School board meetings are supposed to be about education. Increasingly, they resemble political theater, with one important difference: the people running the show don’t always realize they’re the punchline.
Enter Shamgar Connors, a former public-school teacher who has decided that if officials insist on defending policies he considers absurd, the least he can do is give those policies the characters they deserve. One minute he’s Shamgarita, a WNBA hopeful and captain of the Pronoun Protectors. The next, he’s Wolfgar, a furry taking his case to the public-comment podium. The costumes change. The questions don’t: Who gets to decide what happens in our schools, and why are parents so often treated like the problem?
Connors joined me on Dangerous Laughter for an episode that proves political comedy gets a lot more interesting when the comedian is willing to become the spectacle. Shamgarita’s basketball credentials are impeccable by the standards of her fictional league: her only tryout was identifying as a player, so she’s already made the team. Her game combines layups with manifestation, and her team is ready to take on anyone foolish enough to ask what, exactly, qualifies someone to play in the WNBA.
I couldn’t resist pointing out that Connors had once been annoyed with me for putting a different bearded lady on the cover of my latest book, The Curse of the Bearded Lady: How the Trans Mafia Whacked American Sanity. Apparently, there’s room for more than one bearded lady in the cultural circus. Mine made the cover; Shamgarita brought her own jersey. Either way, the joke points toward a serious question running through both the book and our conversation: what happens when institutions demand that people accept claims they believe contradict reality?
