The “Grooming” Panic’s Real Origins
Speaker 1: Hello? Hello? Hello.
Mary Harris: Right before the holiday, the White House hosted a celebration.
Speaker 3: Today I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.
Mary Harris: Actually, this was a signing ceremony. It just felt like a party. The boisterous crowd on the White House South Lawn was there to celebrate the Respect for Marriage Act, which is a law that protects the validity of same sex and interracial marriages, both at the federal level and state by state. Strangely, it’s a law that doesn’t do all that much. Yet the mood was victorious anyway.
Speaker 4: And now a law.
Speaker 3: Requires interracial marriage, and same sex marriage must be recognized as legal in every state in the nation.
David, David Mack: It’s funny, isn’t it? Because it’s a victory against a hypothetical.
Mary Harris: David Mack writes for Buzzfeed. He says it was a little jarring to see so much enthusiasm for what is, at its core, a defensive move.
David, David Mack: We’re trying to use this moment where they have the power in Congress to pass this. Should the Supreme Court, this sort of newly emboldened conservative wing of the Supreme Court, do to marriage equality what they’ve just done to, you know, 50 years of abortion rights in this country? And there was the momentum to just say, look, why not let’s just do this just in case, protect the worst case scenario from happening.
Mary Harris: The worst case scenario seemed to be the last thing on the minds of the crowd at the White House. There were drag queens in the audience. Lady Gaga blaring out of the speakers and Cyndi Lauper talking to reporters in the White House briefing room when Chuck Schumer stepped up to the mic. He gushed over his daughter’s gay wedding, even though back in the nineties, he and Joe Biden both voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. When they passed the Defense of Marriage Act.
David, David Mack: And to me, that just shows the remarkable transformation that’s taken place in this country where Joe Biden has become, you know, someone who gladly and willingly signs this legislation and celebrates it with a big gay party on the White House lawn.
Mary Harris: But there’s an asterisk here. This happy crowd was also feeling palpable relief because David says being gay in America right now means carrying two realities around with you. Gay rights are more protected than they’ve ever been. But also, gay people are astonishingly vulnerable.
David, David Mack: It has felt like progress has been this kind of freight, runaway freight train, right, for the LGBTQ community, that there was just all these wins and we were getting accepted and culturally accepted and we’re more present. And I think that’s why this past year felt so shocking, at least to me personally, that suddenly there were these moments where we were being victimized very openly and politically once again. And people were coming after us. And in a way that I don’t think I felt in a long time.
Mary Harris: In the last year. There has been a sharp uptick in anti LGBTQ incidents around the country. One group estimates there’s been a 12 fold increase in demonstrations and political violence targeted at the queer community. And that’s just since 2000. In fact, the very same people in the audience watching the Respect for Marriage Act get signed. They were fighting off harassment the moment they got home.
David, David Mack: I spoke to a drag artist yesterday by the name of Marty G. Cummings. And they’re a nonbinary performer here in New York City. And they were invited to the White House ceremony. And the night after the signing on Wednesday night, Tucker Carlson ran a segment about this and included references to marry Cumming, saying that they have a, you know, an unusual, you know, interest in children.
Tucker Carlson: Cummings is a drag star who, like Sam Britton, has a long history of unfiltered social media post. And of course, Cummings is also interested in children in all the wrong ways.
David, David Mack: And Marti Cummings told me that to them, Tucker Carlson knows what he’s doing.
Tucker Carlson: Cummings had posted this picture with a child writing He wants to perform with us next year. So if you think it’s unfair to accuse people of being creepy with kids, not that unfair, actually. Kind of fair.
David, David Mack: To frame drag artists like Maddie Cummings and others as this kind of predatory threat to children is something that felt very shocking to me in March. But now, what, six, seven, eight, nine months on, I’m not shocked at all.
Mary Harris: Yeah. That focus on children, do you think that’s important and intentional?
David, David Mack: I think it is absolutely essential to this entire year, this bizarre year that we’ve had for the community. And it’s not a coincidence. It is, in my view, entirely related to the events that we saw in the pandemic and the political strategy that sections of the right developed to focus on children.
Mary Harris: Today on the show making sense of this bifurcated moment for the queer community by examining the common thread that links conservative activism around COVID to anti-gay demonstrations in the street. Focusing on kids is a callback. It also works. I’m Mary Harris. You’re listening to what next? Stick around.
Mary Harris: Back when a shooter opened fire in a Colorado Springs gay nightclub in November. BuzzFeed’s David Mack wrote an article lamenting the fact that to him, this kind of violence seemed inevitable. David was hurting as he wrote this. He’s gay himself. He felt at risk. But he also felt like he should have seen this violence coming. And to him, it didn’t begin with gay people at all. It started with COVID in schools because protecting children seemed to resonate. Over the last year, David says he’s watched this political message metastasize.
David, David Mack: It’s funny, the election last year, in November 2021, I was in Grand Junction, Colorado, and I was there for a school board race, of all things, and I’d chosen to go there for a few reasons. It’s a bit of a hotbed for election denialism. It was having this school board race that was suddenly very partisan. And it’s also an overwhelmingly white area where suddenly critical race theory was this big subject of debate and was being talked about as a kind of motivating factor to get people to go vote in a school board election. And one of the candidates told me that she’d knocked on a door and someone had told her that they blamed critical race theory for turning their child bisexual. Whoa.
Mary Harris: That’s quite a leap there.
David, David Mack: It certainly was. But it kind of spoke perfectly to this wonderful boogeyman that the right had created, Right where most people I spoke to, even the candidates themselves, couldn’t really define what CRT was. I think Tucker Carlson even said on TV one night he didn’t couldn’t give you an exact definition for it. It was like that famous definition of pornography, Right? Like, I know it when I see it. And it became this wonderful catchall for anything that could possibly influence young minds to hate America or to make them less American right, and to make them less conservative is where it naturally led.
Mary Harris: Protecting the presumed innocence of children is what connects all this. For David, whether conservative parents are talking about critical race theory or LGBTQ issues. The idea is the same to avoid corrupting the minds of young people.
David, David Mack: And to be clear, I’m not the one marrying these things. In Ohio last year, one of the bills that was put forward to oppose to sort of legislate against critical race theory, also included in the very same bill language that sort of mirrored restrictions on sexual teachings, on sexual orientation and gender identity that you kind of saw famously in the don’t say, gay bill in Florida.
Mary Harris: Do you think it is a top down strategy like someone is is thinking about it, or do you think it’s more like something was successful and then it spread and morphed?
David, David Mack: I think it’s certainly people at the highest levels of the Republican Party are aware of this strategy and are using this strategy. You saw Glenn Youngkin in Virginia run last year on a campaign about giving parents more control over the curriculum and listening to parents when it comes to schools. And they’re clearly recognizing that this schools and classrooms are a winning issue. Steve Bannon famously said last year the path to retake the country runs through school board elections.
Mary Harris: This focus on kids. Is not new.
Mary Harris: And I’m wondering if you’re able to go back a little bit and explain. I may not even be when this bugaboo first came up. But how in the 1970s, the sort of fight for gay rights really was turbocharged by these allegations that gay people were somehow going to harm children? I’m thinking specifically about how in Florida, actually this woman named Anita Bryant became a real lightning rod because she was very focused on anti LGBTQ sentiments and campaigned on them. But she ended up kind of shaking out activists at the same time that she did that. Do you know Anita Bryant story?
David, David Mack: I do. I mean, what you’re talking about is some of the earliest battles that happened in the first decade or so of the gay liberation movement. Right. So in the ten years or so after Stonewall, it very quickly became a debate about gay people in schools.
Speaker 4: Anita Bryant Save Our Children was the organization dedicated to combating laws giving equal rights to homosexuals according to the Word of God. It’s an abomination to practice homosexual. The same is true for, like Archbishop Carroll, who took the stand that he would go to jail for them to sexualize into their schools. And our pastor said that he would do the same and would keep an eye on the school rather than a lot of other sections.
Mary Harris: I mean, Anita Bryant, in 1977, she was living in Miami and the city was looking to pass an ordinance that would protect the civil rights of gay people. And it was being spearheaded by someone who she’d given money to. She’d, like been in favor of as a politician. And it just really lit a fire under her to speak out against the civil rights of gay people. She eventually became part of this political coalition, literally called Save Our Children.
Speaker 4: We all believe in something, but we don’t believe that we are children or individuals to have special privileges that would go against the constitutional rights of.
Mary Harris: And it’s kind of interesting to look back and how that went because she she was successful and then she was not successful. And I think that’s so important to remember at this moment how this push and pull it might continue for a while.
David, David Mack: I think that’s exactly right. And I think that’s why, to me, at least, I felt kind of flabbergasted in March to see these arguments being made again in the mainstream political realm. It was Ron DeSantis, his press secretary, who first kind of brought back this term groomer. Right. Grooming children in a political context. In March, when talking about the don’t say gay bill. And from there, it kind of took off like a rocket. And I think what felt surprising to me because I felt like we had left all that behind. And I think to me, what it’s felt like is that this is the last gasp of this kind of movement that knows that they’re losing. They know they are losing the public. They know that the ship is sailing. They’re reverting back to some classics to try to, you know, fight back one final time.
Mary Harris: We’ll be back after the break.
Mary Harris: David Mack says the thing that makes this current attempt to frame queer people as a threat to children new is how the message is spreading person to person unfiltered. Straight out of the positive social media, The Internet firehose he worries the most about is an account we’ve talked about before. Lives of Tick Tock.
David, David Mack: Lives A Tick Tock is a mostly a Twitter account that has over a million followers at this point, and it’s run by a Brooklyn real estate agent who is very frequently complaining that she’s been doctored in the media. But she basically takes videos. It started as her taking videos from Tick tock of teachers or other, you know, public officials that she deemed corrupting to children and sort of promoting them on this account and sort of saying, here is this teacher in so-and-so, I was, you know, telling proudly how they are running a class on, you know, transgender issues for nine year olds, three ways that you can make your classroom a little bit more inclusive to LGBTQ plus students.
Mary Harris: This coming up school year, these innocuous videos of gay and trans teachers talking about their jobs and students can rack up hundreds of thousands of views and plenty of hateful comments. They’re always presented with a digital eyeroll like, can you believe what these libs are saying now?
David, David Mack: I’m coming out at work as trans to everyone, including all my students who I’ve known some of them for a couple of years now.
Mary Harris: These are just a few of the videos, the accounts shared in the last few weeks.
Speaker 7: Now, there’s been a lot of recent pushback against queer teachers. A lot of people are coming out saying that we’re groomers, that we’re child predators. When that is so.
David, David Mack: You know, it was drawing national attention online to random people across the country. And then it started changing to drag queen story hours and pointing out when these events were happening.
Mary Harris: Have they also been involved in promoting how hospitals are caring for trans children?
David, David Mack: Yes, there has been a huge focus this year on the care that some hospitals and some medical clinics will give to transgender children and a lot of misinformation. Right. But you look at the language again, it is centered on children and what is being done to them.
Speaker 3: Boston Children’s Hospital is facing a barrage of threats tonight over a false social media post. A far right social media account attacked the hospital’s gender affirming health care, falsely claiming it performs hysterectomies on minors.
David, David Mack: This word pops up again and again. It’s mutilate when they’re talking about what care is being done. The idea is that these liberal doctors are, you know, chopping off the genitals of nine year olds who may be corrupted by a trend that their teacher taught them in class. And we have seen hospitals go into lockdown because of bomb threats and people facing federal charges because of the threats that they’ve made to hospitals, which is just an astonishing thing to say out loud.
Mary Harris: And political people started engaging with this account, right? Yeah. Like Ron DeSantis press secretary would respond to videos. Those are the kinds of things.
David, David Mack: It’s become a hugely influential account. And the right is also very protective of it. A big bunch of the, you know, Elon Musk Twitter files that we’ve seen lately is whether or not this account was, you know, restricted or muted in some ways or if it was if it was protected, which some of those Twitter files seem to indicate that there were special measures given to make sure this account was not taken down because it has become such a political lightning rod. And it sort of bridges the gap between this kind of political strategy that we’ve talked about, where we’re mostly interested in mobilizing people and getting them to the polls. And then this very dark online world where there are a lot of actors who politicians famously can’t control but have influenced.
Mary Harris: Yeah. How much do you credit this account for what’s being seen in the real world? Like people showing up at drag shows or drag story hours and being threatening, having weapons, things like that. Like, is that directly related to lives of TikTok?
David, David Mack: Yes. And not just them. Other accounts like them. But yes, they are the most influential. They will promote events on that page. They will say this. The library is having an event or this bar is having a midday brunch for families or they are doing some sort of event somewhere in the country and people will turn up at that event and people will turn up with that event, or the event will need to be shut down in advance because of threats that they’ve received. This has happened again and again and again this year. It is merely they would say that they are merely highlighting public information and letting people know that there is this event going on.
David, David Mack: But the wink wink there is that you need to do something about this. And right now we’re seeing people turning up at not just children’s events, but outside events at gay bars and inside gay bars in Colorado Springs.
Mary Harris: This is clearly really personal for you. I just wonder over the last year. Have you had to change the way you move in the world because of what you’ve noticed all around you?
David, David Mack: It’s funny, I cover so many of these horrible things in this country and it’s part of, unfortunately, the media landscape. When you move here as a reporter and it’s horrible to say, but you do become numb to covering so many of these things. And I woke up after that club Q thing and I was furious. I felt anger in a way that I hadn’t felt because it felt to me like this was the end point that we knew was coming, that it was like a car crash in slow motion that we could see all year long. And we know it will happen again. It will happen again. And I do feel angry and scared.
David, David Mack: I’m sad to say in a way that I haven’t. I was in a gay bar in Raleigh the other week after Thanksgiving, and I found myself for the first time looking for the exits when I got in there. And I caught myself doing that. And I thought, like, just how sad that is that I am in a bar with my boyfriend trying to just have a drink and I am worried.
Mary Harris: You know, we started off this show talking about the Respect for Marriage Act and how celebratory the vibe was when it was signed into law. And I was thinking about that because it seems to me. In this moment that the fight that queer Americans are in is a lot harder than the fight for marriage equality. And I say that because the fight for gay marriage was a fight about allowing queer people to adhere to straight norms. And the fight now is really about making straight people deal with queerness. Do you see it that way, too?
David, David Mack: I think your point and it’s a fair one, is that above all, it’s a cultural fight and it’s a cultural debate that’s happening. And my one sort of ray of sunshine is all in all of this is that we gays are very good at the cultural stuff. We know you If you think you can beat us on culture, you you got another thing coming because this is you look out the kind of in the media landscape that kids are coming up in now and the openness of queer shows and queer celebrities. And I draw huge inspiration from that because I think if we’re going to be fighting this out in the cultural sphere, that’s that’s a fight I’m willing to have because I think we’ll win.
Mary Harris: David Mack. I’m super grateful for your time. Thanks for coming on the show.
David, David Mack: Thank you.
Mary Harris: David Mack is a senior breaking news reporter for BuzzFeed News. And that’s the show. What next is produced by Elena Schwartz, Carmel Delshad and Madeline Ducharme. We are getting a ton of support right now from Anna Phillips, Jared Downing and Victoria Dominguez. We are led by Alicia montgomery. And I’m Mary Harris. You can track me down on Twitter. I’m at Mary’s desk. Thanks for listening. I’ll catch you tomorrow.
