Support Pride Learning and Social Happenings (SPLASH) Youth of Northern Colorado is a Fort Collins, Colorado-based LGBT activist organization. ^{1 2} SPLASH organizes the Northern Colorado chapter of drag queen story hour, ³ conducts LGBT outreach activities in schools, and has organized LGBT pride events and activities for more than 2000 Colorado youth. ^{4 5 6 7 8 9}

SPLASH also operates the “Skittles” LGBT group, which seeks to include children aged 7 to 11 but that critics claim has been offered for children as young as five years old. ^{10 11}

History and Leadership

SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado was founded in 2015 ¹² and received tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service in 2019. ¹³

Kimberly Chambers is the director of SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado. ¹⁴ She is also a paid substitute teacher, an employee of the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment, ¹⁵ and the co-founder of LGBT activist group NoCoSafeSpace. ¹⁶

In 2022, Fox News and the New York Post reported that Chambers had been a guest speaker at a controversial “Genders and Sexualities Alliances” student event in Fort Collins, Colorado, at which students were reportedly told to hide and conceal the group’s content from their parents. ^{17 18} According to one parent, Chambers told at least one student that if she is “not 100 percent comfortable in her female body, then she’s transgender” ¹⁹ and reportedly told students that it was okay to lie to parents about attending the club meeting. ²⁰

Activities and Funding

Support Pride Learning and Social Happenings (SPLASH) ²¹ Youth of Northern Colorado is a youth-focused LGBT activist organization headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado. ^{22 23} SPLASH conducts outreach activities in schools and has organized activities and LGBT pride events ²⁴ for more than 2000 Colorado youth. ^{25 26 27 28 29}

SPLASH also organizes drag queen story hours at libraries in northern Colorado. The group claims these drag queen events ensure northern Colorado libraries are “safe and inclusive for all patrons.” ³⁰

In April 2022, SPLASH was featured in a drag queen story hour at the 2022 American Civil Liberties Union National Tour Stop in Aurora, Colorado. The organizers claimed the event captured “the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” ³¹

SPLASH supports the far-left Black Lives Matter movement ³² and has co-sponsored transgendered events with the left-of-center Bohemian Foundation and LGBT activist organization NoCo Safe Space. ³³

Group Activities

SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado supports “gay-straight alliance” clubs, “allies” clubs, diversity clubs, and LGBT pride clubs at schools. SPLASH also offers ideas on “queering up your school,” lesson plan templates, so-called “gender unicorn” activities with instructions, ^{34 35} and a “queer prom” three times a year. ³⁶

SPLASH of Northern Colorado also operates the “skittles” LGBT group, which is offered to children aged 7 to 11, but that critics claim has previously targeted children as young as five years old. ^{37 38}

SPLASH also hosts LGBT parents groups called “adult swim” ^{39 40 41} panels, panels targeting professionals to help them understand LGBT youth, ⁴² “queer sex education” programs for children aged 12 to 18, ^{43 44} “SafeSpace” dances and proms for LGBT youth aged twelve-and-up, ⁴⁵ and a list of “open and affirming” Christian churches in northern Colorado. ^{46 47}

SPLASH also operates Gauge (“Generating Acceptance and Understanding of Gender Expression”), a support group for transgender youth. The Greeley Tribune described it as a “group run by transgender or nonbinary adults provides specific resources and a social support model for all topics surrounding being trans, genderfluid or nonbinary.” ⁴⁸

Funding

SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado receives its funding from individual donations. It also solicits donations to support its “drag queen story hour” activities. ^{49 50}

In 2020, SPLASH of Northern Colorado reported gross receipts not greater than $50,000. ⁵¹

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