And today in proof that wokeness never dies — particularly when it’s federally funded — I learned that “Sesame Street” apparently has a red light district.

Meet Jonathan Van Ness. You’ll be unhappy you did if you haven’t been introduced; he’s a nonbinary-identifying trans individual who uses he/she/they pronouns. Because why decide when you can be anything you want, except what nature made you?

Described by The New York Times as a “hirsute gay fairy godmother in heels,” he’s the hair and grooming expert on the Netflix reboot of “Queer Eye” who hosted a podcast called “Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness” along with a comedy tour called “Fun & Slutty with Jonathan Van Ness.”

So the perfect pal for Elmo and Cookie Monster, right?

Yes, seriously. “Sesame Street” now has a streaming take on the late-night talk show called “The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo,” streaming on Amazon since 2020 — but only going viral now, because apparently we’re perpetually late to the party when it comes to woke grooming.

Obviously, this isn’t a real late-night show; we don’t have Don Rickles doing insult comedy with Elmo like he did with Johnny Carson. First, he’s dead. Second, it’s for kids. That’s who watches “Sesame Street” — that and 30-something “graphic designers” with trust funds who need something to watch when the edibles kick in.

And you pay for it, either way. Even though the show is technically run through a separate nonprofit called the Sesame Workshop that’s different than either PBS or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, it still receives your funds — as evinced by the fact it’s laying off staff members due to Donald Trump cutting its budget.

You probably won’t be sorry once you see Elmo welcoming the “slutty” TV personality on episode 10 of the streaming series in a display that can only be called grooming.

Your taxpayer dollars paid for this.

This is called Grooming.

Can Republicans grow a spine and defund PBS and NPR finally?pic.twitter.com/MF3UuVu39d

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 2, 2025

Yes, a man who’s tour was called “Fun & Slutty with Jonathan Van Ness” is talking about his “monster-piece” as a pun on “masterpiece.” See, it works on three levels, because those are “monsters” from “Sesame Street,” but also … if you need me to elaborate, you’re probably too young to be reading this article in the first place.

And then what looks like a drag monster, with a “monster honker.” Again, this isn’t subtext so much as it is just text. I’ve seen episodes of “South Park” or “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” I find more appropriate for my kids than this. (Not many, I’ll admit, but a few — and that fact alone should scare more than a few millennial parents.)

By the way, that’s Alan, the current owner of Hooper’s Store on “Sesame Street.” Just so we’re clear — because the clip that Benny Johnson posted doesn’t show the full context — we see him backstage before the “monster makeover,” which brings out the monster within.

“Are you ready to give Alan a fabulous monster makeover?” Elmo asked in one clip.

“Oh, you know it!” the plainly mincing Mr. Van Ness said. “I am ready to unleash the amazingly gorgeous monster inside you! I know there’s one in there, we just haven’t quite found it yet.”

Yes, a nonbinary trans person unleashing the monster within upon the guy who runs Hooper’s Store. Your amazing tax dollars fabulously at gorgeous work, obvs, America! Today’s letter of the day is: Lambda!

And then, in the second clip, it’s made clear that the audience, including monsters and adults, also has children. It’s the “Sesame Street” drag brunch, y’all! And then Elmo and Cookie Monster get “makeovers” as Jonathan Van Ness, the “slutty” dude!

“You both look amazing, if I do say so myself,” Van Ness says.

Right. Now get the heck away from my TV and my kids.

Now, keep in mind that even the most assiduous of conservative parents can miss little bits of propaganda here and there. It happens to the best of us; I was vaguely familiar with Van Ness from encountering his persona a few times and thinking it was a gay stereotype straight (pun unintended) out of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” only real and not a fictive affectation. I then learned, he’d starred in a comedy tour with that title, “Fun & Slutty with Jonathan Van Ness.” (Really, once you apply that label to yourself — even for a comedy tour — there’s not exactly a quick way to shake it from the collective memory.)

And then I learned, thanks to one of my editors on this bleakest of Tuesdays, that he was on … um, a “Sesame Street” spinoff a few years ago saying sexually suggestive things to kids? Surely that … can’t be correct, right?

No, no it very much was, and not only that, but he was basically throwing out double entendres like he was being paid to — which seems like the point. Maybe adults are the only ones who are meant to get it, or maybe not. The message, however, was loud and clear.

And then the type of conservative who shrinks from the possibility of being accused of Lavender Scare overreaction; everyone remembers the two weeks when Jerry Falwell’s people went after “Teletubbies” in the 1990s for allegedly having a gay-coded character and everyone laughed at the idea that someone would put something so ludicrous on children’s television.

A little under a  quarter of a century later, no less than “Sesame Street” was hosting a real-life character who makes Tinky-Winky look like former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink. (Probably not appearing on “The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo.” Wonder why!)

We’re not supposed to bat an eye at this. Or we weren’t.

The reason why this is going viral this “Pride Month” is because this is the first time since the November “vibe shift” when everyone realized the emperor had no brain and the vice empress had no clothes.

For a great many of us, the scales that we’d shoved in our eyes to stop us from seeing the wokeness — lest we be compelled to speak out about it and become social lepers with Those Who Count — fell out once Donald Trump not only won the Electoral College but the popular vote after an unprecedented campaign of Democratic lawfare and media prestidigitation.

If this is what they want to feed our kids, strip their federal funding. Every bleeding dollar of it. And make them pull this sick grooming from streaming services. There’s a reason why conservative and Christian parents stopped trusting the happy-clappy liberalism of “Sesame Street” way back in the 1980s.

Now, they’ve officially set up a red light district, apparently right by Hooper’s Store. This is pure evil, plain and simple, and the very definition of grooming.

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