As the official “Home of the Truth-O-Meter and independent fact-checking,” it’s incumbent upon PolitiFact to comb through the mess that is modern American political discourse and tease out the truth.
Unfortunately for PolitiFact, “independent fact-checking” tends to look a lot more like shameless partisan narrative pushing, and the Truth-O-Meter is constantly breaking down. That’s why we’d be lying if we told you we were shocked to see their little fact-check on the term “grooming” being used to describe teachers using their positions of authority to subject young kids to the very adult topics of gender identity and sexuality.
New: For decades, the word “grooming” has been associated with child sexual abuse.
Now, it has become used to imply members of the LGBTQ community deliberately prey on children by discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. https://t.co/xPK6l4ubOs
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
Even if the teacher pushing children to discuss their gender identity and sexuality never lays a hand on a child, they’re still preying on children mentally and emotionally. And they’re doing so without parental consent. That’s abuse. Sorry, but it just is.
Exposure to these topics “does not change the way people develop,” said the University of Minnesota’s Jenifer McGuire, who studies family relationships and gender identity and the health of transgender youth.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
It can absolutely change the way people develop. It can confuse kids, to say the least. And we’ve heard numerous cases of parents finding out that their kids have been given new gender identities at school, without the parents’ knowledge.
Misusing the term “grooming” revives this old, harmful falsehood, experts said. But in the wake of Florida’s law, Pushaw and others have used the term to imply that people in the LGBTQ community — or even just those who discuss LGBTQ topics — are deliberately preying on children by discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. The suggestion is that these concepts force students to question their gender and sexual orientation, even if they otherwise wouldn’t have.
A first grader being told that gender is fluid and that having male parts doesn’t preclude you from being female may very well question their gender and sexual orientation when they otherwise wouldn’t have. Because they’re confused. It’s being suggested to them that their innate sense of who they are is wrong. And in their desire to please their teachers, they may very well go along with something that they’re incapable of understanding.
“It changes how they feel about how they develop,” McGuire said. “Accepting parents don’t change whether or not their kid is trans — they change whether or not their kid hates themselves and gets kicked out of the house for being trans. The kid’s transness is there regardless.”
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
We don’t have the numbers on us, but we’re pretty sure that your average five-year-old kid isn’t worried about getting kicked out of the house for being trans. Your average five-year-old kid doesn’t even know what “trans” is. And that’s OK.
Misusing the term “grooming” can prevent the identification of actual grooming behavior and allow abuse to go undetected, said Charol Shakeshaft, who studies child sexual abuse in educational settings.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
There are longstanding false claims that gay, lesbian and bisexual people — men in particular — molest children at higher rates than people who are not LGBTQ. Studies have revealed most child molesters identify as heterosexual, according to the Zero Abuse Project.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
OK, and? Any adult — straight, gay, bi, cis, trans, nonbinary, trinary, what have you — discussing sexuality issues with other people’s young children is acting inappropriately.
“A more accepting environment doesn’t make you more likely to be LGBT, it just makes you less likely to get abused," researcher Jenifer McGuire said. You can read the rest of the story here: https://t.co/xPK6l4ubOs
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) May 11, 2022
An environment that is more accepting of graphic discussions of gender and sexuality with children is, by its nature, more conducive to abuse.
We’re not trying to argue that sexual predators of children are overwhelmingly LGBTQ, because that’s not true. But PolitiFact — and many other critics of the Parental Rights in Education law — are deliberately trying to frame it as if we are in order to paint us as homophobic, transphobic, queer-phobic bigots. The reality is that we just don’t think teachers should be discussing sexuality with little kids.
So. Much. Fact-Checkinging™!https://t.co/YQYxopjL0V
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2022
Politifact is a Left-wing propaganda outlet. This article is just absurd at every level.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2022
Every level.
My favorite part of this insanely propagandistic bullshit: pic.twitter.com/N4ttvuTHBz
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2022
That Gallup poll referenced shows this: pic.twitter.com/UuSmDYfa05
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2022
Yes, say the experts, probably 21% of people were always LGBTQ+, it's just people were mean. Or, alternatively, there has never been a society in human history in which this was the case, and people are changing their behavior and ID radically based on cultural influences.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2022
You literally had one job, PolitiFact. One job. And you failed. Miserably.
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