Witness at Hearing on ‘Ant-LGBT Violence’: Term ‘Groomer’ Being Used Encourage Violence Against LGBT Community

EXCERPT:

HUNT: "People who are already receptive to that message take it to heart, and it reinforces their prejudices. In their minds transpeople either become victims to be saved from ourselves or villains to be punished. One example of this inaction is the misuse of the term groomer. Anti-LGBTQ activists have appropriated this terminology used by survivors of childhood sexual abuse and used it to slander LGBTQ people and our allies as predatory, harmful toward children. In reality, transpeople are significantly more likely to be the victims of sexual abuse than perpetrators of it. And now this misused terminology has become part of the political discourse around transpeople, and is invoked as a reason to further restrict our rights in the name of protecting children.”