MILWAUKEE — Jamie Michel, a lesbian who founded the group Gay Against Groomers, thinks it’s ironic and “hilarious” that the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled her openly LGBTQ organization an “anti-LGBTQ hate group.”
“They’re labeling us as an anti-LGBTQ hate group, which is the most ironic and ridiculous thing ever, because all of our members are gay and several of us are transgender,” Michel told The Daily Signal in an interview at the Republican National Convention earlier this month.
She said the SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League and other liberal groups “labeled us as anti-us for simply speaking out to protect children.”
The SPLC has labeled mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and placed them in the same league as chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, and accused Gay Against Groomers of amplifying “dehumanizing anti-transgender rhetoric” and “perpetuating anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes by falsely claiming that LGBTQ+ people who support transgender rights are a danger to society.”
The Anti-Defamation League, which critics accuse of left-wing bias, has labeled Gay Against Groomers an “anti-LGBTQ extremist group,” while the ADL claims the group “spreads dangerous and misleading narratives about the LGBTQ+ community, focusing on false allegations of ‘grooming’ by drag performers, ‘indoctrination’ by LGBTQ+ educators, and ‘child abuse’ by gender-affirming care providers.”
These attacks on Gay Against Groomers echo the Southern Poverty Law Center’s argument that parents who complain about pornographic books in school libraries are “book bearers” reminiscent of the “Uptown Klans” who opposed desegregation in the 1950s.
Many defenders of sexually-charged books and children’s drag shows argue that there is nothing inherently sexual about images of nude teenagers and middle-aged men dancing in revealing clothing in front of young children.
“We are fighting the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children that is taking place in the name of LGBTQIA+, plus, plus, plus,” Michelle told The Daily Signal. “No one is saying what plus stands for. I think they’re trying to incorporate the ‘P’ from ‘pedophilia.'”
Michel also draws attention to the experimental nature of “sex reassignment therapy,” a euphemism for medical interventions aimed at forcibly transforming men into women, or vice versa. Such interventions disrupt natural development, can render patients infertile, and have been linked to cases of liver cancer in teenagers.
“Gender reassignment care” aims to address psychological distress (the feeling of identifying with a gender opposite to one’s own gender) through physical change rather than through therapy.
Michelle specifically points to the fact that part of “gender-reassignment care” involves “the amputation of healthy body parts of a girl.”
“I can’t imagine being held captive by decisions that you made when you were 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. [girl]”It’s just insane,” she added. “Until five minutes ago, it was common knowledge and common sense throughout human history that children can’t make decisions that will last a lifetime.”
Michelle describes herself as a former “tomboy” and says that if she were growing up today, she would likely have been criticised for possibly being transgender.
“I would definitely have fallen prey to this cult, this cult-like scheme,” she says. “If my parents believed in it, they would definitely have had me medically transitioned.”
Michelle said many gay and lesbian people may be convinced they are “really” transgender because they don’t conform to masculine or feminine stereotypes. She called gender ideology a form of “conversion therapy,” referring to efforts to encourage gay people to reject the homosexual lifestyle.
“This is a form of conversion therapy, but it’s much worse. 1,000 times worse,” Michelle said. “Normal, old-fashioned conversion therapy just tries to change minds, right? With this, the children are disfigured and sterilized, so it’s much worse.”
While traditional media and most LGBTQ organizations suggest that everyone who identifies as LGBTQ supports pornography in schools, “gender-affirming care” for minors, and “drag queen story hours,” Michelle says, “every gay person I know, and even transgender people, we’ve all been adamantly opposed to this.”
“It was really important to me to create a group that would fight back from within the community, to differentiate, to draw a big line between us and them, to show that not all gay people, not all transgender people, want to hurt children,” she says.
She disagrees with the idea that pornographic material in schools is important to “normalize” LGBTQ people.
“I think we feel like we’ve already been normalized,” she says. “We’ve been too welcomed into society, we’ve become too tolerant. All the big corporations pander to us, they bow to us, all the major politicians on the left.”
“No, kids don’t need to read porn to learn how to be inclusive people,” Michelle added. “No, kids don’t need to see men in skimpy outfits, nearly naked, with fake breasts to learn about tolerance and acceptance.”
“Our community has been hijacked and they are using us to push pornographic filth in our name,” she said.
While many on the political left argue that conservative Christians are the biggest threat to LGBTQ people, Michel says the left itself is a much bigger threat.
“What the gay alphabet mob is doing is hurting us more than Westboro Baptist Church would like,” she said, referring to the church notorious for its nasty protests at military funerals, LGBTQ events and political rallies.
Recent activism has “made people equate all gay people, all transgender people, with child abusers,” Michelle laments. “Gay people have been fighting for a long time to get rid of that stigma, and I truly believe they are hurting us more than even the most extreme bigots could ever imagine.”
She argues that the attacks on the SPLC and ADL put a target on their backs.
“Our inboxes are full of death threats,” Michelle said. “We’re worried because our personal information has been exposed. … Is today the day we have to exercise our Second Amendment?”
