Alaska’s State Health Department marshaled its considerable budget to host a youth summit that initially included a keynote speaker who is renowned for his “bearded drag” queen performances in local gay bars and elsewhere. (Click here to read how, following the Alaska Watchman’s reporting on this issue, his talk was cancelled).
The 2025 Alaska Youth Suicide Prevention Summit targeted teens, ages 13-19, for a one-day event on Sept. 12 at the Egan Center in downtown Anchorage. The stated aim was to provide teens with a “safe space to explore mental wellness, connect with peers, and gain tools to better understand yourself and those around you.”
Participants enjoyed a day of drum circle dancing and artistic expression while drawing from Indigenous wisdom and Eastern mindfulness techniques as they “channel impulsivity toward safe outlets for emotional health.”
One of the main adult speakers who was scheduled to guide the youth through this journey of self-discovery is a man named Brooks Banker.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
His current day job is working as a violence prevention educator with STAR (Standing Together Against Rape). Before that, he was a youth outreach programmer for the LGBTQ activist group, Identity, Inc. During that time, Banker organized, promoted and participated in drag queen story hours for toddlers and teens at Anchorage’s Loussac Library.
In is off hours he’s better known as “Goldie Delicious,” a buxom, bearded drag queen who dances in gay bars, Democrat fundraisers, children’s story hours and left-leaning nonprofits.
Banker is currently a board member for a group called “Drag For a Cause.” The organization’s website notes that he has been “performing bearded drag for 15 years.”
Banker is not an unknown entity to the Alaska Health Department. In 2022, the agency helped put on a conference called “LeadOn,” which also targeted teens. Banker was invited to speak to Alaska youth about the “spectrum” of gender identities and urged them to be aware of perceived “inequities” experienced by the LGBTQ2IA+ community. He also highlighted local and statewide laws that affirm LGBTQ sexuality and presented youth with guidelines on how to be “supportive of those in the sexual and gender diverse community.”
Banker’s Instagram account describes him as a “Lip Quivering Queen & Anchorage’s Original Bearded Babe.”
There was no mention of his drag queen proclivities on the official youth summit webpage, and his scheduled participation in the state-sponsored conference appeared to be limited to delivering a keynote workshop on how to navigate various forms of bullying and harassment.
TAKING ACTION
— Click here to contact Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
— Click here to contact Alaska Health Commissioner Heidi Hedberg.
21 Comments
Where’s the white man in Blackface who lampoons African Americans by night and leads them through mindful self-discovery by day? Can we give him a platform to reach our youth?
I believe the correct analogy would be a black person in “white face” & assimilating to white ideology, language, and culture during the day for work then returning to their associated black culture norms outside of work…which literally happens for many persons of non-white cultures, so your what’s your point?
What other sick fantasies does this dude have?
You sound interested! You can just go see his shows, you don’t have to stalk him from afar girlypop.
This is absolutely disgusting. How can you have some with clear mental problems teach impressionable youth about mental wellness? He is not mentally well, so he should not be talking to children about being mental well. This is absolutely disgusting. He should be banned from being anywhere near children and who hired him should be fired and arrested for child endangerment.
Yes a VERY SICK INDIVIDUAL. Keep him away from children.
If by “mental health problems” & “very sick individual” you mean self-aware, emotionally regulated, and well-adjusted based on personal life experiences, you nailed it. Our youth are experiencing a mental health crisis and trying to navigate their own life roller coaster…relating to others’ lived experiences and learning how to ask for help to save their or other’s lives should be an option when feeling like their the only one dealing with mental health struggles. Free thinking should be allowed and propagated. Seeking knowledge from all sides, using critical thinking, and the scientific method is vital to the process of learning, gaining knowledge, and individual values/beliefs…lest we become a society of idiocracy living in a vacuum. If you really believe our youth are not already doing this in some form without asking you your “adult” opinion then you have your head in the sand…try talking to them about what they are hearing and seeing and how that relates to their family values & highway we can foster learning hopefully their is a deeper connection and conversation rather than just parroting back what think they should say to escape the discussion…because they’d rather talk to their friends about it.
I have no desire to hear what you do in your off time— and why you care so much about what he does with his is really weird.
Thank you, Alaska Watchman, for exposing this person, Brooks Banker. Another reflection on the current State of Alaska government administration for allowing this bias for perversion.
Who cares? I’m sure if I looked into your personal life we’d find all kinds of things *I PERSONALLY DO NOT LIKE* but that’s not my business.
Tattling on people you don’t like is so weak and weaselly, no wonder you are promoting that behavior.
If I was interfacing with your children it sure darn would be!
Most people try to work on their problems, to become a better person. The man in the article doesn’t think he has a psychological issue, and wants to share it with the world like it’s normal. And that’s a real problem.
I think the man in the article speaks to kids and adults about safety and violence prevention. Everyone deserves a hobby— I’m not going keep people from shooting guns or knitting— leave him alone, weirdo.
Cheers, Babs! Much agreed.
Thank you for this, Joel. Can you delve further into this, specifically, who within Alaska’s State Health Department created the 2025 Alaska Youth Suicide Prevention Summit and the 2022 conference called “LeadOn”? Are they the same state officials?
Only the constipated Christian Nationalist Right could get all pissy about the 2025 Alaska Youth Suicide Prevention Summit whose purpose is to provide teens with a “safe space to explore mental wellness, connect with peers, and gain tools to better understand yourself and those around you.” How about sending a Christian educator to the summit to counter the scary weird goofiness of drag?
We can’t get a dividend over $1000 but the State of Alaska can fund this? What else do they waste money on?
Really? You’re asking this? Could take all night to detail the waste fraud and abuse of the Dunleavy administration. Could start with the ineffective wasteful bear and wolf aerial slaughter.
CANCEL CULTUR! JOEL AND BEAGLE ARE RUINING ALASKA!
Shame on dept of health to sponsor such a sicko. Now you understand why the dept. of health is in federal court over the treatment of foster children and the youth of our state. The department and their decision makers have made destructive decisions concerning youth bordering on and complicit with some making criminal decisions. For years they have covered it up but its there now and maybe the federal courts will make the state do its job and hopefully, change ojut these creeps that work for the state making really bad decisions regarding our children.
Wow. There were comments supporting Brooks— but they were deleted. Interesting ethics around censorship, Joel Davidson.