McCarthyism's Fascism is back, and it screams “Groomer” .
We’re not heading into Nazi Germany we’re heading back into the 1950’s kicking and screaming. But this time we won’t go quietly into the night.
The Lavender Scare of the 1950’s is a key analogy for what’s going on with far right wing conservative tropes today. https://time.com/5922679/lavender-scare-history/. I never studied it in any of my AP classes or my collegic history classes. Ironically it’s a good analogy for the coming witch hunt that is occurring in our society around inclusivity in schools, drag, and supporting transgender kids in Texas. Granted my research isn’t focused on PEW research polls but rather the mouth piece that is conservative twitter. So take my results with a grain of salt. It’s a bit like going to a watering hole and making extrapolations of the general country side because there’s so many tigers hanging about.
It is a good way to gauge Texas political thought as Texas representatives like Tony Tinderholt, Matt Schaefer, and the other wags of Texas like to post their hate openly. So I base my knowledge on information gained from “Gays Against Groomers”, “Sarah Gonzales”, “Trans Against Groomers”, Buck Angel and a few other organizations and the occasional wonky tweet from our friend Matt W. whom I’ll call MW. (Don’t want SEO Optimization to see is name.)
My Thesis is simple. Talking about LGBTQ+ inclusivity with conservatives is like talking about “Fight Club”. “We don’t talk about Fight Club”. If you do then obviously your a Groomer peddling Gay Porn. It’s like they’ve gone back to the 1950’s. We don’t mention the LGBTQ+. Flat out. That’s pretty much the end. I offered a argument that offering LGBTQIA+ inclusivity had a positive out come for children’s mental health who identified as LGBTQIA+ I even quoted an analysis by NPR which had a few studies listed. And Representative Schaefer responded with one word.
No ideological or other discussion. In his mind there is none. Any positivity on the subject meant that it one conclusion. This type of attitude is dangerous and equates inclusivity to a guttural level of hate. What does that word mean? That’s where the nebulousness comes into play. Like the word “Boomer” for an aging post war elder it could mean many things.
Conservativism around LGBTQ+ issues are trying to paint a picture of “We accept the gay but we just don’t want you touching our children”. That line isn’t new and it’s connotation comes with it many implicit beliefs and understandings. Conservatives will defend it as harmless. Unfortunately that’s not true. The same ideological and epistemological undertones from the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s are still making their ways up from the past.
Even for Joseph McCarthy a staunch anti gay, his gaydar was all but oblivious. It was even shocking. His Chief counsel Roy Cohn was gay. Even other conservatives denying that Mr. Cohn was gay with a level of cognitive dissonance of his being gay. More on conservative gay cognitive dissonance later in the essay! That ethical dissonance is at the heart of the situation and the fragmentation and strange bedfellows that some groups have made. Conservative Roy Stone (Trump Aid) denying what was right in front of his eyes can be quoted as staying:
“Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._David_Schine
Before I talk about the word I just want to show the history for context that what’s going on isn’t new. It’s old forces with new faces. Life is very different and better for individuals in the LGBTQ+ community life in Texas is going to change in many fundamental ways with proposed legislation and some of the tenets of the Texas republican platform which are pretty much theocratic and taken out of the evangelical bible.
In the 1960’s (Until 1964, the FLIC committee can be quoted as saying:(Florida Legislative Investigation Committee)
The best and current estimate of active homosexuals in Florida is 60,000 individuals. The plain fact of the matter is that a great many homosexuals have an insatiable appetite for sexual activities and find special gratification in the recruitment to their ranks of youth. The homosexual’s goal is to “bring over” the young person, to hook him for homosexuality. A veteran investigator of homosexual activities… said, “We must do everything in our power to create one thing in the minds of every homosexual and that is to keep their hands off our children. …if we don’t act soon we will wake up some morning and find they are too big to fight. They may be already. I hope not.” We hope that many citizen organizations in Florida will use this report… to prepare their children to meet the temptations of homosexuality lurking today in the vicinity of nearly every institution of learning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Legislative_Investigation_Committee
And of course Ms. Florida Orange Anita Bryant. Avid Crusader to the end. (Her grand daughter came out as bi-sexual and married a woman. and she still feels that “homosexuality doesn’t exist”. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant
As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children. […] [T]herefore, they must recruit our children. If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.
If homosexuals are allowed to change the law in their favor, why not prostitutes, thieves, or murderers? […] Some of the stories I could tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach.
Finally there’s Jerry Fallwell who spoke on the topic to PBS’s Newsline in 1999 in response to the fact that his biographer was gay. :
Do you believe that it’s a choice for everyone? Do you believe there may be some people for whom it’s not a choice, that it’s their sexual orientation?
No, I don’t believe that. I believe that all of us are born heterosexual, physically created with a plumbing that’s heterosexual, and created with the instincts and desires that are basically, fundamentally, heterosexual. But I believe that we have the ability to experiment in every direction. Experimentation can lead to habitual practice, and then to a lifestyle. But I don’t believe anyone begins a homosexual. They begin the way God made them: male, female, with all the dispositions that are built in. If they choose to be bisexual or transgendered or homosexual, they’re human beings, and they have the ability to do it. But as a Christian, biblically, scripture makes very clear that it’s an immoral position. Even Romans I says that at some point, when they finally are just so committed to doing that. The quote from the King James is, “God gives them over to a reprobate mind,” or a malformed mind.
This is only scratching the surface. It’s a atom on-top of a microbe on top of a scratch. These are just examples to show a pattern in history that we can relate to in our current environment. Fortunately workers no longer have to be fearful of being LGBTQ+ in the government or the military. No longer is executive order 10450 active. Friends who I have in government and the military who transitioned have had positive experiences. The fear needs to be laid out in our LGBTQ+ communities, Local and State level. The problem is that now the old rhetoric is being used again to “Save the childre”. Even folks in their twenties who were teens coming out trying to figure themselves out have become staunch defenders of the binary and “Defending kids”. A good example is Blair White who as seen below came out in her teens. Yet she’s very tied to the “binary” transgender view. Not to mention some of her “colorful tweets” on twitter.
The most telling part of all this is Blair was allowed to explore who she was. She had a family that supported her, she was in a college that allowed her to be “her”. I believe she even experimented at home. The point being that she preaches gate keeping in spite of the fact that she reaped the benefits of an open society. Then when a derogatory statement “Groomer” comes she epistemologically plays dead saying, “Not it”.
The problem with this is the transience of being gay or trans. Sure there are a percentage of children who may not be gay, lesbian, transgender, or non-binary. The question is do you push them in the closet or do you provide a safe space for them to explore. Not allowing them to explore encroaches on a level of metaphysics that “they can never know who they are” and are “just kids” and that by introducing them to material we “change them”.
In truth dysphoria doesn’t have a modal form that one chooses. People can choose to express their gender how they please.
LGBTQ youth who live in a community that is accepting of LGBTQ people reported significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do not. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/
The conflation of inclusion with “grooming” only seeks to push a political agenda. The found of Gays Against Groomer Jamiee Mitchell goes by the moniker of a “Conservative Lesbian”. Openly they’ve posted that any gender expression beyond the binary is expression is an “illusion”. Very similar to Anita Bryant’s view of being gay. They do so with call of “Saving the Children”. As if someone can be saved from being gay, straight or bi.
Tied in the chain is Buck Angel the former trans male porn star. As a trans man he sees a very discreet binary. There is no non-binary. Only transgender, male, and female. He see’s any attempt to move in between or express differently as an attempt to “erase” binary trans individuals. A very similar perspective to second wave feminism and it’s view of trans women trying to “colonize” womanhood. Or the belief by lesbian women that transgender men are “erasing butch lesbians”. Why be “butch” when you can just be a man is their thought.
I’m not sure why Buck feels that he’s being erased. But he’s very strong in the detransitioners movement. I agree that transition within the realm of anyone should be measured with therapy and a doctors support. With kids doubly so. I think kids who detransition though it should be looked at “Why they transitioned, How they transitioned, and what made them detransition.” There’s a growing body of material on detransitioning and it’s causes. From one study I looked at. (Disclaimer: This is just one study so take it with a grain of salt. A meta data analysis would need to be done. )
The leading reasons for Detransition were: (2242 respondents)
Pressure Based Reasons:
1. Pressure from a parent 35.6
2. Pressure from community or societal stigma 32.5
3. I had trouble getting a job 26.9
4. Pressure from other family members 25.9
5. Pressure from my employer 17.5
Other Reasons:
It was just too hard for me (33.6)
Fluctuations in identity or desire (10.4)
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437
So fluctuations only made up 10% of the number of responses.
So why is any of this even relevant? That’s a good question. I think the word groomer is important to know and understand. I think it’s used as a word to capitalize on fear and regret. It’s used to push school districts to ban any and all LGBTQ+ books. I’m not saying that all books are 100% appropriate at all age levels. That’s crazy. The fact that many Texas conservatives feel that all books are “porn” that do with LGBTQ+ issues. We’ve gone from inclusivity to “porn” in a discussion. We’ve lost context.
The whole context is about “Saving Children”. The truth though revolves about removing or suppressing the “QTIA” in LGBTQIA. WPATH Soc 7 and 8 suggests non-medical and social intervention. Then with the acceptance of blockers a child can delay puberty for two or at most three years. (This would be up to a Endocrinologist.) There’s very little data on medical intervention in teens. Of those who do transition it’s estimated that 2 to 3 percent detransition. Some studies looking at the 60’s on show higher numbers but the grades for what was “Transgender” changed so it’s not a true apples to apples comparison.
Even in Texas our preacher son Nate Schatzline has release HB1532 (2023) to “stop the mutilations” without any documentation, studies, or information. The only studies I could find were based and biased with the Heritage foundation and were second hand studies done by a political science PHD without any medical training.
Of the one or two percent of children who do seek gender dysphoria help this would stop any and all care or suppression of hormones. As an interesting side note Nate’s biggest campaign contributor was his Dad http://www.patschatzline.com/. Another note he was in favor of banning all LBGTQ+ books from Keller school libraries (I was personally there to witness it.) He’s also introducing a bill to ban children at drag shows. All the hate in the guise of “Protecting the Children”. The reality is that the children are not needing to be protected.
The phrases about “grooming” and “drag” shows are merely extensions of “pedophilia” fears from the 60’s and 70’s. Texas is trying to “protect” children from the “evil” drag queens despite the fact that parents have to take their children to the drag shows and are on site during the shows. Legislatures feel they have to “Save” them from the implicit thought that these men are “dirty”. I won’t argue that all the drag performances in front of kids are classy or appropriate. No, but that’s not my decision. That’s a parental decision. If there was objectionable content then the parent should bring up issue with the vendor or media. We’ve decided that the human body is inherently dirty and that the “fake” breasts and hips a drag queen wears are inappropriate. The children at these shows are by no means “scarred” or “harmed”. If we put as much energy into fixing out Child Welfare departments we would actually be helping children. This is purely about hating the gay.
The truth is Texas is a poor state when it comes to it’s children. We like to stop abortions and ban gender affirming care. It’s all a GOP political stunt.
Here are some harrowing statistics on Texas takes care of it’s children:
- Texas is in the Top 10 for Teen Births at 25.3/1000
- 50% of high schools teach abstinence-only sex education and it’s not a cirriculum requirement
- 1 in 6 teenagers who gave birth in Texas in 2020 already had a child (Top 5 for repeat teen births)
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/21/texas-teenage-pregnancy-abortion/ - Texas is highest in the union for uninsured children (51st)
11.8% of children do not have insurance
13.1% 6–18
8% Under 6
https://kidshealthcarereport.ccf.georgetown.edu/states/texas/#:~:text=Rank%20among%20states%202021&text=In%20Texas%2C%2011.8%25%20of%20children,into%20healthy%20and%20productive%20adults. - In 2019, 66.6% of infant deaths occurred in the neonatal period, and 33.3% occurred in the postneonatal period.
All the derission in our community I believe just gives power to conservative knobs in Texas. Points to show “Look the community isn’t together on this”. To be fair ever since the first Pride Rally in New York when Silvia Rivera took the microphone the Trans community was never taken as part of the community. So the historical trend along with the hate continues. We must continue to fight four our selves and for children to be safe and to be able to explore who they are. If we fail there is far more at stake.
Numquam prohibere Pugnans — Never Stop Fighting.
