Gays Against Groomers is a gaslighting lie

 

The above tweet from is from a group not as well known but equally as insidious as that disgusting Libs of Tik Tok group. Gays Against Groomers (what they call themselves) claims to have chapters in several cities. Although I'm of the opinion that those "chapters" include few actual people and a lot of conveniently anonymous Twitter addresses.  As seen by the above tweet, the group claims to be comprised of LGBT people who are supposedly sick and tired of the  "queer and transgender ideologies."

Of course it's a bunch of bullshit.

To be honest, I think the Gays Against Groomers is one part astroturfed and one part including actual LGBTQ people. But the motive seems to be monetization of hatred and fear. To hear them tell it, legislation attacking drag shows, gender-affirming care, and LGBTQ equality in general isn't the fault of those pushing these acts. It's the fault of the "radials in our community" who are trying to "target" children and society in general with changes which would send us all into chaos. 

This is classic gaslighting. The narrative is that "the LGBTQ community would be fine if it weren't for these queer and trans activists perverting the message and grooming our kids." It's similar to the argument used by racists during the Civil Rights Movement - "Our Negroes were happy and fine with their lives until them uppity ones started putting ideas in their heads."

But there is a bit of cleverness to it. We know where Libs of TikTok stand. That particularly group thinks that our entire community is dangerous. The Gays Against Groomers folks are a bit more insidious. They don't the point the finger against the community in general. The group selectively pick who they deem as " radical queers and trans ideologists" who are causing problems for the so-called normal gay folks. Instead of casting a net over us all, Gays Against Groomers target the most seemingly vulnerable members of our community - transgender people (especially kids), drag queens, or anyone they categorize as 'odd' in our community - in an attempt to get the rest of us to scapegoat them.  And they use the phraseology to dehumanize them that the rest of the anti-LGBTQ industry uses to demonize all of us.  To them:

"Radical homosexual activists target children" is transformed to "radical queers and trans ideologists target children."

"Radical homosexual activists are grooming kids" is transformed to "drag queens are trying to groom kids" 

"Radical homosexual activists are trying to force society to accept their perversion" is transformed into "radical queers and the trans cult are trying to force society to accept their perversion."

But the new phraseology always comes with the inference of "and they are going to spoil things for the rest of the community who fought hard for their rights."

Remember when the religious right and conservatives freely said this about ALL of us.

Nothing has changed. But Gays Against Groomers helps them disguise their malice. It doesn't matter if they are astroturfing heterosexuals or self-hating LGBTQ folks trying to make the rest of us suffer for their own self-esteem issues. Or even worse - LGBTQ folks who don't care how many of their own people they hurt. The fact is Gays Against Groomers is a colossal lie and none of us should buy into their game. 

People leading attacks against drag queens and other facets of LGBTQ culture and equality do so because they are ignorant. No one is forcing them to do it. They certainly aren't doing it as a last result to a problem. They are doing it because they are either willfully ignorant or downright hateful of LGBTQ people. They accept the nonsense and cherry-picked lies they hear and act accordingly to because they refuse to know better.

And that's what these so-called Gays Against Groomers are feeding into. They know what they are doing. The key is for the rest of us in the LGBTQ community to not be fooled by it. 

Hiatus until Sunday

Editor's note - Hey folks. Barring anything juicy happening, I won't be posting again until Sunday evening. Until then, please take a look at my post from Wednesday (link below). It's really important that folks read and share this. It breaks down just how a certain anti-LGBTQ hate group moved from targeting gays to putting the transgender community in its their crosshairs:

Anti-LGBTQ group's data breach reveal plan to paint transgender youth as carriers of a contagious pathological disorder - . . . in the span of 14 years, the American College of Pediatricians has gone from claiming that gays "sexualize" poop to claiming that transgender children have a contagious pathological disorder. This merely proves that the attack on trans Americans isn't new. Nor is it about truth or general concern for public health and welfare. It's nothing more than scapegoating with new targets placed in the bullseye.

'Anti-trans movement recycles 1990s anti-gay misinformation' & other Thur midday news briefs

Opinion: What the anti-trans movement is all about - 

" If we don’t know history, we are doomed to repeat it. It’s vital that people recognize today’s anti-trans attacks for what they are: recycled strategies from the 1990s to spread misinformation and fear toward LGBTQ communities." 

Anti-LGBTQ group's data breach reveal plan to paint transgender youth as carriers of a contagious pathological disorder- My post from last night piggybacks on the above column. Folks need to begin recognizing the recycled hate. 

Florida Lawmakers OK Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill, 'Don't Say Gay' Expansion - Florida continues to dig that hole. It's not helping DeSantis beat Trump but it will backfire.

Cops told Hayley Kiyoko she couldn’t have drag queens in her show. She brought them onstage anyway.- There you go! 

Families of trans youth sue Oklahoma over its new gender-affirming healthcare ban - Time to stop playing with these fools and start getting real. Haul them in court and make them prove their lies.

Anti-LGBTQ group's data breach reveal plan to paint transgender youth as carriers of a contagious pathological disorder

 

From Raw Story:

An anti-LGBTQ hate group's secret files reveal marketing "pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder," and files detailing methods to indoctrinate pre-teens into a culture of "sexual purity" and opposing same-sex relationships.

 . . . "The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a fringe anti-LGBTQ hate group that masquerades as the premier U.S. association of pediatricians to push anti-LGBTQ junk science, primarily via far-right conservative media and filing amicus briefs in cases related to gay adoption and marriage equality," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. WIRED on Tuesday published a bombshell report revealing that the American College of Pediatricians "has suffered a significant data breach." 

 "A link to an unsecured Google Drive published on the group’s website pointed users last week to a large cache of sensitive documents, including financial and tax records, membership rolls, and email exchanges spanning over a decade. The more than 10,000 documents lay bare the outsize influence of a small conservative organization working to lend a veneer of medical science to evangelical beliefs on parenting, sex, procreation, and gender."

 . . . WIRED found "volumes of literature crafted specifically to influence relationships between practicing pediatricians, parents, and their children. It includes reams of marketing material the College aims to distribute widely among public school officials. 

This includes pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder, one that’s capable of spontaneously causing others–à la the dancing plague–to adopt similar thoughts and behaviors." That marketing material apparently was based on a dubious research paper that hypothesized about something it called “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” which has been debunked, including in a recent study, according to Fenway Health.

I wrote about the American College of Pediatricians (on my blog and in The Huffington Post), long before it began to receive deserved scrutiny. 

From  The Huffington Post in 2010 when the group was attempting to counteract accurate LGBTQ information in schools with some information of it's own: 

Earlier last month, over 14,000 school district superintendents in the country were sent a letter by a group called the American College of Pediatricians inviting them to peruse and use information from a new site, Facts About Youth, which was created to supposedly help young adults. 

 The site contained extensive inaccuracies and generalizations about LGBTQ people passed along not for the purpose of providing facts, but solely for demonizing the gay community:

Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes

 On my blog the year before, I pointed out how the American College of Pediatricians was actually laundering junk science in an attempt to make a false argument that "homosexuality was a dangerous lifestyle." The group was relying on cherry-picked information from outdated sources and legitimate studies. In using the latter, the group ignored complaints by the studies' authors that their research was being distorted and misused.

So in the span of 14 years, the American College of Pediatricians has gone from claiming that gays "sexualize" poop to claiming that transgender children have a contagious pathological disorder. This merely proves that the attack on trans Americans isn't new. Nor is it about truth or general concern for public health and welfare.  It's nothing more than scapegoating with new targets placed in the bullseye. 

Related article - File on the American College of Pediatricians from SPLC.

'Florida's LGBTQ community must resist rollback of rights' & other Wed midday news briefs

Florida’s LGBTQ community must resist rollback of our rights - Amen, Wayne Besen! 

Florida Republican Says Terrorists ‘Hate Homosexuals More Than We Do’ as Woman’s Jaw Drops​ - Terrorist trying to kill LGBTQ people. Some Republicans and conservatives try to get us to kill ourselves. I personally can't tell one group of terrorists from the other.

GOP governor rejects funding for PBS because Clifford the dog “indoctrinates” kids - It's actually another general attack on PBS. They always fail, but geez! 

Megachurch Pastor Jack Hibbs Says ‘The Transgender Agenda’ Is a ‘Plan of None Other Than Satan Himself’ - But I thought the so-called gay agenda was his plan. How come Hibbs got the memo announcing the change before me?

Librarian fights back with lawsuit after allegedly being called a 'child predator'

 

A controversy about banning books in New Jersey has led to a defamation lawsuit.

A New Jersey librarian just dragged a couple of people into the latter stage of the "F@ck around and Find Out" principle.

From The Miami Herald

A woman working as a high school librarian is fighting back in court against local residents who she says are targeting her and calling her a “child predator” over books on the school’s shelves. Roxana Russo Caivano, a librarian at Roxbury High School in New Jersey since 2010, accuses four Roxbury town residents of slandering and libeling her by suggesting she’s exposing students to books that they consider pornographic, according to a lawsuit filed in state superior court in late March.

 One resident attacked Caivano’s character online on a Facebook page for high school students’ parents — writing she’s including “hard-core pornography” in the school’s library collection — while three others accused her of luring and exposing children to pornographic material, “characterizing (her) as a child abuser,” at a school board meeting, a complaint says. Now she’s suing the four residents for defamation. She says their accusations, which began in September, wrongly accuse her of criminal behavior and are aimed at harming her reputation and job, according to the complaint. 

 . . . Three defendants named in the complaint are women who spoke out against Caivano at a March 6 Roxbury Board of Education meeting, according to the lawsuit. At the meeting, they “attacked (Caivano’s) credentials and employment status, and caused (her) emotional distress by stating that (she) has engaged in luring children with sexually explicit materials, stating that (she) is a child predator, stating that (she) exposed minors to pornographic material…,” the complaint says. 

 . . .Caivano says one of the women has published “libelous and defamatory” information on a blog, saying she’s “guilty of criminal acts by including certain works of literature” at the school library, according to the complaint. That blog is titled The Roxbury Parental Rights in Education, The Daily Record reported. 

 The blog says “Pornography, obscenity, pervasively vulgar. Regardless of how you describe them, there are books in Roxbury Public High School that are not age or school appropriate. Parents have sent us correspondence with the librarian and the Superintendent who defend keeping them in there under the guise of ‘‘inclusivity’ and ‘reflecting the community.’” 

Caivano is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. I hope to see more of this. It's long past time for these book banners and wannabe child protectors to reap the fruits of their hysteria.

Missouri anti-trans emergency rule halted for 15 more days' & other Tue midday news briefs

Missouri judge pauses enforcement of limits on gender-affirming care for trans youth and adults for 15 days​ - I was hoping and kinda knew that this would happen again. The hearing is set for May 11.

LGBTQ lawmaker to GOP: 'I’m literally trying to exist' - Amen. 

Transgender Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr Sues Republicans Over Her Censure - Good for her. I hope she wins. 

Here's the First Look at DC Comics' 2023 Pride Anthology - I'm looking forward to this, including the right-wing freak outs.