Huntsville middle school teacher James Miller spends his free time as a drag queen and has a Facebook page under the name “Madge D. Ivine (Miss Majesty Divine). The Mountain Gap Middle School teacher frequently posted pictures of himself on social media attending drag events like Drag Queen Story Time. According to Huntsville schools, Miller is set to retire on Friday.
In a story broken by 1819 News, Vice President of the State Board of Education Wayne Reynolds said that Miller was set to retire on Friday.
Superintendent Christie Finley did not respond when 1819 News tried to confirm the news.
Miller recently made inappropriate comments at a Drag Queen Story Time geared toward kids.
At one of the story time events that was hosted at Hard Knocks Rescue & Training, Inc., an animal rescue organization, Miller made a comment while reading a book about a dog that hid its bone, saying in front of a group of children, “Everybody loves a big bone.”
On Monday, podcast audio surfaced detailing how Miller placed LGBTQ+ material in his classroom.
According to the podcast, after leaving Birmingham, Miller claims he moved to a rural, “redneck” school that he described as very intolerant.
“When I moved from Birmingham, I moved to a very rural school that was 40% Hispanic, about 5% African-American, and the rest were white,” Miller said. “And like very rural, I’m just going to say redneck, just a very redneck school. The first child, a family that had two moms: oh my god, you would have thought there was porn plastered across the school building because everybody was talking about it.”
Miller explained that he “strategically” placed LGBTQ+-themed books in his classroom to help his students.
“[T]hose kids were in my classroom, and I didn’t know how to say, ‘I don’t care,'” Miller explained. “Like that’s your family. I’m going to treat you with respect. I’m going to treat them with respect. So I didn’t have a way I could say that and not get in trouble with my boss. So, I went and got ‘Heather Has Two Mommies, ‘Tango Makes Three,’ I got all these kids’ books, and I strategically placed them in my room, to where, when the kids who were LGBT were over by my bookshelf, they would see them. And then I didn’t have to come out and say, ‘OK, it’s safe to be gay here.'”
Miller described how he began working as an elementary school counselor and claimed to have worked with children who were transgender.
“I had trans kids; I had second-graders who knew in second grade that they were non-binary, and they were able to articulate it,” Miller continued. “That is when I really started working with kids, is when I started that elementary because the easiest way to get through to them is to read them a story. And so, while they’re thinking about the story, one little girl said, ‘that’s just like me.’ I was reading ‘I am Jazz.'”
Miller, who has been a teacher for 27 years, responded in an interview with WAAY TV after receiving threats from people around the country. He worked as a drag queen as a side business, which never interfered with his teaching career.
“I became a teacher because I wanted to be that inclusive person that I needed when I was in middle school that I didn’t have,” Miller explained in the interview. “I’ve created a classroom based on that. I’ve created an advocacy for kids based on that. I became an activist based on that. I do my job well, and I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m proud of what I’ve put together, and these things they’re saying about me are flat-out lies. They’ve twisted it so they can make a lie out of it. I will continue to be an advocate for my LGBTQIA community and my students and for the ones that are not a part of that community.”
