Gay Group with Conservative Connections Fights Against LGBTQ Rights

By Michael Lovito, June 25, 2023

Perhaps no policy debate has defined the 2020s like that regarding the rights of transgender youth. For the most part, the battle lines are familiar to those of culture wars past: the religious right and other conservatives support limiting transgender care options and classroom discussions of gender identity, while liberals and the LGBTQ+ rights movement have rallied in support of expanding both.

But Gays Against Groomers, a coalition of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender activists who oppose what they call the “alphabet mafia” have, ironically, made the debate a little less binary. Despite being a relatively small organization (approximately 90 people have cleared their “onboarding process” to become official members), Gays Against Groomers and its founder, Jaimee Michell, loom large when it comes to social media fights over all ages drag shows, gender affirming care for minors, and how LGBTQ issues are taught in school. They’ve also made an impact in the real world too, helping to organize protests and disruptions of local government meetings to, in their words, “protect children from unchecked gay and trans propaganda.” It’s hard to determine what concrete impact, if any, Gays Against Groomers have had on efforts to rollback LGBTQ rights in the United States – but they have unquestionably helped set the terms and tenor of the debate via their feverish online rhetoric, and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

A Sprawling Message

Gays Against Groomers’ Twitter account, @againstgrmrs, was launched in June 2022 by Michell, a lesbian and conservative activist based in Milwaukee, approximately three months before the organization was official incorporated as a 501(c)4 in September of that year. The group’s first in person protests began later that month and primarily took place outside of school board meetings in places like Castro Valley, California; Miami, Florida; and Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where LGBTQ+-related curriculum and events were being voted on. From a policy perspective, these protests were only a middling success (Castro Valley didn’t take down a mural featuring Pride flags, and Wauwatosa went ahead with their planned human growth and development curriculum), but they helped establish Gays Against Groomers as a leading name in the modern backlash against LGBTQ+ rights and inspired other activists across the country to establish their own local chapters, which can now be found in 11 different states.

Succinctly defining Gays Against Groomers’ mission and policy goals is far from a simple task – even the organization’s name threatens to confuse people who aren’t steeped in online debates about childhood education and sexuality. Traditionally, the phrase “grooming” has been used to refer to adults who establish an emotional connection with a child with the intent of sexually abusing them, something the right has accused LGBTQ+ people of trying to do since at least the 1970s. According to Robert Wallace, the co-leader of Gays Against Groomers’ Arizona chapter, the organization doesn’t believe that all gay or trans people are groomers – but they do believe that introducing children to concepts related to homosexuality and trans identity could make them vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

“We’ve gone from leaving Johnny alone, to letting Johnny look at pictures of cartoon boys kissing and giving blowjobs in the classroom, and just sowing these ideas into his brain, ‘maybe you’re trans, maybe you’re gay,’ and then it turns into, you know, Mr. Johnson wants to hang out for a little bit,” Wallace said, detailing the supposed education to abuse pipeline. “We believe this just keeps opening the door to sexual conversations between adults and children. And that’s like Pandora’s box, it should never be opened.”

Few people are likely to oppose the idea of protecting children from sexually abusive adults – but Gays Against Groomers’ assertion that such abuse is facilitated via LGBTQ+ education is based on feeling more so than fact. Most studies indicate that people who identify as homosexual are no more likely to sexually abuse children than those who identify as heterosexual, and there appears to be no conclusive evidence linking LGBTQ education initiatives to instances of sexual abuse.

Some of the alleged examples of child abusers becoming “normalized” that Wallace mentioned in our interview, such as “minor attracted persons” lobbying to be accepted into the LGBTQ movement or the World Economic Forum calling for children to have the right to consent to sex, were either exaggerated or false. Wallace also stretched the definition of “groomer,” saying it could be applied “activist-type parents” who “usher these kids down these deep psychological wells of gender dysphoria.”

“I’m sure there are lots of people with good intentions who have been called groomers,” Wallace said. “If a kid plays with a Barbie one day, maybe they are straight, maybe they are gay. But raising these huge questions, and the implications that come along with that, isn’t something kids are doing themselves – adults are doing it for them. So, when we talk about grooming those kids, we’re putting attention on the negative stuff [adults] are doing that are sowing the ideas into kids to being with.”

Thus far, the bulk of Wallace’s activism has focused on Arizona’s public school system. Earlier this year, he spoke in front of the Arizona Senate in favor of two bills: SB1001, which would require teachers to ask for parents’ permission before referring to students by pronouns they were not assigned at birth, and SB1040, which would bar trans students from using the bathroom of their preferred gender. He also protested the Tucson Unified School District’s plans to host a drag show at one of its high schools, pointing out that one of the sponsors of the student club that hosted the event was arrested for engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a student. But like Gays Against Groomers’ early actions in Castro Valley and Wauwatosa, Wallace was unsuccessful in his efforts – both bills he advocated for were vetoed by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, and the Tucson drag show went on as planned.

Roots on the Right

Gays Against Groomers presents itself as a non-partisan organization, but its leadership has an unmistakably right-wing pedigree. Wallace himself volunteered for Kari Lake’s 2022 campaign for governor of Arizona and is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, while David Leatherwood, the organization’s secretary, spoke at a Roger Stone event in December 2020. North Carolina chapter leader Brian Talbert is the founder of Deplorable Pride, a pro-Trump LGBT group, while Judith Rose, the organization’s Director of Communications, has appeared on pro-QAnon talk show “RedPill78.”

The most notable and prolific member of Gays Against Groomers’ leadership is Michell, the group’s founder, president and CEO. A graphic designer who has worked for Republican aligned marketing firms like Arsenal Media and IMGE, Michell first gained notoriety for her Twitter account @thegaywhostrayd, which she used to defend Trump’s policies and spread false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Her sizeable Twitter following (65,100 at the time of this writing) and role with Gays Against Groomers has led to guest appearances on right wing networks like Fox News, OAN and InfoWars, where she’s compared gender-affirming care to the medical experiments performed by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele and criticized Trump for his promotion of COVID vaccinations (according to her Twitter account, she is supporting Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary). Despite agreeing to a specific date and time to speak with The Righting, Michell did not provide a phone number at which I could contact her and did not respond to a series of follow-up emails.

Growth and Pushback

Gays Against Groomers’ official membership numbers remain relatively small – according to Wallace, people looking to get involved with the organization have to pass a background check and complete a training course, creating to a “backlog” of requests. But its reach is undeniable – both its Twitter and Instagram accounts have over 300,000 followers and their trucks, which feature video screens advertising their message, have shown up at Pride events in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC. It’s also impossible to deny that, at least for the time being, many of their policy priorities are gaining steam at the state level. According to the Human Rights Campaign, there are currently 20 states that have passed some form of legislation banning minors from receiving gender affirming care, and three states have passed laws limiting LGBTQ curriculum in public schools.

But if Gays Against Groomers wants their gains to stick, they may be in for a fight. In May 2022, a U.S. district judge blocked an Alabama law that made it a crime to provide puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children. This month, another U.S. district judge struck down Arkansas’ law banning gender affirming care for minors, saying that it violated patients’ due process and equal protection rights, as well as medical providers’ First Amendment rights. But Wallace made it clear that the only thing that could possibly slow Gays Against Groomers down would be complete and total victory.

“If kids stopped being confronted with this stuff, we would cease to exist overnight,” Wallace said. “That is our whole purpose.”

Michael Lovito is a Brooklyn-based reporter and critic whose work has appeared in Salon, Brooklyn Magazine, Pavement Pieces, and The District. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the politics and pop culture website The Postrider.  @MLovito

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