Conservatives pushing anti-gay attacks have turned their attention to a nonprofit that helps teens.
Conservatives began to circulate a cartoon from the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention program for LGBTQ youth in late April. The ability to quickly exit and erase browser history is explained in the cartoon. The feature is for people with anti-LGBTQ parents. Domestic abuse services provide similar protections.
Many conservatives have recently recirculated it as proof that the nonprofit is engaging in grooming. James Lindsay is an author and commentator who published a book last year that criticized critical race theory.
The term "grooming" is a new one used to describe tactics used by sexual abusers to gain access to potential victims and then avoid being caught.
According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual assault is not related to the sexual orientation of the perpetrators or the survivor.
The term has recently become a popular topic on the political right, where it has been wrongly associated with discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Only a matter of time until there is solid evidence of wrongdoing. They don't mobilize to protect anything unless there is something really bad going on there that they don't want anyone to find out. Lindsay wrote "Mark my words,Groomer Project posing as suicide prevention."
The account that has more than 1 million followers called the Trevor Project a grooming organization.
The Moms 4 Liberty, a right-wing organization, wrote an account asking why theTrevorProject encourages children to keep secrets from their parents.
Lindsay shared a February story from the conservative Post Millennial website titled "The mother of a trans child poses as a teen to find out how the Trevor Project grooms kids into transitioning." It needs to be shut down.
The article was intended to attack the organization for not providing more information about how to de-transition, but it also contained examples of a counselor repeatedly asking the parent if she has self- harmed or attempted suicide.
The mission of the organization is to end the public health crisis of suicide among the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual community.
The resurgence of anti-LGBTQ attacks that seek to taint adults, including parents, teachers, counselors and doctors, who affirm and support LGBTQ youth, is especially dangerous, as it diverts attention away from the real, life-threatening issues.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the LGBTQI population is at a higher risk than the heterosexual, cisgender population for suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.
Teens who are trans are at greater risk. According to a 2020 survey published by the Journal of Adolescent Health, trans and nonbinary youth were at increased risk of experiencing depressed mood, seriously considering suicide, and attempting suicide compared with cis gender lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning youth.
The new data shows that suicidal thoughts have gone up in the past three years. 45% of respondents to the National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health had considered suicide in the past year, up from 42% in the previous year.
More than half of the young people who had considered suicide in the past year were trans and non-binary.
The University of Maryland's School of Social Work has a clinical associate professor who says that LGBTQ youth have disproportionately higher rates of behavioral health issues including depression, anxiety and substance use.
Matarese, who is the principal investigator at the National Center ofExcellence for LGBTQ+ Behavioral Health Equity, said that this is not because they are innately predispositioned to experience these outcomes but because they experience minority stress daily.
She told Yahoo News that one example of the types of stressors encountered by LGBTQ youth is hearing from elected officials that people who support and protect them are grooming them.
Matarese said that the messaging that this sends young people about their identity leads to silence, shame, isolation and fear.
According to Hannah Wesolowski, the chief advocacy officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, organizations such as theTrevor Project provide much-needed support to LGBTQ youth, whose increased rates of mental health conditions and suicidality are tied to the discrimination, harassment and rejection they often face.
There are too many people telling these kids something wrong. They need to hear that they are loved, accepted, respected, and that they are not alone.
According to the report, the rate of suicide attempts by LGBTQ youth who felt a high degree of support from their families was less than the rate of suicide attempts by those who felt low or moderate support. According to the findings, youth who live in communities that are accepting of LGBTQ people are less likely to attempt suicide.
The term "groomer" began to spread on the right in March in relation to Florida's controversial "Don't Say Gay" law.
The governor's press secretary said that anyone who opposed the bill was probably a groomer. Lindsay has been using the term "okay groomer" more than 100 times since October, including in a response to the news of the Supreme Court.
Chris Rufo has shifted his focus from raising concerns about critical race theory to begin targeting LGBTQ teachers. Rufo said the efforts are part of a larger effort to dismantle public education as a whole.
A number of states are pushing legislation that would charge parents with a felony if they allow their children to seek gender-affirming care. Three Republican candidates have raised money on transphobia and grooming in the last few weeks, with one Michigan Democrat who was targeted receiving more than 14 million views on the internet.
According to Yahoo News, child sexual abuse experts argue that the recent Groomer discourse is inaccurate and undermines legitimate efforts to prevent abuse.
If grooming is confused with other behaviors that are not sexual grooming, it endangers people who are being groomed.
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