The ‘Litter Boxes In Schools’ Lie Just Won’t Die

Montana’s top education official is the latest government official to claim kids who “identify as cats” are relieving themselves in litter boxes at school.

Our esteemed nation’s infantile culture wars were front and center in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, and dozens of candidates — including prospective governors, senators, congressmen and people eyeing local offices — humiliated themselves by promising to end the alleged scourge of public schools providing litter boxes so students who “identify as cats” can comfortably shit in a manner befitting their adopted species during school hours.

As we’ve pointed out before, the litter boxes in schools thing is an urban legend, a hoax or a malicious lie depending on your perspective. It’s also an exercise in unfairly dragging cats into our petty ideological arguments, and the poor little guys can’t seem to claw their way out.

People like podcaster Joe Rogan, congresswoman Lauren Boebert and her sister from another mister, Marjorie Taylor-Green, are among the most prominent public figures to fall for the hoax and do their part in spreading it. Even the Australians got in on the panic.

We looked into the claims at the time, and none of them turned out to have any merit. In most cases, the claims were based on third- and fourth-hand accounts: “My neighbor’s sister works in the Washington Free School District, she says another teacher told her they were putting litter boxes in the middle school!” and that sort of thing.

The other claims evaporated when the people making them were asked to provide specifics. Rogan managed to check both boxes when he finally admitted he couldn’t confirm his story.

‘I have a friend and my friend’s wife is a school teacher,” Rogan said on his podcast. “And she told him that there was discussions in the school that the mother wanted to put a litter box in a school.”

The claims died down after midterms, but they’re back again with the top education official in Montana claiming cat-identified children all over her state are pooping in litter boxes with the blessing of their teachers and principals.

“Let’s talk about boys in girls bathrooms and that safety issue,” said Elsie Arntzen, superintendent of public instruction in Montana, in an Aug. 15 interview with Montana Public Radio. “Let’s talk about those litter boxes that some schools are putting out for children who want to view themselves as some sort of an animal. Is this where public education should be? I say no.”

Arntzen
Arntzen, who has congressional ambitions, hasn’t been able to produce evidence of her claims. Credit: Montana state government

When asked to provide details, Arntzen doubled down, claiming she had evidence that schools in her states were equipping bathrooms with litter boxes. When Montana Free Press looked into the claim and Arntzen’s own office couldn’t produce anything to substantiate it, Arntzen through a spokesperson claimed that, actually, the office has complaints from parents “all over the state,” which they claim qualifies as the aforementioned evidence. In a development that surprised no one, Arntzen’s office couldn’t produce those complaints either and reluctantly admitted it had not fielded calls or emails from concerned parents.

Which means Arntzen, who is eyeing a congressional seat in her state, based her claim entirely on hearsay, just like all the others.

It’d be nice if this is the last we hear of the urban legend, but with 2024 around the corner and the culture war more intense and irritating than ever, chances are this is only a preview of many similar claims to come.

24 thoughts on “The ‘Litter Boxes In Schools’ Lie Just Won’t Die”

  1. This again?! 🤣🤣🤣And you do realise Joe Rogan is on steroids right? That is the first thing my friend in law enforcement said when Rogan showed his face in public. He used to go undercover in the 90′ s. Steroids screws up your body and brain.

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    1. I don’t have any proof, but a man pushing 60 with a build like that isn’t doing it naturally. I’d love to know how a comedian who got his start forcing people to eat roaches on reality TV somehow became an alleged public intellectual, especially with his history of 9/11 truther credulity, Graham Hancockian conspiracies about civilizations on Mars, and his Dunning-Krugeresque insistence that he knows more about highly specialized areas of science than the scientists themselves who have spent their careers researching those areas.

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      1. You do not have to have proof of people doing steroids.Just looking at person is proof enough. I was in that environment. Lifted weights. Never touched a drug in my life. I was offered it so many times. There was one suicide. One attempted suicide where i worked out. My friend Allison took them. Was not my business so i did not ask.

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      2. I have no clue what he said about 9/11 and not interested. There are family members, firefighters, etc who would spit in his face if given the chance and others like him. Including me.

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      4. I’m familiar with Rogan’s career arc. He got his start by forcing contestants to eat cockroaches as the host of Fear Factor, was a moderately well-known comedian for many years, and has been doing color commentary and analysis for UFC for ages. I like him as an MMA analyst.

        Unfortunately he’s also a conspiracy theorist who thinks 9/11 was an inside job, claims the COVID vaccine is deadlier than the virus itself which has killed at least 20 million people, and buys into the risible conspiracies of Graham Hancock, a man who claims aliens helped the ancient Egyptians, Mayans and other people of antiquity construct pyramids and temples.

        In this case, as with many other things, Rogan was wrong, and he was forced to admit it after he was asked repeatedly for details about this supposed school and its alleged litter box policy. Rogan is a solid MMA analyst. He’s not an intellectual, he’s not a journalist, and he’s a poor evaluator of the veracity of information.

        As I’ve said many times before, show me a “litter boxes in school” story I can verify with facts and I’ll happily write about it. In the meantime, every claim to date has evaporated under the slightest scrutiny.

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      5. Some people do not like the truth about trash like Rogan. Even when it comes out of thier vile mouths. My two firefighter cousins who survived 9/11 would love the chance to spit in his face and others who say bs about 9/11.

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  2. Well, who can we trust if not Joe Rogan, Lauren Boebert and MTG? And that lady with the drawn-on red glasses, she seems almost overqualified for congress! Fun times ahead, I’m sure.

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      2. And bring much-needed youth to our gerontocracy, which isn’t far removed from a necrocracy or thanatocracy at this point.

        I’m gonna look into running him for congress just as soon as I set up his OnlyFans page. How much do you think people would be willing to pay for sizzling snaps of hunky Buddy flexing his meowscles, laying in beds of roses and lounging poolside backgrounded by palm trees and sunset?

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      4. Which explains why he’s so incredibly meowscular and ripped, obviously. On a serious note he’s looking kinda trim these days after I cut back on his snacks. He’s not happy about that, but I’m responsible for his health.

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  4. FYI: My sister lives in Lauren Boebert’s district and she says that Boebert is a (right-wing) idiot. Can’t stand her but can’t get her out

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    1. I don’t doubt that your sister is correct with her assessment, but it would be a damn shame if Boo-bert were to hold her office. She’s an embarrassment, just like Marjorie Taylor Greene, in whose district I happen to live.

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      1. Boebert is vulnerable and barely squeaked by last election cycle. They’re gonna go after her hard in ’24 and pour money into her opponent’s campaign in the general if she even makes it that far, as several GOP groups have already said they’re going to primary her.

        I’m deeply sorry you live in MGT’s district, Quilpy. I’m in Jamaal Bowman’s district in NY so I know what it’s like having an ultra partisan ideologue as a representative. Bowman is incredibly divisive, but MGT is in a class all her own with her conspiracy theories, painful anti-intellectualism and mortifying behavior.

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      2. Re: Jamaal Bowman. Didn’t he confront MTG when she was in NYC, trying to stir up the masses? He told her to get back to DC, right? Can’t argue with him on that point … 🙂

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      3. Yeah they had some sort of confrontation. My problem with him is that he’s just like she is, just on the opposite side of the spectrum.

        I think it’s immature when regular people can’t abide other viewpoints. When our elected leaders are like that, it’s ruinous. Our Founding Fathers were wise and designed our system to make it almost impossible for one party to dominate, forcing compromise and cooperation. They knew that was a reliable check against extremism and ideology.

        But to hear people tell it nowadays, compromise is a dirty word and any effort to acknowledge each other as human beings is some sort of betrayal of ideological purity. People who feel that way don’t belong in government.

        Of course that’s just my opinion, but I don’t think there’s any question at this point that ideological extremism is doing great harm to the US.

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      4. I’ve been watching Sky News in Australia. They’re doing a great job of reporting on Our Head Gerontology Case.
        And Caitlin Johnstone writes excellent articles in Substack about the US military presence in Australia, of which she is a citizen.

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  5. Our entire Federal government is guilty of mortifying behavior. I have been watching Sky News in Australia because they report on the antics of our government officials, which the US media won’t do.
    We need to clean house and start over. If WP will let me, I’d like to suggest that you look up the work of the late Dr Gene Sharp, a Harvard professor who spent his life studying nonviolent civil disobedience. There is a documentary about him called How to Start a Revolution. He wrote From Dictatorship to Democracy. You can check your local library or you can buy it on eBay or from the Einstein Institution in Boston MA.

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    1. I like to read foreign media too. The BBC is the best TV news available from my cable provider, and I like Agency France Presse, Reuters and the Guardian for perspectives much different than the ones we get here.

      The UK and Australian press do a better job of informing their readers/viewers, and aren’t as entertainment-focused as most of our news organizations are.

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