Community leaders share how Visalia can move forward after anti-gay slur photo incident
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Community members call for district action, forums and engagement.
- District holds school-level education efforts; plans roundtable to address incident.
- Advocates seek systems change and host events before March 10 board meeting.
The viral ‘homophobic slur’ photo incident in Visalia that involved a group of Redwood High’s associated student body seniors has left a community pondering how to move forward in the aftermath of national attention and social media backlash.
LGBTQ advocates condemned the photo and want to make sure that similar actions don’t happen again. Some Redwood High School seniors, who were not involved with the photo in question, say they want to move on, finish their final year and put the incident behind them.
Others in the community said the hate, harassment and backlash on social media against the ASB students involved and their families have been unfortunate. The school district said the actions of few students don’t represent the majority.
“We’re hoping that we can keep the community engaged around the issue and address systemic and environmental problems, to support not just students at Redwood, but all across VUSD,” said Erika Hawkyard, program director at The Source LGBT+ Center in Visalia.
Hawkyard said the Source started receiving calls about the incident the same day it happened from students, who were shocked by what they saw and wanted to see what they could do. Community members also called and decided to host a community forum for students, parents and community members to voice their concerns.
“Most of the students that reached out to us were queer students from all over VUSD, a couple of middle school students, some high schoolers, kids who’ve been dealing with bullying on their campuses,” Hawkyard said. Since the incident, the non-profit has been in communication with the district.
As a school district, Superintendent Kirk Shrum said Visalia Unified has been clear that those actions by a small group of high school students in leadership roles are unacceptable.
Shrum, who has been with the district for four years, said that this is the first time in his tenure as superintendent that he has experience “an incident of this type of nature in which multiple students came together to form a word that was a hateful slur.”
What happened
The viral photo shows a group of eight ASB students, male and female, spelling out “2 FAG6OTS” while sitting next to each other on the bleachers. In the photo, each letter or number in the slur is individually emblazoned on a T-shirt, so when the students are seated next to each other, , the message is spelled out.
The shirts were originally meant to spell “ALWAYS LEGIT, CLASS OF 2026” as part of their senior photo.
According to news reports, the school’s associated student body was leading an eighth-grade orientation on Feb 12 when some ASB leaders reacted to two middle-school boys holding hands earlier in the day. The ASB students rearranged themselves to spell the homophobic slur after their official senior photo was taken at the gym around fourth period.
The incoming freshmen did not witness the message or the photo being taken while they were on school campus for orientation, school officials said.
The involved students have faced “disciplinary action,” according to the district, but officials said specifics of the investigation — including how many students were involved and how they were disciplined — won’t be made public.
“The actions of a few don’t represent what the majority of our students and families think and believe,” Shrum said. “This was an incident that was horrible. It was unacceptable.”
Shrum said while everyone has different beliefs, that doesn’t give a person the right to diminish someone, use hate speech, or derogatory language of any kind. He said there will be consequences.
Visalia Unified, the oldest school district in Tulare County, has an enrollment of about 30,000 students in grades K-12, with 27 elementary schools, five middle schools, four comprehensive high schools, a continuation high school, an adult school, a charter independent study school, a K-8 charter home school, a charter technical early college high school and a preschool serving the city of Visalia.
Trying to move forward
Shrum said that many students in the district come to school every day and make great choices and help create safe atmospheres.
“That’s one of our core beliefs and commitments as a district, that we have safe and secure learning environments,” Shrum said. “We’re not going to let this incident define who we are. We’re going to learn from this and help educate our students on how to appropriately interact and simply know that this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Since the Feb. 12 slur photo incident at Redwood, Shrum said the district has engaged in conversations and initiatives to help students understand what is acceptable and what is not, the impact of words, both negative and constructively and help further educate and understand that school campuses have to be places of respect.
“That work is already happening, starting at the school level, with our principal, reengaging with students with civility talks,” said Shrum, who visited the Redwood campus last week.
At the district level, Shrum said, he is meeting this week with the student advisory team, a group of about 100 students from every high school, middle and elementary school in the district that helps shape how the district addresses matters. The group meets formally with the superintendent four times a year.
While the meeting had been scheduled before the Redwood incident, Shrum said one of the topics for the meeting will be addressing the slur photo incident, how the district can help ensure students feel safe on campus, what are they experiencing after the incident and get feedback from the student advisory group .
Shrum said the district will be also engaging community partners who are already supporting Visalia students in the coming days to come together for a community roundtable conversation.
Shrum said the district’s many community partners in Visalia work with students through advocacy groups, such as The Source LGBTQ Center and churches.
“We want to bring them together to help talk about, how can we empower our youth through the groups and the places where they are to hold each other accountable and to understand these things?” Shrum said.
Hawkyard, said while The Source LGBT+ Center in Visalia will be taking part of the district’s roundtable conversation, the non-profit will be also hosting a series of events at its community center before the March 10 Visalia’s school board meeting.
The community meeting at the Source will take place at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25 and Friday, March 6, to talk about what solutions looks like and how can the district and community can address the situation not only for Redwood but all VUSD schools.
The Source, which plans to attend the March’s VUSD board meeting to advocate for the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth, is partnering with other LGBT agencies to provide more information on “what your rights are and what does systems change look like on the ground, to address this situation, not just right now, but for future students at VUSD schools,” Hawkyard said.
This story was originally published February 24, 2026 at 1:03 PM with the headline "Community leaders share how Visalia can move forward after anti-gay slur photo incident."
