Janelle Rowe Wear It Purple Day

Principal Bullied Out of Job Over LGBTQ+ “Wear It Purple Day” Sexualisation Concerns

8 September 2026

3.5 MINS

An Australian public-school principal is taking a stand against LGBTQ+ bullies who’ve forced her out of a 34-year teaching career.

Ironically, Janelle Rowe faced disciplinary action for “underperformance” after she proposed replacing LGBTQ+ “Wear It Purple Day” with “Bullying No Way Week.”

Although the punitive measures are being sold as unrelated, Human Rights Law Alliance’s John Steenhof is arguing that the evidence proves otherwise.

Principal the ‘Best Leader I Have Ever Worked With’

Internal employment documents uncovered through Freedom of Information (FOI) showed Mrs Rowe had been described as “outstanding” and “highly capable.”

The FOI also quoted at least one teacher stating that Rowe is “the best leader I have ever worked with in my 40-year career.”

Furthering the connection, the ACT school’s disciplinary process included Rowe “being placed under supervision and instructed to celebrate” and lead the LGBTQ+ safetyism day on 28 August, while forcing her to wear purple.

So, “this was never about underperformance,” Steenhof exclaimed.

Rowe’s reasons for trying to replace “Wear It Purple Day” were due to “concerns about sexualised content being taught to children as young as four.”

“Wear It Purple Day is not simply a ‘wear purple’ dress-up day,” she said in HRLA’s 7 September press release.

“Its focus is to indoctrinate children with LGBTQ+ ideology from a young age and normalise it every year through this national awareness day.”

“Under the school system’s own codes of conduct, it is inappropriate to expose children to content of a sexual nature.”

“My primary concern was about child protection and our duty of care as educators,” Rowe explained.

This is what drove the haters her way.

Bullying and Disregard for Child Safeguards

After speaking out, complaints were made to the ACT Education Directorate. HRLA argued that this resulted in the disciplinary action.

Rowe “also received threats that the union would be brought in to pressure her to keep Wear It Purple Day.”

She “was then subjected to allegations that Rowe was being motivated by her Christian faith.”

Bullied, Rowe was forced to resign.

In HRLA’s statement regarding the case, Rowe said, “I chose not to go to Fair Work because I wanted to be able to speak freely and help parents understand what was really going on in schools and enable them to protect their children.”

“Talking with primary school-aged children about sexualised content goes against the National Child Safe Standards,” she added.

It also goes against “related procedures, policies, and codes of conduct we are trained on and expected to uphold as educators.”

“Scenarios where sexualised content is shared with children,” Rowe asserted, “are considered Reportable Conduct, Inappropriate Conduct, or Misconduct.”

She called the “entire process procedurally unfair and religiously discriminatory,” adding that it has caused her “significant psychological harm.”

Wear It Purple Day Concerns

“Wear It Purple Day” began in 2010, and its reach goes far beyond the education system.

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) warned about it in 2021, saying, “Promoted as a day in which to ‘celebrate diversity and young people from the LGBTQIA+ community’, a darker, very alarming, side has emerged.”

Wear It Purple is a member organisation of ILGA World (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association).”

“Under a cloak of ‘gender equality’ speak,” ACL explained, “this influential global federation is currently lobbying for governments to erase child protection policies and to lower the age of consent for minors.”

That lobbying involves the “Feminist Declaration,” which in part demands that governments abolish limitations on age and disability consent to sex laws.

Section 14, for instance, blatantly calls for the removal of age of consent laws that “protect children and young people from sexual exploitation and abuse.”

As ACL’s Wendy Francis noted, “What possible reason is there for us to remove these provisions?”

Referring to Janelle Rowe’s case, The Daily Telegraph described the clash with education bureaucrats as a “bitter dispute”.

Offered column space, DT said the ACT Education Directorate declined to comment, citing “privacy considerations.”

Canavan and Shelton Protest

Two high-profile names who did weigh in, though, were Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and Family First’s Lyle Shelton.

Horrified, Canavan protested on X, asking, “What is going on in our schools? A principal with 34 years of teaching experience has left because she was being forced to teach about alternative ‘lifestyles’ to 4-year-olds… 4-year-olds!”

National/State secretary for the Teachers Professional Association of Australia (TPAA), Edward Schuller replied, “It gets so much worse. There is a network of government-funded organisations providing graphic sexual education to students.”

He linked his August interview with Karl Stefanovic and a petition, adding, “These groups have received over $230m in funding in just the last 5 years. Parents and teachers are fighting back — join them.”

You can read more here, although reader discretion is advised.

Lyle Shelton was just as concerned.

He posted a statement online declaring that Rowe “should be LAUDED, not driven from her profession.”

“Australian schools,” Shelton stated, “are no place for promoting radical LGBTQ+ sexual and gender-fluid ideology to children.”

“Janelle Rowe should be regarded as a hero for having the courage to say what countless Australian parents are thinking: four-year-olds do not need LGBTQA+ sexual and gender” training.

Schools should be teaching zero tolerance for bullying, he added, “But that does not require schools to promote harmful ideas about sexuality and gender identity to infants and primary-school children.”

“Wear It Purple Day should be banned from Australian schools, not the brave teachers who call it out.”

___

Images via Nathan Cima on Unsplash and the HRLA.

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