Conservatives Increasingly Label LGBTQ Americans “Groomers”
metroweekly.comfeuding with school administrators or school board members over the inclusion of sexually-explicit or graphic novels or books in school libraries, even if the books are not part of the official curriculum, or over LGBTQ-inclusive policies designed to protect LGBTQ children from being discriminated against and bullied or to avoid “outing” students to their parents against their will.
The “protect children” rallying cry also appeals to a segment of the Republican base that had embraced part of the QAnon conspiracy, in which a cabal of globalists — all with ties to the Democratic Party or Hollywood elites — run a secretive, worldwide child sex-trafficking ring.The “groomer” label seems to have gained traction amid debate over the Florida bill, when Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis tweeted that anyone who opposes the bill “is probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8-year-old children.” She later clarified her remarks to say that bringing up the topic of sexually-related topics with young children creates an overall environment where those children are more susceptible to grooming.
Pushaw later pushed back against accusations she had defamed the LGBTQ community, writing in an email to Vice News that she “never once singled out LGBTQ people” and that the “assumption that criticism of grooming is criticism of the LGBTQ community equates LGBTQ people to groomers, which is both bigoted and inaccurate.”Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s Cyber Law Clinic and a transgender rights advocate, told NBC News that the use of the word “grooming” is “an attempt at the dehumanization and delegitimization of queer people’s identities by associating them.
