The LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory is a far-right conspiracy theory and anti-LGBTQ trope which alleges that LGBTQ people, and those supportive of LGBTQ rights, are engaging in child grooming and enabling child sexual abuse. Although the belief that LGBTQ individuals are more likely to molest children has no factual basis, this stereotype has existed for decades in the United States and Europe, dating back to before World War II.
The specific use of the term groomer as a slur to refer to LGBTQ people (particularly trans people and drag queens) became more prominent during partisan political campaigning in the 2020s, where it was often used to justify anti-LGBTQ curriculum bills. Despite originating with the far-right, the conspiracy theory regarding the supposed sexual grooming of children has been pushed by a growing number of mainstream conservatives, especially in the United States. The conspiracy theory has since spread among conservatives in other countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
The Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes this trope as an anti-LGBTQ myth. Aja Romano of Vox labels these ideas a moral panic. There is no reliable evidence that sexual minorities are more likely to abuse children. Advocates for children's rights have protested that the conspiracy theories make it difficult for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to access resources and help. LGBTQ rights organizations have condemned the use of such notions as encouraging discrimination in the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Hungary, Uganda, and elsewhere.
Overview Arising in the 1980s, the term groomer refers to child grooming and became popularized through abuse survivor advocacy, initially applying to actual criminal behavior without reference to U.S. politics. The use of groomer (or pro-groomer) to refer to LGBT people (and trans people in particular) became more prominent in the early 2020s, often in the wake of anti-LGBT curriculum bills.
As described by Vox in an April 2022 report, "Conservatives use it to imply that the LGBTQ community, their allies, and liberals more generally are pedophiles or pedophile-enablers". LGBT+ inclusive education is often targeted, with the argument that it seeks to indoctrinate children into homosexuality. Its modern usage taps into older forms of anti-LGBT+ prejudice such as the homosexual seduction theory, the acquired homosexuality theory, the Lavender Scare, and certain kinds of social contagion. Transgender people and drag queens in particular have received targeted attacks using or alluding to the trope, whereas the older theories tended to target gay men.
There is no reliable evidence that sexual minorities are more likely to abuse children. American conservatives have pushed the purported link in popular culture over multiple decades going back to the times before World War II. At the beginning of the Cold War, for example, the U.S. government sought to remove homosexuals from positions of importance during the Lavender Scare. This trope became more widespread as a result of partisan political campaigning in the 2020s. The allegation that having an LGBT identity causes or otherwise contributes to pedophilia has continued as a matter of ideological faith into the 21st century, manifesting after 2019 as the "groomer slur" in particular.
One survey by Courier Newsroom, a left-leaning think tank, found that 55 percent of likely American voters oppose the conspiracy theory, while 29 percent believe it. Results were divided greatly on the basis of political party.
History
Origins Writing at Intelligencer, columnist James Kirchick argues that the grooming conspiracy theory grew out of more generalized homophobic conspiracy theories which originated in Germany in the early 20th century, in particular the Eulenburg affair. The affair received wide publicity and is often considered the biggest domestic scandal of Imperial Germany. It led to one of the first major public discussions of homosexuality in Germany, comparable to the trial of Oscar Wilde in England.
19th century Scientific research began to explore the causes of homosexuality in the second half of the nineteenth century. Around 1850, French psychiatrist Claude-François Michéa and German physician Johann Ludwig Casper independently suggested that homosexuality was caused by a physical difference from heterosexuals; the exact nature of this purported physical difference became a sought-after target of medical research. At the same time, many psychiatrists believed that homosexuality was a product of environmental factors such as bad habits or seduction by older men.
20th century
Interwar period: 1920s to 1930s After World War I, a rise in the visibility of LGBT+ people in Germany led to an increase in the belief that there was an increase in the incidence of homosexuality among young men due to recruitment by adult gay and bisexual men. By the 1920s, backlash from psychologists and psychiatrists against tolerance of LGBT+ people in Berlin suggested that homosexuality was a social contagion. The SS newspaper argued that 40,000 homosexuals were capable of "poisoning" two million men if left to roam free.
Susanna Cassisa argues that this panic led to efforts, in 1929, to legalize same sex activities for men, but only for those over 21, thus "enshrining in the nation's penal code the unfounded belief that gay men were seducers of youths". After the fall of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis promoted the idea that homosexuals seduced young men, permanently infecting them with homosexuality and preventing the youth from becoming fathers.
In the USSR in 1933, Article 121 was added to the entire Soviet Union criminal code, making male homosexuality a crime punishable by up to five years in prison with hard labor. Though the precise reason for Article 121 is in some dispute among historians, government statements made about the law tended to confuse homosexuality with pedophilia. The law remained intact until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when it was repealed in 1993 by the Russian Federation. – Source: the Swiss lesbian magazine Die, Number 9, Fall 1998, pp. 6-8
Post-war period: 1945–1957 In the post-war period, similar sentiments emerged in the USA; 21 states and the District of Columbia enacted laws between 1947 and 1955 which targeted gay and bisexual men as "sexual psychopaths". Many of these statutes conflated homosexuality with pedophilia.
As part of the anti-communist "Lavender Scare", the 1950 Hoey committee wrote to and interviewed medical personnel to ascertain, among other things, whether homosexual people would seduce younger men and women. The committee's final report, Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government, included the accusation that homosexuals were a risk to younger people and that, "One homosexual can pollute a Government office."
By 1952, the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, officially classified homosexuality as a "sociopathic personality disturbance." In her investigation into the Lavender Scare in Prologue Magazine, Judith Adkins claimed this framing contributed to increased persecution and prejudice in the following decades.
1958–1965 In 1958 to 1965, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, which had previously fought desegregation and attempted to investigate suspected communists, targeted LGBT+ people in Florida schools, arguing they were converting children to a homosexual lifestyle. Hugh Ryan has argued that it was common for racist groups to move onto LGBT+ people, under the guise of protecting children, when their campaigns against black people failed, saying, "They realize that this works, that this is the issue that will create a 'political moral majority.
In 1961, the dramatic short social guidance propaganda film Boys Beware was released in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California through Sid Davis Productions with the cooperation of the city's police department and the Inglewood Unified School District. The film was narrated by a police detective on his way to a school meeting to discuss the issue of sexual predators who attempt to lure adolescent males. It attempted to educate about an alleged danger to young boys from predatory homosexuals.
1970s In 1977, Anita Bryant and the Save Our Children coalition also alleged that homosexuality was harmful to children, while they were attempting to repeal an ordinance that partly banned discrimination based on sexuality. Bryant claimed "homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit... the youth of America". Shortly afterward, the failed Briggs Initiative sought to ban gay and lesbian teachers from working in California's public schools on the premise that their sexuality would "adversely affect students". Of Bryant, Hugh Ryan said, "they've already realized that they can harness this political conservatism and attach it to religion by talking about the family."
The co-executive directors of the National Gay Task Force later wrote an ironic thank you to Bryant; claiming her "Christian crusade" had drawn attention to the plight of LGBT+ people, they said Save Our Children were "doing the 20 million lesbians and gay men in America an enormous favor: They are focusing for the public the nature of the prejudice and discrimination we face."
1980s By 1981, Lou Sheldon, who described homosexuality as a "deathstyle," founded the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) in the US. He suggested that grooming children was the real "homosexual agenda," saying, "They want our preschool children. [...] They want our kindergarten children. [...] They want our middle school and high school children." Sheldon later reportedly told columnist Jimmy Breslin in 1992, "Homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual."
Similar sentiments were also espoused in the UK, with sex and relationships education seen as a route for LGBT+ people to groom children. In 1986, The Sun described the children's book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin as a "vile" and "perverted" threat to British children. Of the incident, Colin Clew wrote, "To the British media, it was nothing more than a homosexual recruiting manual that sought to undermine Western civilisation as we know it."
In the run-up to the 1987 UK election, both the right-wing media and the Conservative Party had begun increasingly criticizing the Labour Party for supporting minorities such as LGBT+ people over the white, heterosexual majority. They referred to the pro-LGBT+ policies of Labour politicians and Labour-run local councils as proof they were part of a "loony left" intent on destroying British values. The Conservative election campaign featured a row of men wearing badges with slogans such as "gay pride" and "gay sports day"; underneath, the advert said, "This is Labour's camp. Do you want to live in it?" Recounting the period, writer Matthew Todd argued that, "Thatcher presided over and took advantage of the most devastatingly homophobic time in recent British history" with the help of The Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, amounting to "a campaign of deeply unpleasant propaganda".