cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2207523
Kristen Browde has amassed over 380,000 followers on TikTok by debunking the anti-LGBTQ+ “groomer” myth, and no one is more shocked by her success on the platform than she is. “TikTok is supposed to be this app where teenagers do dance moves, but it turns out it’s an incredibly effective political organizing tool,” she tells Them in an interview. “I am delighted that people are finding this useful information and are sharing it.”
Browde, an attorney and former correspondent for CBS News, posts weekly videos aggregating local media reports of children being targeted by sexual predators, sourced from keyword searches on Google and DuckDuckGo, as well as tips from followers. (She posts all her data at her website WhoIsMakingNews.com, where it’s available for anyone to download.) In the six months since she created her first TikTok video, she has noticed a continuing trend: that very few of the perpetrators who are being arrested for preying on kids are drag queens or trans people, the targets du jour of the right. Instead, Browde found that the individuals who are responsible for the vast majority of reported incidents hail from the very groups pointing the finger at the LGBTQ+ community, from religious leaders to Republican politicians. “They’re the ones who are committing the crimes,” she says. “They’re the ones who are doing this.”
That must be such an exhausting job, especially with all the death threats from Republicans she probably gets, but good on her for doing it.
And the sheer amount of them! If this is her job she won’t be out of one for a long time haha.
They never cared about grooming kids, they care that the “right” person does it in accordance to their beliefs. It’s okay because the messenger of god made the kids dirty, not some “deviant” drag queen.
I suspect a large part of the issue is that lgbtq and drag queens are two groups of people that are very likely to teach kids about consent.
That’s a very insightful point.
