Video shows prankster, not activist, speaking at Plano, Texas, City Council meeting

Loreben Tuquero
·2 min read

Instagram posts

Statement: An activist spoke about LGBTQ+ issues at a Plano City Council meeting.

Cassady Campbell, who introduced himself as "Marty Epstein," speaks at a Plano City Council meeting. Campbell is a prankster, but many Internet users were led to believe he was an LGBTQ+ activist.
Cassady Campbell, who introduced himself as "Marty Epstein," speaks at a Plano City Council meeting. Campbell is a prankster, but many Internet users were led to believe he was an LGBTQ+ activist.

A man wearing rainbow-colored suspenders and a "Hillary for President" T-shirt took the lectern at a Plano City Council meeting.

Delivering an emotional speech, he said, "I am offended that our children are not receiving affordable gender-reassignment surgery along with hormone blockers and access to abortions. This alone is a threat to our democracy."

He continued, "It just shows that you people do not care about our children." His speech was shared in a Jan. 13 Instagram video that was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.

American Voices, affiliated with The Daily Caller, a conservative-leaning news outlet, identified the man in 2022 as YouTuber Cassady Campbell when he spoke on a different occasion at a Plano City Council meeting. On both occasions, he introduced himself as "Marty Epstein," who is neither an activist nor a real person but a character Campbell created.

In the March 28, 2022, meeting, Campbell described himself as a Buzzfeed editor and a former  New York Times writer who works part-time as a Starbucks barista. But PolitiFact found no proof that either publication had a staff member, present or former, named Marty Epstein or Cassady Campbell.

Campbell’s YouTube channel features videos of him speaking at other Texas city council meetings including Allen ("Wanksta tells City Council the Feds are after him") and Dallas ("Wanksta Trolls Dallas City Council").

In 2023, Campbell joined other influencers in a prank for a video entitled, "We acted LGBT at LGBT Church." The video has since been removed from YouTube. But according to reports from NBC News and The Dallas Morning News, Campbell and YouTuber Bo Alford said they were "pretending to be LGBTQ" to test the church’s theology, and acted out "stereotypical caricatures of gay men."

PolitiFact's ruling

We rate claims that an activist spoke about LGBTQ+ issues at a Plano City Council meeting False. ​

Our sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Video shows prankster speaking at Plano City Council meeting