Chase
2022-08-27 23:46:14 UTC
It is imperative for parents, concerned citizens, and elected officials to
shift to an offensive posture to safeguard the innocence and lives of
children from the adults seeking to abuse and manipulate them to serve
their own sexual, gender, racial, and political ends.
Summary
The parent revolution has placed a renewed focus on the content of
curricula within K-12 public schools, revealing widespread dissemination
of radical ideologies like Critical Race Theory (CRT). As part of this
awakening, Americans are learning that such radicalism is pervasive not
only throughout K-12 schools and higher education institutions, but also
within corporate boardrooms, government agencies, organizations, and
cultural entities.
Parents have also alleged that these institutions have been engaged in
efforts to groom their children through indoctrination of divisive,
inappropriate, and dangerous sexual, racial, and political ideologies,
with the ultimate aim of reshaping American society. These efforts, if
successful, would result in significant harm to children and chaos in
schools and communities.
What is Grooming?
The use of the term grooming has become a point of contention in public
debate about these behaviors as they manifest in American culture and
institutional life. The increasingly casual use of the word, as well as
the popularization of the pejorative groomer, has the potential to
muddle communication about what precisely parents are trying to stop.
The word grooming has often been associated with child predators seeking
to sexualize children or prepare children for sexual activities with
adults. This remains an accurateand deeply disturbinguse of the term.
However, the word has a more general definition appropriate for a far
broader range of behaviors. Merriam Webster defines groom as to get
into readiness for a specific objective (i.e. he was being groomed as a
presidential candidate).
This general definition captures a broad range of potential activities
designed to inculcate. As such, in the context of the commercial and
educational initiatives targeting children, it is by no means limited to
the worst abuses that can be connoted by the term. Indeed, despite
objections from defenders of the various practices tagged with the
grooming label, few words could be more apt to capture the nature of the
indoctrination by trusted authorities many of them in custodial positions
over childrenthat has become commonplace in childhood education and
entertainment.
The claim is not that all teachers are engaged in child predation. Rather,
the claim is that as woke activists attempt to turn young kids and minors
into political leftists to groom the next generation of activists,
essential and longstanding boundaries that protect children from
inappropriate sexual behavior are eroded. In other words, the process of
grooming students or children creates conditions that circumvent
established safeguards that are used to ensure appropriate behavior which
leaves children vulnerable to predation.
This by no means suggests that every or even most adults engaged in
groomingas defined beloware also predators seeking to sexually abuse
children. It does mean, as will be relayed throughout this paper, that
adults who engage in grooming behavior and activities may be creating the
conditions necessary for predators, with even more nefarious motives, to
isolate, manipulate, and potentially abuse children.
Therefore, in this particular context, grooming is the deliberate act of
attempting to manipulate or cultivate children or students to become
activists by exposing a child to a particular sexual, political, gender,
or racial ideology, or any radical practice, belief, agenda, or lifestyle
without the knowledge or consent of his or her parents.
This is often done with the aim of isolating children from their families
so that third parties can more easily coerce or abuse them.
Fundamentally, the nature of grooming is to lower or dismantle existing
barriers or reticence a child may have to these particular sexual,
political, gender, or racial agendas, activities, and lifestyles. Often,
these ingrained barriers are due to the innate innocence of a child or the
values instilled by a childs parents and family.
Such grooming may manifest wherever minors are captive or targeted
audiences of non-parent adults. The behaviors of present concern to
parents take various forms, often presented as innocuous exercises meant
to promote values like tolerance, mutual understanding, and self-
discovery. In practice, though, these grooming activities serve to
undermine parents most important freedom: the right to shape the moral
foundations that ground their childrens education and experience in the
world.
For the purposes of this particular paper, grooming behavior and actions
will focus almost exclusively on sexual and gender ideology, practices,
beliefs, agendas, and lifestyles. Nevertheless, the institutional and
cultural imperative to push radical ideologies like Critical Race Theory
on children would also constitute groomingmore broadly defined as
systemic grooming.
These extreme social and sexual messages are routinely imposed against
parents wishes in a variety of contexts, including:
Public school teachers coercion of children as young as Kindergarteners
to participate in gay pride ceremonies explicitly kept secret from
parents;
Disney executives inserting LGBT activities or concepts into programming
for seven-year-olds;
A middle school teacher posting social media videos encouraging his
students to curse their parents and embrace him as their new parent;
The content in a commercial aired between childrens programming on
television;
Explicit material in a novel aimed at children by an author with an
ulterior motive.
Some of these efforts target children during their most vulnerable
developmental stages puberty and adolescence to tragic effect. In one
emblematic case, a California school counselors intervention
coordinated with the Department of Children and Family Services to push
a confused teenager to transition from her biological sex and remove her
from her loving home into the foster care system preceded her eventual
suicide.
Some may protest the use of the term grooming to describe this process,
but without language to capture the means by which these ideologies have
been promoted to children, it has proceeded invisibly to parents for the
last decade. Again, the act of grooming extends far beyond adults seeking
to sexually prey on children. It can be everything from teaching Critical
Race Theory concepts to six-year-olds to holding Pride celebrations in
elementary school classes. However, the explosion of such manipulative
behavior has occurred alongside more directly harmful actions associated
with grooming: sexual abuse of children.
A 2017 Department of Education report warned that public school employees
commit adult sexual misconduct against as many as 10 percent of K-12
students. This misconduct ranges from something as relatively mild as an
inappropriate verbal comment to criminal predatory sexual contact with
minors.
Much of the foundational data for this report came from a series of
surveys known as Hostile Hallways, wherein over 2,000 public school
students reported the nature and extent of the sexual misconduct they
experienced. According to these surveys, the sexual misconduct these
students experienced most often originated from teachers (18 percent),
coaches (15 percent), substitute teachers (13 percent), and school bus
drivers (12 percent). Additionally, the data suggest that females comprise
the vast majority of victims.
There are over 50 million students in Americas public education system.
According to the Departments own data, this means that as many as five
million students, children, and minors will experience adult sexual
misconduct at some point during their time in the public education
system.
This same report defines grooming as the process of isolating and
manipulating a child, arguing that grooming may be nonsexual and include
the offender trying to move the relationship to a personal level, telling
the student their personal problems. Furthermore, the report argues that
the adult sexual misconduct occurring in K-12 public schools is happening
within a broad social context and that the sexualization of children in
the media and advertising is a major contributing factor to its
occurrence.
This data mirrors a 2004 report issued through the Department of Education
by the Policy and Program Studies Service that found roughly 9.6 percent
of K-12 students had experienced educator sexual misconduct with 17
percent of those child victims identified as being special needs
students. The takeaway is that Americas K-12 school systems have been
breeding grounds for abusive and manipulative behaviors for far too long.
Grooming Behavior in K-12 Public Schools
A popular Twitter account that curates videos intentionally released on
the social media platform TikTok provides a near-daily reel of teachers
and activists openly discussing their grooming behavior toward the
children entrusted to their care. One of the common threads in these
borderline confessions is a combination of narcissism and entitlement that
non-parent adults express with regard to exploiting the children, minors,
and students entrusted with their care and supervision.
Concerningly, this exploitative and entitled outlook toward children is a
necessary condition for the establishment of an environment where sexual
grooming can more readily manifest. According to a 2020 study that
validated key components of the Sexual Grooming Model (SGM), the five
stages of a groomers engagement with potential victims are as follows:
Victim Selection: Wherein a groomer/predator selects a vulnerable
individualoften a young person or childpredicated on a host of observed
factors.
Access and Isolation: Wherein a groomer/predator ensures he or she has
access to the looming victim and the ability to isolate the victim from
peers, family, or other support networks.
Trust Development: Wherein a groomer/predator engages in actions that gain
compliance with the victim and result in the lowering of potential
barriers.
Desensitization to Sexual Content: Wherein a groomer/predator exposes the
victim to sexual concepts, activities, practices, or lifestyles in
preparation for abuse.
Post Abuse Maintenance: Wherein a groomer/predator initiates controlling
tactics to avoid detection and ensure the victim remains compliant after
the abuse has occurred.
The predatory psychological techniques utilized by sexual predators share
similar traits with the systemic grooming behaviors occurring throughout
K-12 public schools and many cultural institutions writ large. The primary
reason for such similarities is that both practices routinely necessitate
adults coercing or manipulating children without the knowledge or consent
of their parents.
Below are a handful of examples from among hundreds of self-published
videos from K-12 public school teachers:
A 5th-grade teacher brags about the gender unicorn assignment she uses
to teach 10 and 11-year-olds how to determine their gender identity,
gender expression, and physical attraction to other people.
A pre-school teacher boasts about forcing the 4-year-olds under her
supervision to choose pronoun pins every day.
A 1st-grade teacher at a Massachusetts charter school informs
Kindergarteners through 2nd-graders over Zoom that he is transgender and
that when a baby is born doctors make a guess about whether the baby is a
boy or a girl.
A pre-school teacher in Florida who moonlights as a drag king proclaims
that she will not follow the Parental Rights in Education Act when it
comes to the 4-year-olds under her supervision.
An elementary school teacher in Florida states that she would rather lose
her job than out one of my students to their families and that she has no
intention of following the Parental Rights in Education act when it comes
to young children and minors under her supervision.
An elementary school teacher states that kids as young as 3 and 4 are
aware of their gender identity and claims that saying pre-K through 3rd
graders arent ready to be exposed to sexual concepts and gender identity
is internalized homophobia and transphobia.
A high school teacher instructs other teachers on how to be really sneaky
about supporting specifically queer students without the knowledge of
parents.
In Oakland, California, a Spanish teacher recently bragged about the
implementation of the transition closet put in place for his students.
In his own words, the teacher stated, The goal of the transition closet
is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of,
come to school, and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly
are. In Austin, Texas, an elementary school held a Pride parade in March
2022 for Kindergarteners through 5th graders and initially instructed
students to respect the privacy of this special event by reminding all
participants that What we say in this room stays in this room. The
Illinois State Board of Education recently promoted guidance for
administrators and teachers that encourages school officials to hide a
child or students gender identity or sexual orientation from his or her
parents.
Teachers openly discussingor admitting to their intent and desire to
discusssex and gender identity with kindergarteners, third-graders, or
any minor entrusted to their care should be an enormous red flag to
parents and concerned citizens about potential predatory conditions in the
school systems. This red flag is underscored by repeated examples of
teachers and administrators emphasizing the importance of withholding such
instruction from parents and the community.
The Mainstreaming of Grooming in Entertainment
In March 2022, Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute,
reported on a meeting that had recently occurred inside The Walt Disney
Company. The meeting was a grievance session for progressive Disney
employees to lament the companys failure to sufficiently oppose the
Parental Rights in Education Act, a recently enacted Florida law that
prohibits public school teachers and officials in K-3 grades from
discussing sexual orientation and gender identity.
Following intense pressure from the far-left media and progressive
activists within his own company, Disney CEO Bob Chapek released a
statement condemning the parental rights bill and vowing to work toward
its repeal. Disneys opposition to a law protecting four to eight-year-old
children from exposure to sexual concepts and gender identity from non-
parent adult teachers alarmed millions of parents and citizens across the
country.
Rufos reporting pulled the veil back on the extent to which a cultural
institution like Disney is invested in grooming children toward particular
sexual and gender ideologies, practices, and agendas. In publicly-
available videos, one Disney producer who makes and directs animated
Disney+ shows aimed at seven-year-olds and younger children proudly said
that leadership over there [Disney] has been so welcoming to my not-at-
all secret gay agenda. She went further, claiming, I dont have to be
afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background. I was just,
wherever I could, just basically adding queerness.
Another Disney executive discussed how the company was home to really
incredible, groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories and then lamented that we
[Disney] have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories, and yet
we dont have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get
to be characters.
Despite the Disney executives outrage and planned retaliation, the
audiences for whom they produce their content have taken a different view
of the Florida legislation. According to Public Opinion Strategies, some
61 percent of registered voters support the Florida law prohibiting non-
parent teachers and adults from discussing sex and gender identity with
seven-year-olds or kindergarteners. This includes 70 percent of
Republicans, 58 percent of Independents, and even 55 percent of self-
described Democrats. The poll showed a full two-thirds of American voters
believe discussing gender identity with children in Kindergarten through
3rd-grade is inappropriate. A separate survey showed that 52 percent of
Florida Democrat primary voters supported the Parental Rights in Education
Act.
But Disney is not the only entertainment company pushing particular sexual
or gender ideologies, practices, agendas, or lifestyles on children.
Nickelodeon marketed a 30-second commercial showcasing a pre-teenage girl
self-identifying as a member of the LGBTQ+ community as part of its
programming during Transgender Day of Visibility.
In 2020, the streaming service Netflix received a barrage of public
backlash for marketing the movie Cuties, a French film glamorizing highly-
sexualized pre-teenage girls participating in beauty pageants. While this
film was marketed toward adults, the glamorization of sexualizing children
for adult entertainment consumption resulted in a Texas jury indicting
Netflix for violating the states obscenity laws on lewdness.
Two key takeaways from the Cuties controversy are that young child actors
were sexually exploited to make the film and adults marketed it to other
adults for entertainment, underscoring the extent to which the grooming of
children into such radical practices and lifestyles has become
commonplace.
Such grooming extends beyond television and is embedding its roots deep
into our culture. An increasing number of childrens books aim to
inculcate or expose young children to topics related to sex and gender
ideology.
For example, the book Jacobs New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman is aimed
at 4-year-olds and highlights a young boy who dresses as a girl with the
smiling approval of his mother. The book Jacobs School Play Starring He,
She, and They by the same authors also promotes gender ideology to kids
aged four through eight and suggests that the word they should be used
as a singular pronoun for the gender-nonconforming and that Theres
more than just boy and girl.
Another childrens book for kids aged four through eight called This Day
in June by author Gayle Pitman features pictures of leather-wearing same-
sex couples dancing and kissing in a Pride parade. These childrens books
serve as a foundation for the flood of pornographic material in K-12
curricula and public libraries.
The ideological and destructive nature of these exercises may best be
exemplified by a song and a so-called summer camp. In 2021, the San
Francisco Gay Mens Choir released a song and video boasting that they
were targeting children with an LGBT agenda. Following a backlash, the
organization claimed it was tongue-in-cheek humor. A sampling of the
lyrics include:
You think that well corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked
Funny, just this once, youre correct
Well convert your children
Happens bit by bit
Quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it
A nonprofit organization in Kentucky, which includes self-proclaimed
witches on its staff, recently promoted a Sexy Summer Camp aimed at
minors including toddlers. The agenda included lessons on masturbation,
sexual liberation, gender exploration, self-managed abortions, and
sexual activity while using licit and illicit drugs. After this
predatory organization and event were exposed, the camp was canceled.
Simply put, the effort to normalize and desensitize children to sex and
radical gender ideology is rampant across vast swaths of American culture
and society.
The Consequences of Grooming
The parental rights movement has helped uproot the radical ideologies that
have taken hold in K-12 schools, most notably the Marxist-derived ideology
of Critical Race Theory. However, CRT is not the sole radical ideology
immersed in curricula and instruction in school systems.
Queer Theory, sometimes referred to as Gender Theory, is the genesis for
much of the grooming material and behavior in K-12 schools and cultural
institutions. This theory manifests itself in many different forms, but
broadly frames heterosexuality as a societal norm structuring society to
the detriment of self-designated marginalized communities who operate
outside heterosexual and the biologically-binary gender practices and
beliefs. In this manner, the theorys rejection of malignant systems
falls in line with CRT and other Marxist off-shoots of radical critical
theory.
One of the leading purveyors of this theory, Michel Foucault, was a
Marxist French philosopher and activist who authored Queer Theorys
seminal work The History of Sexuality. This book argued that sexuality is
a social construct and is inherently tied to hetero-dominant systems of
power. Foucault is also known for challenging the stigma of pedophilia.
Foucault signed a petition to decriminalize pedophilia and lower the age
of consent in France to 13-years-old before he died of complications from
HIV/AIDS in 1984. After his death, evidence emerged that Foucault had
sexually abused underage boysunderscoring the flippancy with which he
viewed such acts in his various writings. The direct influence of Foucault
continues in classrooms today, particularly with the increasingly common
redesignation of pedophilia among gender activists as just another sexual
orientation, specifically an orientation known as minor-attracted
persons or MAP.
The classification of non-heterosexuals as oppressed or marginalized
groups is a key component of Foucaults theses that underpin Queer Theory.
In that respect, it is nearly identical to the race essentialism espoused
within the praxis of CRT and further reinforces peer or social pressure to
identify as a member of the LGBT community in order to dismantle systems
of oppression or remove ones inherent status as an oppressor.
Foucaults belief that sexuality was nothing more than a social construct
undergirds and animates much of the existing educational dogma among
radical gender activists and teachers regarding gender identity and sexual
orientation.
The full consequences of activist and educator obsession with exposing
children and students to sexualized concepts are still largely unknown.
However, the societal damage it is likely to impose is bound to be
catastrophic. Below are some emerging data points that are worth exploring
to see if there is a direct link to the grooming epidemic:
A recent analysis profiled in The Atlantic outlined the alarmingly high
rates of depression for girls and self-identified LGBT students in high
schools. It showed nearly 76 percent of self-identified LGBT high-school
students and 57 percent of female students are feeling persistently sad or
hopeless, percentages that far exceed the number of black students or
males. The article attempts to offer four explanations, but not one of the
potential factors explores the erosion of self-conceptionand the inherent
loss of confidence and mental stabilitythat stems from grooming children
at an early age into adopting radical sexual concepts and gender identity.
Axios recently provided generational data compiled by Gallup. The
information reveals an exponential increase in the population self-
identifying as LGBTQ, rising to an astonishing 21 percent of Generation Z.
That is double the number of Millennials. While more analysis needs to be
done, this data heavily suggests that the prevalence of grooming practices
in K-12 schools and the prevalence of Queer Theory in cultural
institutions is producing a socially-induced effect whereby people are
overwhelmingly choosing to be a member of the LGBT community.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed an
alarming increase in the number of suicides. From 2007 to 2018, the rate
of suicide for 10 to 24-year-olds increased by an astounding 60 percent.
These rates occurred years before COVID, lockdowns, and school closures.
It is worth exploring how much of this increase is related to grooming
activities pushing children into novel sexual and gender identities from a
young age.
Children are impressionable, and their minds are not fully formed until
well into their twenties. Exposing children and minors to sexual concepts
or gender identity is guaranteed to have an impact on a range of
developmental factors. Indeed, such developmental impact is the explicit
intention of the proponents of such concepts.
Harvard Universitys Center on the Developing Child argues, The brain is
indeed connected to the rest of the bodyand early childhood policy in the
21st Century must focus on the overwhelming evidence that early
experiences affect the foundations of both educational achievement and
lifelong physical and mental health.
It is therefore critical for parents and concerned citizens to grapple
with the extent and consequences of the grooming epidemic for these very
reasons. There remains a great deal of research to be done regarding the
long-term negative effects of institutional and societal grooming of
children: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
The primary day-to-day impact of grooming behavior and activities,
however, can be summarized in a three-fold manner:
1) It undeniably serves to affirm the desires or proclivities of non-
parent adults at the expense of children who are captive audiences;
2) It undeniably fosters an environment where sexual predators can thrive,
thereby endangering children;
3) It undeniably creates the conditions to rupture nuclear families and
drive a wedge between children and their parents; and
Common sense also suggests that grooming is indeed heavily contributing to
the epidemic of adult sexual misconduct and crimes against children in K-
12 schools.
A Sample Case Study in Defending Grooming Behavior
As lawmakersat the behest of empowered parentshave begun to focus on
passing legislation to protect young children from exposure to sexual and
gender identity concepts, progressives and activists have largely
struggled to push back.
However, a recent floor speech given by Michigan State Senator Mallory
McMorrow offers a glimpse into the likely blueprint LGBT and grooming
defenders will use to deflect or justify what is happening in Americas K-
12 classrooms and cultural institutions.
In her speech, McMorrow makes several impassioned claims while providing
details about her personal background. The three key attack lines she uses
are as follows:
That opponents of grooming are targeting marginalized kids in the name of
parental rights.
That opponents of grooming are dehumanizing and marginalizing those who
defend non-parent adults teaching children about sexual and gender
concepts.
That opponents of grooming are denying people their very right to exist.
The theme McMorrow emphasizes is the notion that those who want to prevent
adults from teaching or exposing children to sexual concepts and gender
identity in the classroom are espousing hate. Notably, nowhere in
McMorrows speech was there any concern about the well-being of children
exposed to such concepts, much less the actual rights of parentsexcept to
diminish the idea of parental rights as little more than a smokescreen for
perceived bigotry.
And while McMorrows indignant rebuttal is emotionally effective in that
it is clearly genuine, it fails to substantively engage with the issue and
address the fundamental question that elected officials like her, gender
activists, teachers, cultural institutions, and woke corporations must
answer on behalf of parents and concerned citizens:
Do you believe non-parent adults should teach or expose children to sexual
concepts and gender identity without parental knowledge or consent?
Policy Response
Fundamentally, the widespread societal and institutional adherence to
Queer Theory and similar radical ideologies has directly led to the
conditions necessary for child grooming to occur and for predatory adults
to thrive.
The parent movement and the tens of millions of Americans who seek to
protect the innocence of children, ensure the health of their communities,
and facilitate value systems that deter those who seek to corrupt, abuse,
and weaponize children must take an aggressive and multi-faceted approach
to end this epidemic.
First, parents must continue to hold school boards, school officials, and
local leaders accountable. This means pressuring schools to be transparent
with their curricula, provide access to the material available in school
libraries, and engage in regular parent-teacher interactions to expose
potentially harmful practices.
Second, citizens must begin taking direct action, either individually or
in an organized fashion, against the companies, businesses, and
corporations that provide operating space for grooming material and
ideologies to take root. This means canceling Disney+ subscriptions,
turning off Nickelodeon, seeking out alternative forms of family
entertainment, and switching to products or services offered by companies
that are not aligned with the left-wing agenda to isolate and manipulate
children.
Third, state lawmakers must adopt strong legislative proposals that will
resolve the issues both in school systems and in corporate boardrooms.
Among such proposals include:
Legislation cracking down on pornographic, sexually inappropriate, or
otherwise obscene material in the classroom, on school grounds, or at
school events;
Legislation enacting curriculum transparency for every K-12 public school
so as to provide parents with the entirety of the content their child will
be exposed to while in the classroom;
Legislation stripping woke companies aligned with pro-grooming activists
of any special tax privileges, benefits, or regulatory loopholes similarly
to the actions taken by the Florida legislature after Disney tried to
bully it into reversing course on its parental rights legislation;
Legislation providing a right of action for parents against any school
system, school official, or adult who exposes their underage child or
student to pornographic, sexually inappropriate, or otherwise obscene
material;
Legislation that defines grooming more broadly and provides for harsh
criminal penalties against those who seek to exploit and abuse children
under their supervision; and
Legislation that forbids the discussion or presentation of material
depicting in part or whole nudity, gender identity, sex organs, sexual
concepts, sexual orientation, or sexual acts in pre-K through 6th grade.
Finally, federal lawmakers must comb through the tax code and Federal
Register to begin the process of stripping woke corporations of any
special federal tax and regulatory benefits that they receive while
actively working against the interests of parents and the protection of
children. This should include consideration of statutory changes to the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure commercials and
childrens programming mirror content prohibitions enacted in the Parental
Rights in Education Act.
Concluding Assessment
The recent attention given to grooming is but the latest salvo in a
culture war being waged for the soul of the nation. Healthy communities
require a well-cultivated and shared adherence to common morality. In the
United States, much of our value system is historically rooted in Judeo-
Christian ethics and standards. However, as that commonality has waned,
radical ideologies have taken root within myriad institutions and fostered
a dangerous environment for children allowing groomers to proliferate. It
is imperative for parents, concerned citizens, and elected officials to
shift to an offensive posture to safeguard the innocence and lives of
children from the adults seeking to abuse and manipulate them to serve
their own sexual, gender, racial, and political ends.
https://americarenewing.com/issues/policy-brief-yes-americas-institutions-
are-grooming-your-children/
shift to an offensive posture to safeguard the innocence and lives of
children from the adults seeking to abuse and manipulate them to serve
their own sexual, gender, racial, and political ends.
Summary
The parent revolution has placed a renewed focus on the content of
curricula within K-12 public schools, revealing widespread dissemination
of radical ideologies like Critical Race Theory (CRT). As part of this
awakening, Americans are learning that such radicalism is pervasive not
only throughout K-12 schools and higher education institutions, but also
within corporate boardrooms, government agencies, organizations, and
cultural entities.
Parents have also alleged that these institutions have been engaged in
efforts to groom their children through indoctrination of divisive,
inappropriate, and dangerous sexual, racial, and political ideologies,
with the ultimate aim of reshaping American society. These efforts, if
successful, would result in significant harm to children and chaos in
schools and communities.
What is Grooming?
The use of the term grooming has become a point of contention in public
debate about these behaviors as they manifest in American culture and
institutional life. The increasingly casual use of the word, as well as
the popularization of the pejorative groomer, has the potential to
muddle communication about what precisely parents are trying to stop.
The word grooming has often been associated with child predators seeking
to sexualize children or prepare children for sexual activities with
adults. This remains an accurateand deeply disturbinguse of the term.
However, the word has a more general definition appropriate for a far
broader range of behaviors. Merriam Webster defines groom as to get
into readiness for a specific objective (i.e. he was being groomed as a
presidential candidate).
This general definition captures a broad range of potential activities
designed to inculcate. As such, in the context of the commercial and
educational initiatives targeting children, it is by no means limited to
the worst abuses that can be connoted by the term. Indeed, despite
objections from defenders of the various practices tagged with the
grooming label, few words could be more apt to capture the nature of the
indoctrination by trusted authorities many of them in custodial positions
over childrenthat has become commonplace in childhood education and
entertainment.
The claim is not that all teachers are engaged in child predation. Rather,
the claim is that as woke activists attempt to turn young kids and minors
into political leftists to groom the next generation of activists,
essential and longstanding boundaries that protect children from
inappropriate sexual behavior are eroded. In other words, the process of
grooming students or children creates conditions that circumvent
established safeguards that are used to ensure appropriate behavior which
leaves children vulnerable to predation.
This by no means suggests that every or even most adults engaged in
groomingas defined beloware also predators seeking to sexually abuse
children. It does mean, as will be relayed throughout this paper, that
adults who engage in grooming behavior and activities may be creating the
conditions necessary for predators, with even more nefarious motives, to
isolate, manipulate, and potentially abuse children.
Therefore, in this particular context, grooming is the deliberate act of
attempting to manipulate or cultivate children or students to become
activists by exposing a child to a particular sexual, political, gender,
or racial ideology, or any radical practice, belief, agenda, or lifestyle
without the knowledge or consent of his or her parents.
This is often done with the aim of isolating children from their families
so that third parties can more easily coerce or abuse them.
Fundamentally, the nature of grooming is to lower or dismantle existing
barriers or reticence a child may have to these particular sexual,
political, gender, or racial agendas, activities, and lifestyles. Often,
these ingrained barriers are due to the innate innocence of a child or the
values instilled by a childs parents and family.
Such grooming may manifest wherever minors are captive or targeted
audiences of non-parent adults. The behaviors of present concern to
parents take various forms, often presented as innocuous exercises meant
to promote values like tolerance, mutual understanding, and self-
discovery. In practice, though, these grooming activities serve to
undermine parents most important freedom: the right to shape the moral
foundations that ground their childrens education and experience in the
world.
For the purposes of this particular paper, grooming behavior and actions
will focus almost exclusively on sexual and gender ideology, practices,
beliefs, agendas, and lifestyles. Nevertheless, the institutional and
cultural imperative to push radical ideologies like Critical Race Theory
on children would also constitute groomingmore broadly defined as
systemic grooming.
These extreme social and sexual messages are routinely imposed against
parents wishes in a variety of contexts, including:
Public school teachers coercion of children as young as Kindergarteners
to participate in gay pride ceremonies explicitly kept secret from
parents;
Disney executives inserting LGBT activities or concepts into programming
for seven-year-olds;
A middle school teacher posting social media videos encouraging his
students to curse their parents and embrace him as their new parent;
The content in a commercial aired between childrens programming on
television;
Explicit material in a novel aimed at children by an author with an
ulterior motive.
Some of these efforts target children during their most vulnerable
developmental stages puberty and adolescence to tragic effect. In one
emblematic case, a California school counselors intervention
coordinated with the Department of Children and Family Services to push
a confused teenager to transition from her biological sex and remove her
from her loving home into the foster care system preceded her eventual
suicide.
Some may protest the use of the term grooming to describe this process,
but without language to capture the means by which these ideologies have
been promoted to children, it has proceeded invisibly to parents for the
last decade. Again, the act of grooming extends far beyond adults seeking
to sexually prey on children. It can be everything from teaching Critical
Race Theory concepts to six-year-olds to holding Pride celebrations in
elementary school classes. However, the explosion of such manipulative
behavior has occurred alongside more directly harmful actions associated
with grooming: sexual abuse of children.
A 2017 Department of Education report warned that public school employees
commit adult sexual misconduct against as many as 10 percent of K-12
students. This misconduct ranges from something as relatively mild as an
inappropriate verbal comment to criminal predatory sexual contact with
minors.
Much of the foundational data for this report came from a series of
surveys known as Hostile Hallways, wherein over 2,000 public school
students reported the nature and extent of the sexual misconduct they
experienced. According to these surveys, the sexual misconduct these
students experienced most often originated from teachers (18 percent),
coaches (15 percent), substitute teachers (13 percent), and school bus
drivers (12 percent). Additionally, the data suggest that females comprise
the vast majority of victims.
There are over 50 million students in Americas public education system.
According to the Departments own data, this means that as many as five
million students, children, and minors will experience adult sexual
misconduct at some point during their time in the public education
system.
This same report defines grooming as the process of isolating and
manipulating a child, arguing that grooming may be nonsexual and include
the offender trying to move the relationship to a personal level, telling
the student their personal problems. Furthermore, the report argues that
the adult sexual misconduct occurring in K-12 public schools is happening
within a broad social context and that the sexualization of children in
the media and advertising is a major contributing factor to its
occurrence.
This data mirrors a 2004 report issued through the Department of Education
by the Policy and Program Studies Service that found roughly 9.6 percent
of K-12 students had experienced educator sexual misconduct with 17
percent of those child victims identified as being special needs
students. The takeaway is that Americas K-12 school systems have been
breeding grounds for abusive and manipulative behaviors for far too long.
Grooming Behavior in K-12 Public Schools
A popular Twitter account that curates videos intentionally released on
the social media platform TikTok provides a near-daily reel of teachers
and activists openly discussing their grooming behavior toward the
children entrusted to their care. One of the common threads in these
borderline confessions is a combination of narcissism and entitlement that
non-parent adults express with regard to exploiting the children, minors,
and students entrusted with their care and supervision.
Concerningly, this exploitative and entitled outlook toward children is a
necessary condition for the establishment of an environment where sexual
grooming can more readily manifest. According to a 2020 study that
validated key components of the Sexual Grooming Model (SGM), the five
stages of a groomers engagement with potential victims are as follows:
Victim Selection: Wherein a groomer/predator selects a vulnerable
individualoften a young person or childpredicated on a host of observed
factors.
Access and Isolation: Wherein a groomer/predator ensures he or she has
access to the looming victim and the ability to isolate the victim from
peers, family, or other support networks.
Trust Development: Wherein a groomer/predator engages in actions that gain
compliance with the victim and result in the lowering of potential
barriers.
Desensitization to Sexual Content: Wherein a groomer/predator exposes the
victim to sexual concepts, activities, practices, or lifestyles in
preparation for abuse.
Post Abuse Maintenance: Wherein a groomer/predator initiates controlling
tactics to avoid detection and ensure the victim remains compliant after
the abuse has occurred.
The predatory psychological techniques utilized by sexual predators share
similar traits with the systemic grooming behaviors occurring throughout
K-12 public schools and many cultural institutions writ large. The primary
reason for such similarities is that both practices routinely necessitate
adults coercing or manipulating children without the knowledge or consent
of their parents.
Below are a handful of examples from among hundreds of self-published
videos from K-12 public school teachers:
A 5th-grade teacher brags about the gender unicorn assignment she uses
to teach 10 and 11-year-olds how to determine their gender identity,
gender expression, and physical attraction to other people.
A pre-school teacher boasts about forcing the 4-year-olds under her
supervision to choose pronoun pins every day.
A 1st-grade teacher at a Massachusetts charter school informs
Kindergarteners through 2nd-graders over Zoom that he is transgender and
that when a baby is born doctors make a guess about whether the baby is a
boy or a girl.
A pre-school teacher in Florida who moonlights as a drag king proclaims
that she will not follow the Parental Rights in Education Act when it
comes to the 4-year-olds under her supervision.
An elementary school teacher in Florida states that she would rather lose
her job than out one of my students to their families and that she has no
intention of following the Parental Rights in Education act when it comes
to young children and minors under her supervision.
An elementary school teacher states that kids as young as 3 and 4 are
aware of their gender identity and claims that saying pre-K through 3rd
graders arent ready to be exposed to sexual concepts and gender identity
is internalized homophobia and transphobia.
A high school teacher instructs other teachers on how to be really sneaky
about supporting specifically queer students without the knowledge of
parents.
In Oakland, California, a Spanish teacher recently bragged about the
implementation of the transition closet put in place for his students.
In his own words, the teacher stated, The goal of the transition closet
is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of,
come to school, and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly
are. In Austin, Texas, an elementary school held a Pride parade in March
2022 for Kindergarteners through 5th graders and initially instructed
students to respect the privacy of this special event by reminding all
participants that What we say in this room stays in this room. The
Illinois State Board of Education recently promoted guidance for
administrators and teachers that encourages school officials to hide a
child or students gender identity or sexual orientation from his or her
parents.
Teachers openly discussingor admitting to their intent and desire to
discusssex and gender identity with kindergarteners, third-graders, or
any minor entrusted to their care should be an enormous red flag to
parents and concerned citizens about potential predatory conditions in the
school systems. This red flag is underscored by repeated examples of
teachers and administrators emphasizing the importance of withholding such
instruction from parents and the community.
The Mainstreaming of Grooming in Entertainment
In March 2022, Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute,
reported on a meeting that had recently occurred inside The Walt Disney
Company. The meeting was a grievance session for progressive Disney
employees to lament the companys failure to sufficiently oppose the
Parental Rights in Education Act, a recently enacted Florida law that
prohibits public school teachers and officials in K-3 grades from
discussing sexual orientation and gender identity.
Following intense pressure from the far-left media and progressive
activists within his own company, Disney CEO Bob Chapek released a
statement condemning the parental rights bill and vowing to work toward
its repeal. Disneys opposition to a law protecting four to eight-year-old
children from exposure to sexual concepts and gender identity from non-
parent adult teachers alarmed millions of parents and citizens across the
country.
Rufos reporting pulled the veil back on the extent to which a cultural
institution like Disney is invested in grooming children toward particular
sexual and gender ideologies, practices, and agendas. In publicly-
available videos, one Disney producer who makes and directs animated
Disney+ shows aimed at seven-year-olds and younger children proudly said
that leadership over there [Disney] has been so welcoming to my not-at-
all secret gay agenda. She went further, claiming, I dont have to be
afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background. I was just,
wherever I could, just basically adding queerness.
Another Disney executive discussed how the company was home to really
incredible, groundbreaking LGBTQIA stories and then lamented that we
[Disney] have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories, and yet
we dont have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get
to be characters.
Despite the Disney executives outrage and planned retaliation, the
audiences for whom they produce their content have taken a different view
of the Florida legislation. According to Public Opinion Strategies, some
61 percent of registered voters support the Florida law prohibiting non-
parent teachers and adults from discussing sex and gender identity with
seven-year-olds or kindergarteners. This includes 70 percent of
Republicans, 58 percent of Independents, and even 55 percent of self-
described Democrats. The poll showed a full two-thirds of American voters
believe discussing gender identity with children in Kindergarten through
3rd-grade is inappropriate. A separate survey showed that 52 percent of
Florida Democrat primary voters supported the Parental Rights in Education
Act.
But Disney is not the only entertainment company pushing particular sexual
or gender ideologies, practices, agendas, or lifestyles on children.
Nickelodeon marketed a 30-second commercial showcasing a pre-teenage girl
self-identifying as a member of the LGBTQ+ community as part of its
programming during Transgender Day of Visibility.
In 2020, the streaming service Netflix received a barrage of public
backlash for marketing the movie Cuties, a French film glamorizing highly-
sexualized pre-teenage girls participating in beauty pageants. While this
film was marketed toward adults, the glamorization of sexualizing children
for adult entertainment consumption resulted in a Texas jury indicting
Netflix for violating the states obscenity laws on lewdness.
Two key takeaways from the Cuties controversy are that young child actors
were sexually exploited to make the film and adults marketed it to other
adults for entertainment, underscoring the extent to which the grooming of
children into such radical practices and lifestyles has become
commonplace.
Such grooming extends beyond television and is embedding its roots deep
into our culture. An increasing number of childrens books aim to
inculcate or expose young children to topics related to sex and gender
ideology.
For example, the book Jacobs New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman is aimed
at 4-year-olds and highlights a young boy who dresses as a girl with the
smiling approval of his mother. The book Jacobs School Play Starring He,
She, and They by the same authors also promotes gender ideology to kids
aged four through eight and suggests that the word they should be used
as a singular pronoun for the gender-nonconforming and that Theres
more than just boy and girl.
Another childrens book for kids aged four through eight called This Day
in June by author Gayle Pitman features pictures of leather-wearing same-
sex couples dancing and kissing in a Pride parade. These childrens books
serve as a foundation for the flood of pornographic material in K-12
curricula and public libraries.
The ideological and destructive nature of these exercises may best be
exemplified by a song and a so-called summer camp. In 2021, the San
Francisco Gay Mens Choir released a song and video boasting that they
were targeting children with an LGBT agenda. Following a backlash, the
organization claimed it was tongue-in-cheek humor. A sampling of the
lyrics include:
You think that well corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked
Funny, just this once, youre correct
Well convert your children
Happens bit by bit
Quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it
A nonprofit organization in Kentucky, which includes self-proclaimed
witches on its staff, recently promoted a Sexy Summer Camp aimed at
minors including toddlers. The agenda included lessons on masturbation,
sexual liberation, gender exploration, self-managed abortions, and
sexual activity while using licit and illicit drugs. After this
predatory organization and event were exposed, the camp was canceled.
Simply put, the effort to normalize and desensitize children to sex and
radical gender ideology is rampant across vast swaths of American culture
and society.
The Consequences of Grooming
The parental rights movement has helped uproot the radical ideologies that
have taken hold in K-12 schools, most notably the Marxist-derived ideology
of Critical Race Theory. However, CRT is not the sole radical ideology
immersed in curricula and instruction in school systems.
Queer Theory, sometimes referred to as Gender Theory, is the genesis for
much of the grooming material and behavior in K-12 schools and cultural
institutions. This theory manifests itself in many different forms, but
broadly frames heterosexuality as a societal norm structuring society to
the detriment of self-designated marginalized communities who operate
outside heterosexual and the biologically-binary gender practices and
beliefs. In this manner, the theorys rejection of malignant systems
falls in line with CRT and other Marxist off-shoots of radical critical
theory.
One of the leading purveyors of this theory, Michel Foucault, was a
Marxist French philosopher and activist who authored Queer Theorys
seminal work The History of Sexuality. This book argued that sexuality is
a social construct and is inherently tied to hetero-dominant systems of
power. Foucault is also known for challenging the stigma of pedophilia.
Foucault signed a petition to decriminalize pedophilia and lower the age
of consent in France to 13-years-old before he died of complications from
HIV/AIDS in 1984. After his death, evidence emerged that Foucault had
sexually abused underage boysunderscoring the flippancy with which he
viewed such acts in his various writings. The direct influence of Foucault
continues in classrooms today, particularly with the increasingly common
redesignation of pedophilia among gender activists as just another sexual
orientation, specifically an orientation known as minor-attracted
persons or MAP.
The classification of non-heterosexuals as oppressed or marginalized
groups is a key component of Foucaults theses that underpin Queer Theory.
In that respect, it is nearly identical to the race essentialism espoused
within the praxis of CRT and further reinforces peer or social pressure to
identify as a member of the LGBT community in order to dismantle systems
of oppression or remove ones inherent status as an oppressor.
Foucaults belief that sexuality was nothing more than a social construct
undergirds and animates much of the existing educational dogma among
radical gender activists and teachers regarding gender identity and sexual
orientation.
The full consequences of activist and educator obsession with exposing
children and students to sexualized concepts are still largely unknown.
However, the societal damage it is likely to impose is bound to be
catastrophic. Below are some emerging data points that are worth exploring
to see if there is a direct link to the grooming epidemic:
A recent analysis profiled in The Atlantic outlined the alarmingly high
rates of depression for girls and self-identified LGBT students in high
schools. It showed nearly 76 percent of self-identified LGBT high-school
students and 57 percent of female students are feeling persistently sad or
hopeless, percentages that far exceed the number of black students or
males. The article attempts to offer four explanations, but not one of the
potential factors explores the erosion of self-conceptionand the inherent
loss of confidence and mental stabilitythat stems from grooming children
at an early age into adopting radical sexual concepts and gender identity.
Axios recently provided generational data compiled by Gallup. The
information reveals an exponential increase in the population self-
identifying as LGBTQ, rising to an astonishing 21 percent of Generation Z.
That is double the number of Millennials. While more analysis needs to be
done, this data heavily suggests that the prevalence of grooming practices
in K-12 schools and the prevalence of Queer Theory in cultural
institutions is producing a socially-induced effect whereby people are
overwhelmingly choosing to be a member of the LGBT community.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed an
alarming increase in the number of suicides. From 2007 to 2018, the rate
of suicide for 10 to 24-year-olds increased by an astounding 60 percent.
These rates occurred years before COVID, lockdowns, and school closures.
It is worth exploring how much of this increase is related to grooming
activities pushing children into novel sexual and gender identities from a
young age.
Children are impressionable, and their minds are not fully formed until
well into their twenties. Exposing children and minors to sexual concepts
or gender identity is guaranteed to have an impact on a range of
developmental factors. Indeed, such developmental impact is the explicit
intention of the proponents of such concepts.
Harvard Universitys Center on the Developing Child argues, The brain is
indeed connected to the rest of the bodyand early childhood policy in the
21st Century must focus on the overwhelming evidence that early
experiences affect the foundations of both educational achievement and
lifelong physical and mental health.
It is therefore critical for parents and concerned citizens to grapple
with the extent and consequences of the grooming epidemic for these very
reasons. There remains a great deal of research to be done regarding the
long-term negative effects of institutional and societal grooming of
children: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
The primary day-to-day impact of grooming behavior and activities,
however, can be summarized in a three-fold manner:
1) It undeniably serves to affirm the desires or proclivities of non-
parent adults at the expense of children who are captive audiences;
2) It undeniably fosters an environment where sexual predators can thrive,
thereby endangering children;
3) It undeniably creates the conditions to rupture nuclear families and
drive a wedge between children and their parents; and
Common sense also suggests that grooming is indeed heavily contributing to
the epidemic of adult sexual misconduct and crimes against children in K-
12 schools.
A Sample Case Study in Defending Grooming Behavior
As lawmakersat the behest of empowered parentshave begun to focus on
passing legislation to protect young children from exposure to sexual and
gender identity concepts, progressives and activists have largely
struggled to push back.
However, a recent floor speech given by Michigan State Senator Mallory
McMorrow offers a glimpse into the likely blueprint LGBT and grooming
defenders will use to deflect or justify what is happening in Americas K-
12 classrooms and cultural institutions.
In her speech, McMorrow makes several impassioned claims while providing
details about her personal background. The three key attack lines she uses
are as follows:
That opponents of grooming are targeting marginalized kids in the name of
parental rights.
That opponents of grooming are dehumanizing and marginalizing those who
defend non-parent adults teaching children about sexual and gender
concepts.
That opponents of grooming are denying people their very right to exist.
The theme McMorrow emphasizes is the notion that those who want to prevent
adults from teaching or exposing children to sexual concepts and gender
identity in the classroom are espousing hate. Notably, nowhere in
McMorrows speech was there any concern about the well-being of children
exposed to such concepts, much less the actual rights of parentsexcept to
diminish the idea of parental rights as little more than a smokescreen for
perceived bigotry.
And while McMorrows indignant rebuttal is emotionally effective in that
it is clearly genuine, it fails to substantively engage with the issue and
address the fundamental question that elected officials like her, gender
activists, teachers, cultural institutions, and woke corporations must
answer on behalf of parents and concerned citizens:
Do you believe non-parent adults should teach or expose children to sexual
concepts and gender identity without parental knowledge or consent?
Policy Response
Fundamentally, the widespread societal and institutional adherence to
Queer Theory and similar radical ideologies has directly led to the
conditions necessary for child grooming to occur and for predatory adults
to thrive.
The parent movement and the tens of millions of Americans who seek to
protect the innocence of children, ensure the health of their communities,
and facilitate value systems that deter those who seek to corrupt, abuse,
and weaponize children must take an aggressive and multi-faceted approach
to end this epidemic.
First, parents must continue to hold school boards, school officials, and
local leaders accountable. This means pressuring schools to be transparent
with their curricula, provide access to the material available in school
libraries, and engage in regular parent-teacher interactions to expose
potentially harmful practices.
Second, citizens must begin taking direct action, either individually or
in an organized fashion, against the companies, businesses, and
corporations that provide operating space for grooming material and
ideologies to take root. This means canceling Disney+ subscriptions,
turning off Nickelodeon, seeking out alternative forms of family
entertainment, and switching to products or services offered by companies
that are not aligned with the left-wing agenda to isolate and manipulate
children.
Third, state lawmakers must adopt strong legislative proposals that will
resolve the issues both in school systems and in corporate boardrooms.
Among such proposals include:
Legislation cracking down on pornographic, sexually inappropriate, or
otherwise obscene material in the classroom, on school grounds, or at
school events;
Legislation enacting curriculum transparency for every K-12 public school
so as to provide parents with the entirety of the content their child will
be exposed to while in the classroom;
Legislation stripping woke companies aligned with pro-grooming activists
of any special tax privileges, benefits, or regulatory loopholes similarly
to the actions taken by the Florida legislature after Disney tried to
bully it into reversing course on its parental rights legislation;
Legislation providing a right of action for parents against any school
system, school official, or adult who exposes their underage child or
student to pornographic, sexually inappropriate, or otherwise obscene
material;
Legislation that defines grooming more broadly and provides for harsh
criminal penalties against those who seek to exploit and abuse children
under their supervision; and
Legislation that forbids the discussion or presentation of material
depicting in part or whole nudity, gender identity, sex organs, sexual
concepts, sexual orientation, or sexual acts in pre-K through 6th grade.
Finally, federal lawmakers must comb through the tax code and Federal
Register to begin the process of stripping woke corporations of any
special federal tax and regulatory benefits that they receive while
actively working against the interests of parents and the protection of
children. This should include consideration of statutory changes to the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure commercials and
childrens programming mirror content prohibitions enacted in the Parental
Rights in Education Act.
Concluding Assessment
The recent attention given to grooming is but the latest salvo in a
culture war being waged for the soul of the nation. Healthy communities
require a well-cultivated and shared adherence to common morality. In the
United States, much of our value system is historically rooted in Judeo-
Christian ethics and standards. However, as that commonality has waned,
radical ideologies have taken root within myriad institutions and fostered
a dangerous environment for children allowing groomers to proliferate. It
is imperative for parents, concerned citizens, and elected officials to
shift to an offensive posture to safeguard the innocence and lives of
children from the adults seeking to abuse and manipulate them to serve
their own sexual, gender, racial, and political ends.
https://americarenewing.com/issues/policy-brief-yes-americas-institutions-
are-grooming-your-children/