Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a statement from Corey DeAngelis.

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School choice activist Corey DeAngelis — who has garnered praise from former President Donald Trump and works for an education nonprofit founded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — is now reportedly on leave from that organization after news broke last week that he appears to have performed in gay porn films. 

DeAngelis has advocated for parents’ rights in schools, particularly conservative parents to have control over what their children learn in class about LGBTQ+ topics and other “woke” issues. In May, Trump called him “a fighter” while praising DeAngelis’ new book, “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids From the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.” The book calls out “the hypocritical elites who are content to hold other people’s children captive to poorly run government schools.” 

Now DeAngelis is being characterized as a hypocrite after the blog Str8 Up Gay Porn, which covers sex and adult films, reported that he appears to be shown masturbating alone and with other men in multiple gay porn films dating back a decade ago and available on the GayHoopla website. He is said to have appeared in the films with the pseudonym “Seth Rose.” In light of that news, DeAngelis is reportedly on leave from the DeVos-affiliated nonprofit the American Federation for Children, which works to expand school choice for the nation’s families. DeAngelis serves as a senior fellow for the nonprofit. His page on the organization’s website seems to have been taken down.

Neither DeAngelis nor the American Federation for Children responded to The 19th’s requests for comment before publication.

On September 30, DeAngelis addressed the controversy in a post on X (formerly Twitter) in which he vowed to “never stop fighting for what is right.”

“As an activist for parental rights and school choice, my passion is personal,” he wrote. “Just like everyone else, I have made mistakes throughout my life, learned from those mistakes, used that as an opportunity to grow and tried to channel that experience into something positive. I was a victim of poor decisions and poor influences. I have turned that experience into the fuel that fires me to save young people from being put in the same position I was put in and to help parents protect their children.”

In May, the Education Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a conservative organization that backs school choice and parents’ rights and opposes protections for LGBTQ+ students, presented DeAngelis with its Students Over Systems Award. It honors Congress members or advocates dedicated “to advancing school choice, exposing teachers unions, celebrating parental rights and prioritizing academics over activism.” The award coincided with the release of his book “The Parent Revolution.”

“I can say with full confidence that Corey has been a phenomenally effective champion for giving parents more opportunities, freedom and leverage,” Ginny Gentles, director of IWF’s Education Freedom Center, said in a statement in May. “As one of those parents, I am grateful for Corey’s forceful advocacy on behalf of families nationwide and his relentless push to prioritize students over systems. He ensures that state leaders around the country hear parents’ pleas for alternatives to the union-controlled and profoundly broken public school system.”

DeAngelis supported a district policy in Chino, California, to “out” transgender students to their parents and one in Temecula, California, to ban books with LGBTQ+-related content. He has dismissed the efforts of schools to be more LGBTQ+ inclusive and accused educators of wanting to indoctrinate children.

The IWF did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment about DeAngelis before publication.

Upon receiving the Students Over Systems Award, DeAngelis used the opportunity to criticize Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, who he called a more fitting recipient.

“The teachers unions overplayed their hand and have inadvertently done more to advance school choice and homeschooling than anyone could have ever imagined,” he said in a statement. “The parents have awakened, like a sleeping giant, and are holding politicians accountable. We’re freeing families from the clutches of the teachers’ unions once and for all by funding students, not systems.”

DeAngelis is the latest of several conservatives opposed to LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools to reportedly become involved in a sex scandal. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a 2024 gubernatorial candidate in that state, has called teachers “demons” and demanded school curriculum takeovers. 

“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” he said in 2021.

Last week, CNN reported that Robinson made several offensive and explicit comments on a pornography forum called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012. He allegedly said that he liked transgender pornography despite his many remarks disparaging the LGBTQ+ community. Endorsed by Trump, Robinson has denied making the comments on the forum and ignored calls to withdraw from the gubernatorial race. 

Last fall, news broke that a Philadelphia outreach coordinator for Moms for Liberty — a conservative group advocating for parents rights and against LGBTQ+ issues in schools — was convicted of aggravated child sexual abuse when he was 25 and his male victim was 14.

During the same period, a police investigation into allegations of rape against her husband revealed that Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a board member of Sarasota County Schools, participated in threesomes with him and another woman. Much like DeAngelis, Ziegler was characterized as a hypocrite because she supported Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits teachers from discussing topics like gender identity and sexual orientation in class. Ziegler has ignored calls from LGBTQ+ activists and other members of the public to resign from the school board.

DeAngelis is slated to speak Sunday at the pro-Trump “Rescue The Republic” rally, which will include Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and entertainer Russell Brand. In addition to his role with American Federation for Children, DeAngelis is listed as an adjunct scholar for the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and a senior fellow with the the Reason Foundation, both libertarian think tanks. 

Earlier this month, he shared a post by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accusing the Biden-Harris administration of peddling “woke ideologies” in schools and “the radical left” of devising weekly lesson plans covering critical race theory, drag queen story hour, “mandatory pronoun recognition,” “boys participating in girls’ sports” and “pro-Hamas protest hour.” 

Responding to Johnson’s post, DeAngelis wrote that it’s time to pass the Educational Choice for Children Act, which includes provisions related to parents’ rights and school choice.

“School choice defeats the woke mind virus,” DeAngelis said.