By Mecca Fowler
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV.
“Gays Against Groomers,” an Instagram account that bills itself as “a coalition of gays against the sexualization and indoctrination of children,” is the latest reckoning within the LGBTQ+ community. The group wants to raise awareness about views around the community’s outreach toward children. Starting in June of this year, the organization has already amassed 87,000 followers on Instagram and is opening chapters in multiple locations.
The group was founded by Jaime Michelle, a lesbian woman. The events and actions they deem as examples of “sexualization and indoctrination of children” include “drag queen story hours, drag shows involving children, the transitioning and medicalization of minors, and gender theory being taught in the classroom.”
This coalition is uniquely positioned to call out the gender ideology and queer theory indoctrination happening in places across the country because they are of the community. It is perfectly poised to take charge of the growing backlash against gender ideology and serve as a stopgap between the general public and the LGBTQ+ community. On their Twitter account, they highlight instances and examples of what they deem to be radical hijackings of their pride culture.
People have called out gender ideology over the years, but with the transparency of social media allowing parents to see what’s going on more in their children’s schools, the pushback has been insurmountable. Social media has also helped highlight the phenomenon of children attending drag shows and pride festivals where adult-like activities have taken place.
“We are saying NO,” the group tweeted. “There are millions of gays within the community that want nothing to do with this Alphabet religion and join the fight with parents and concerned people everywhere to protect children. We also aim to return sanity and reclaim the community we once called our own.”
The amount of youth identifying as lesbian, gay, or trans has steadily increased significantly over the years. The number of young people seeking to transition their gender has increased by about twenty times, with teens being significantly overrepresented, according to Stats for Gender. Many people feel that it is because the radicalized portion of the LGBTQ+ community is introducing these concepts to vulnerable children, hence why they have been dubbed “groomers.” Others have argued that “increased social acceptance of a previously stigmatized condition likely plays a role” in the increasing number of people identifying as LGBTQ+.
The group has been hosting Spaces on Twitter several times a week where people in the LGBTQ+ community, teachers, and parents can share their experiences.
The group is on a mission to gain chapters across the country and speak up at school boards and other places. From listening in on a few of their Spaces sessions, it seems as if the participants are worried about how the backlash from the things a small portion of radicals are doing will affect the community as a whole.
Some participants noted that it was up to the people in the community to correct the narrative that is out there. “It is going to take those of us from within the community to finally put an end to this insanity, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” their website says.
“The gay community is not a monolith,” their website says. “Those pushing this agenda do not represent or speak for us all, nor do we want to be associated with them in any way. What we are witnessing is mass-scale child abuse being perpetrated on an entire generation, and we will no longer sit by and watch it happen.”
There have been efforts to shut down their operations on Twitter several times, with many people treating the word groomer as if it was a slur. Journalists and activists have encouraged Twitter to follow in Reddit’s footsteps to ban the word, which has affected Gays Against Groomers’ account. This is why I believe they are a threat to the current narrative.
Regardless, I think the group will be successful. As it grows, it will be harder for those who oppose their mission to ignore them because the call is coming from inside the house. People cannot get away with just brushing dissenting opinions off as “homophobic” or “transphobic” because the people making the claims identify as homosexual and trans themselves. Although some media outlets have smeared the account as homophobic, it is simply untrue because they are gay themselves.
I believe this group may be the perfect offensive strategy for exposing the gender ideology indoctrination that is being forced onto kids. The formation of this group is a part of a larger cultural shift sweeping across America signaling that the radicals within the LGBTQ+ community can no longer hide behind the group as a whole for protection from criticism.
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