
She is running against Kamilah Bywaters, a former special education teacher currently pursuing her PhD in special education.
Dominguez is a former Air Force Reserve guard and mother of two running against Eileen Eady, a former classroom teacher of fifteen years. In the June primary election, Dominguez received more votes than Eady by approximately 2,000 votes. Both candidates will be on the ballot in this general election.
Dominguez, like Biasotti, promotes parental rights as one of her top platforms. Though Dominguez told local station KLAS that she left her local chapter of Moms for Liberty for personal reasons, she still believes in the national organization’s platform, which includes removing information about LGBTQ+ rights and race and discrimination from all school materials.
Neither candidate has formal experience in an education environment.
Moms for Liberty across the country
Moms for Liberty has been at the forefront of the classroom culture wars since its inception in 2021. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Moms for Liberty as a “far-right anti-government organization” that seeks to advance a conspiracy agenda and promote hateful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
Founded by three former members of school boards in Florida as a response to public health regulations around COVID-19 such as mask mandates, Moms for Liberty has since expanded its platform to broadly oppose what they call “woke indoctrination” in schools, meaning policies and pedagogy that is gender-inclusive and identity-affirming.
Co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich recently penned an open letter to American parents calling a potential Kamala Harris presidency “the rise of the most anti-parent, extremist government America has ever known.”
Beyond the national election, Moms for Liberty members have focused their efforts on school board races.
In 2023, 93 of the 210 candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won their school board elections, according to an analysis done by Ballotpedia.
However, it can be hard to track races and their successes since there are candidates, like Biasotti and Dominguez, who are affiliated with Moms for Liberty and its platform but are not formally endorsed by the organization.
What could this mean for LGBTQ+ children and families?
Nevada is ranked by the Movement Advancement Project as “high” on the project’s state equality profile, scoring especially well with regards to LGBTQ youth law and policies.
The Clark County School district, which covers Las Vegas and over 300,000 students, has a specific policy to address the rights and needs of students with diverse gender identities and expressions, which include establishing a gender-support team for the student that can include family, school personnel and a member of a community based group.
Advocates in Clark County say this high level of equality and safety is at risk by candidates like Biasotti and Dominguez.
Jenna Robertson, the director of student and family advocacy at the Nevada Alliance for Student Diversity, first became aware of Biasotti and Dominguez through their presence at school board meetings.
“I have been around long enough to see them, as members of the public, come and give public comments that are unhinged and often irrational,” said Robertson.
In recent years, Robertson said she has stopped bringing her daughter to school board meetings because the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric used by the candidates and their fellow Moms for Liberty members became so “unsafe.”
Though Clark County school board policies and Nevada state law offer many layers of protection for LGBTQ+ students and their families, Robertson worries more about what it means for candidates like Biasotti and Dominguez to be taken seriously in their hate-mongering.
“What worries me a lot is that people are not going to remember that these are the same people standing up and yelling [profanities], or talking about how masks deprive children of much needed oxygen, and calling the school board names,” said Robertson.
“If they're saying that from the dais of the fifth-largest school district in the country, I'm really worried.”