Trigger warning for kidnapping kids, religious bigotry, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, many laws broken to steal a teenager from a safe home and take him to a Christian prison until his father could rescue him, but it doesn’t tell how long the teen was there and what the dad had to do to rescue him. Hugs.
We have a serious problem with the Christian nationalist that feel only their church doctrines and made-up rules have to be followed and the laws of the nation are unimportant. Plus add to that the idea that children at all ages but even more troubling in their later teens are still the property of the parents or guardians. Property to do what you wish with them. Which when it comes to religions is scary as can be and opens the child up to abuse. Yes this is a story I should not have read. It set me back. Once I realized what it was before I continued, I took steps to protect myself and placed three video tabs on the other computer / monitor. All three are distracting and I can instantly switch to them and lose myself in them as needed. I have done that. If anyone noticed the delay in my morning posting it is because of this story and my need to walk away from it. But having read it I think it is really important other people know of this and we do all we can to stop it. Think of the lifelong damage this boy will have due to his mistreatment and abuse because some people see him not as a person but as property to be controlled. I am not going to color or highlight anything. I am just too shaky. I read it once to decide if I should post it. I read it a second time to copy and paste it. I am sick to my stomach and eyes are watering, and I just cannot deal with this anymore today. Hugs
The longtime former dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri, Julio Sandoval, faces up to five years in prison
The former dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri conspired with a California woman to have her son handcuffed and transported over 24 hours to that school, according to a recently unsealed federal indictment. The two people now charged with crimes face up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced that the man and woman in question had been arrested for the alleged crime.
The woman is 35-year-old Shana Gaviola. About two years ago, her son began living with a different family and demanded emancipation. He wanted a legal separation from his parents. He accused Gaviola of domestic abuse and obtained an order of protection to keep her away from him. She was legally forbidden from interacting with him or from taking away his phone.
The man is 41-year-old Julio Sandoval. He used to be the dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri but has since transferred to Lighthouse Christian Academy in the same state. He also manages a business called Safe, Sound Secure Youth Ministries, which is essentially a service that takes kids against their will to Christian schools or treatment centers with the approval of their parents. (“The transport is the first phase of this amazing journey called ‘change’,” Sandoval writes on the website.)
Last year, the two of them worked on a plan to send her son to Lighthouse Christian Academy. But how could she do that when she wasn’t allowed to interact with him? Simple. They hired outsiders to do the job for them.
Despite the protection order, Gaviola and Sandoval made plans for Gaviola’s son to be forcibly transported from California to Missouri. On Aug. 21, 2021, individuals acting on behalf of Gaviola and Sandoval found the minor at a business in Fresno, handcuffed him, and forced him into a car. He remained in handcuffs for over 24 hours while they drove to Stockton, Missouri. He was then held at the boarding school until his father was able to free him.
The story is even worse in the actual indictment. Gaviola was also said to have forged a court document that said he had the right to do this.
All of that is awful enough. But it’s deeply troubling that Agape Boarding School, Gaviola’s former employer, is involved in all of this, because that school has been a hotbed of abuse in its own right.
Last year, five staffers at Agape were charged with over a dozen felony assault counts… and yet the state’s attorney general had originally recommended prosecutors go after 22 employees on 65 total counts. One of the victims said he was “beaten, assaulted, starved,” and that other kids had been “slammed on tile, concrete and asphalt.” The decision not to go after all those other adults infuriated the attorney general so much that he asked to be taken off the case.
In addition to all that, the school’s in-house doctor, David Earl Smock, was charged in December with—wait for it—”second-degree statutory sodomy, third-degree child molestation of a child less than 14 years of age and enticement or attempted enticement of a child less than 15 years of age.” The school’s doctor was accused of a slew of sex crimes! Smock has since pleaded not guilty. (A different child sued Smock for sexual abusethis week.)
All of this was so horrible that Republicans in Missouri’s legislature eventually considered and passed a bill requiring some oversight of these schools. Until recently, faith-based schools in Missouri had been exempt from any statewide regulations. Now they must meet some basic health and safety guidelines, conduct background checks on employees, provide students with basic necessities like food and health care, and give parents access to their kids at all times.
The federal indictment this week says the teenager was sent to a boarding school in Stockton, Missouri… which, as it turns out, is also the home of Agape.
For the mother’s part, her lawyer told The Daily Beast there’s more to the story,
Anthony Capozzi, the attorney defending Gaviola in court, told The Daily Beast, “What’s in the indictment is not totally accurate to what happened. It only presents one side of the story. If Shana Gaviola had known there was a valid restraining order, this wouldn’t have happened. That’s all I can say at this point.”
Gaviola “will be fighting this case, and will take it to trial,” Capozzi added, saying that there “is a reason she did what she did. To protect her son. And to protect others. There’s so much more than what’s in this indictment. So much more.”
Whatever happened with these people and at that school, there seems to be blame to spread around. The amount of torture and trauma is off the charts. The scary thing is that there seems to be no end in sight to the depths of the horrors. Each week brings with it a new revelation of how Christianity gave these people cover to inflict all sorts of pain upon children.
I posted a great video clip from TYT where Cenk and Ana talk about how Tucker Carlson talks that it has been proven that the hospitals all over the country … are chopping up kids into to body parts. We know that for a fact he said. Well it is like when Bill O’Rielly called the abortion doctor Tiller the baby killer night after night. Someone killed him to stop the baby killing. So now the rabid right wing maga are threatening to bomb hospitals to save the kids. All because of lies. If you are part of spreading those lies, you need to understand first your lying and second you are inciting violence against both the LGBTQ+ and those that help them with medical best practices. Do you know there is genital mutilations done on babies that all these groups sanction including the government? Yes the cutting off of part of the penis that makes the gland less sensitive and deadens pleasure. It is called circumcision. Routinely done on baby boys. Go after that and leave the trans kids alone as they are not having surgery as kids. Hugs
The hospital has been the target of an online misinformation campaign because it helps transgender youth.
Following a weeks-long harassment campaign from anti-LGBTQ groups, police are investigating an anonymous bomb threat that was called in to Boston Children’s Hospital Tuesday night.
According to NBC News, the Boston Police Department sent its bomb squad to the hospital at around 8:14 p.m. on Tuesday, but found no explosive devices or suspicious items. On Wednesday morning, Detective John Boyle said that the investigation was still active.
“We are relieved no bomb was found and that employees and patients are safe,” the hospital said in a statement. “We remain vigilant in our efforts to battle the spread of false information about the hospital and our caregivers. We are committed to ensuring the hospital is a safe and secure place for all who work here and come here. We will provide additional information as we are able.”
In recent weeks, Boston Children’s Hospital, which ranks among the best pediatric medical facilities in the country, has been the target of what it has described as “hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff.” The harassment campaign is the result of misinformation that has proliferated on right-wing social media about the hospital’s Gender Multispecialty Service program, which treats children experiencing gender dysphoria.
On August 11, Chaya Raichik, who runs the anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” reposted an “expose” by Christina Buttons for the right-wing site Post Millennial, sponsored by conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow. The “special report” consisted of videos publicly available on Boston Children’s website along with commentary insinuating that children as young as two or three were receiving gender-affirming surgery at the hospital.
Fact-checking site PolitiFact later debunked the claims. Patients qualifying for gender-reaffirming surgery must be at least 18-years-old and have a “persistent, well-documented, gender dysphoria,” according to the hospital’s website. “All genital surgeries are only performed on patients age 18 and older.”
After the initial post went viral, Raichik posted an additional 13 tweets peddling misinformation about the hospital and Gender Multispecialty Service program.
In the weeks since Raichik’s tweets, Boston Children’s Hospital physicians have been inundated with death threats and harassing calls and emails. The hospital has also increased its security.
Tucker Carlson is regurgitating conspiracy theories about children’s hospitals performing illegal experiments on minors. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
“TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): In recent weeks, we’ve learned a lot about what is actually happening inside children’s hospitals around the country. Most people trust children’s hospitals implicitly. They just didn’t know the details but thanks to the internet we now do. It turns out some of these hospitals are performing horrifying experiments on children: elective hysterectomies on minors, physical and chemical castration, things you think would be crimes but that apparently aren’t and that are going on in children’s hospitals in the United States.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks to the media before the 2016 Republican National Committee debate. Photo: Shutterstock
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has helped destroy his state’s child abuse agency by forcing its workers to investigate the parents of transgender children. Its workers are now speaking out about the unethical secrecy, internal strife, and staff resignations caused by his order — and how it has interfered with the department’s ability to help victims of actual abuse.
In February, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate for child abuse any parents who allow their trans children to access gender-affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors. Abbott’s order was based on a non-binding opinion issued by the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton earlier in the month calling gender-affirming health care a form of child abuse.
Paxton’s opinions and Abbott’s order both went against the best practices of pediatrics outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association. These organizations consider gender-affirming medical care as necessary in many cases, noting it reduces mental anguish and suicide risk among trans youth.
Soon after issuing his order, several DFPS employees quit and some state attorneys refused to enforce it. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that neither Abbott nor Paxton had the authority to issue the order. Several families with trans children also filed a lawsuit against Abbott. The presiding district judge in the lawsuit issued a temporary restraining order, effectively stopping DFPS’s investigations while the court prepares to consider the order’s legality in December.
Department officials were told to hide their transphobic investigations from the public
In an August 25 amicus brief, 16 current and former DFPS workers spoke against Abbott’s order and in support of the suing parents.
The employees said that Abbott’s order represented a “radical departure” from the state’s legal definition of abuse, forcing DFPS employees to interfere with family medical decisions. In the past, DFPS workers had been taught to trust that medical professionals’ advised care — when given in good faith with fully informed consent — was in “the best interest of the child.” Not anymore.
DFPS employees were told that they had to investigate any trans-related cases, whether they thought there was reason to or not. Workers were also instructed not to comment on Abbott’s order on social media in order to appear neutral, the Texas Tribune reported.
“Everyone you need to stay off social media with any opinions,” one worker instructed employees. “We will be investigating these cases. This will get messy.”
Abbott issued his order without following the requirements for creating new departmental rules, as outlined in the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, the brief added. If allowed to go into effect, the order would “irreparably harm morale and effectiveness at DFPS, which are already in crisis,” the brief said.
Furthermore, DFPS employees were instructed “not to discuss these cases in emails, text messages, or any other form of writing that could provide a record of the investigation or ‘be pulled by media if requested,’” the brief added. This order essentially directed the DFPS to hide any paper trail of their persecution of trans-supportive families. As a result, the press, other government agencies, and even the families being investigated couldn’t examine the department’s work.
According to Randa Mulanax, an investigations supervisor who resigned over Abbott’s order, the instructions were an “unprecedented level of secrecy” that she’d never seen in her six years of working there. The instructions were particularly bizarre because department investigators regularly depend on other such documented notes to aid in their work.
The secrecy “shows consciousness of guilt by DFPS leadership that their actions are controversial, political, and based on a tenuous and novel interpretation of the law,” the brief stated.
Experienced DFPS workers quit over Abbott’s directive
In response to Abbott’s order, DFPS employee Emma Menchaca, expressed her disbelief in an email, writing, “This is Texas now? Because this is BS. Sorry not sorry. Really???”
Shaun Santiago, another DFPS employee, expressed outrage that workers would be forced to follow Abbott’s order. “We have trans workers here at DFPS, what kind of message are we sending to them?” he wrote in one email. In other emails, he said he’d resign rather than ever investigate a family over gender-affirming care, the Tribune reported.
The amicus brief also noted that nearly 2,300 DFPS employees have left the department this year alone, including ones who have departed over their disagreement with Abbott’s order. The departures have included a transgender investigator of child abuse as well as other “passionate workers who carry decades of experience and knowledge,” the Houston Chronicle noted. These resignations have made it hard for DFPS to perform its basic functions.
DFPS already had a high turnover rate with employees quitting over “safety concerns, lack of communication, low pay, problems with their bosses,” the Chronicle added. Many employees are required to oversee unhoused foster children despite having no training to do so. Others are assigned too many cases and pressured to close them before they’re properly investigated.
Shelby McCowen, a former DFPS child abuse investigator, said Abbott’s order was the “last straw” for many employees.
“There are a ton of social workers who do already identify with the LGBTQ community, me being one myself,” McCowen told the Chronicle. “It kind of feels like we’re turning on family members at this point.”
Child abuse in Texas is getting harder to investigate, thanks to Abbott
In the amicus brief, DFPS workers condemned Abbott’s order, saying, “[We] did not enter the child protection profession to remove children from loving homes with parents or guardians merely because they follow medical advice and a doctor’s care, only to place them in a foster care system that is riddled with actual abuse, sexual assault, and even sex trafficking.”
“The public statements of the Governor’s staff have made clear that the February 22 Directive was not motivated by any concern for the welfare of Texas’s vulnerable children but by the desire to create a political ‘wedge issue’ for electoral purposes,” the brief continued.
“DFPS [is] an agency that is already ‘failing children,’” the brief concluded. “[The department] cannot withstand the division, attrition, and harm to children and families wrought [by Abbott’s order].”
When they tell you who they are believe them the first time! We need to understand how anti-democracy these republicans are. We need to understand how badly they crave the power to rule over everyone to force their Christian doctrine on to the public at large. We must defeat them at all costs if we want to have civil rights, a secular society, and a democracy of the people for the people. Hugs
The donations to anti-LGBTQ churches provide a preview of how Michels may handle LGBTQ issues as governor.
Tim Michels, the Republican candidate running for Wisconsin governor, donated $250,000 in 2020 to groups opposing abortion and all forms of contraception, and to anti-LGBTQ churches. The donations, made along with Michels’s wife Barbara through their foundation, The Timothy and Barbara Michels Family Foundation, represent 15 percent of the candidate’s total donations in 2020, according to a report by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Along with donations totaling $175,000 to radical anti-abortion organizations in Wisconsin and New York, the Michels gave $10,000 to Miami’s Christ Fellowship, whose parishioners include former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Christ Fellowship’s pastor, Omar Giritli, delivered an anti-transgender sermon in May, in which he attacked Caitlyn Jenner and preached that God believes transgender people are an “abomination” and a “rebellion to their creator.” A 2015 Huffington Post report detailed the church’s consistent anti-LGBTQ message.
Spring Creek Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin also received a $50,000 donation from the couple. The church’s pastor, Chip Bernhard, has reportedly suggested that allowing transgender children to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is “awful.”
“While the media is desperate to find lines of attack, their generosity helps support causes they believe in and funds cancer research and other Christian causes,” Michels’s campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Michels, meanwhile, has tried to downplay social issues on the campaign trail. “The people who feel the Democratic party has left them for social issues, you are now going to have a governor that’s going to stand up for the hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens of Wisconsin,” he said early last month after winning the Republican primary.
Michels is running to unseat incumbent Governor Tony Evers (D).
“Tim Michels will stop at nothing to push his radical agenda in order to limit the rights of LGBTQ Wisconsinites and those seeking an abortion,” Democratic Party spokesperson Hannah Menchhoff said. “If elected, Tim Michels will implement radical policies that are out of touch with the majority of Wisconsinites.”
Need I repeat again that the constant hate preached by the right against the LGBTQ+ and that includes trans people. This kind of anger and hate doesn’t spring up naturally, it has to be taught and reenforced. You want to save LGBTQ+ lives, correct any hate speech you feel safe to do so, including online. Don’t spread the lies, and where you do see them leave the truth which will clearly debunk the lies. The lives of LGBTQ+ people trying to just live their lives are lives you could be saving. Hugs
A flag was laid out at a vigil for the young trans man attacked during Pride celebrations. (Twitter/ TransgenderGER)
A 25-year-old trans man remains in an induced coma after he was attacked at the Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations in Münster, Germany.
On Saturday (27 August), more than 10,000 people gathered in Münster city centre to speak out against discrimination and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
When one attendee, intent on spreading hate, began hurling homophobic abuse at two women, Malte, a young trans man, stepped in to defend them, reports German publication Männer Media.
In response, the attacker began punching Malte in the face, knocking him to the ground and beating him until he was unconscious.
According to the local trans support group Trans-Inter-Münster, of which Malte was a member, he was rushed to hospital where he underwent several operations and was put into an induced coma because of a brain haemorrhage.
“He’s had it hard enough in his life so far, and now this,” the group posted to Facebook.
“We are thinking of him and really hope that he does not have any lasting damage, but hopefully this trauma will not bring him down either. We hope the person who committed the crime gets his just punishment.
“According to the latest information, he remains in a critical condition and is so seriously injured that if he were to survive, there is a high probability of serious [neurological] damage.”
According to German reports, police have not yet identified a suspect and are appealing for witnesses.
‘A politically motivated crime’
A police spokesperson said witnesses described the attacker as being aged 18 and 20 years old, wearing wide-cut jeans and a bucket hat. After beating Malte, he fled with another man of a similar age.
The Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organisation, said in a statement: “The Münster police and the police state security must quickly clarify this transphobic act of violence and classify it as what it is: a politically motivated crime.
“When our community isn’t safe even on Christopher Street Day, it shows how much anti-LGBTIQ* hate crime restricts our freedom.
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, non-binary and queer people have a fundamental right to live freely and safely. It is the duty of the state to guarantee and protect these fundamental freedoms.”
(Die Partei und Die Grünen) und sogar der WDR Münster der einen kleinen Beitrag dazu drehte und so auf das Verbrechen aufmerksam machte. Wir haben an einen kleinen Ort, der nicht der Tatort ist, eine Fahne ausgelegt und kleine Steine als Zeichen das jemand an ihn denkt gelegt. pic.twitter.com/vXum6DEm5F
Authorities are investigating a bomb threat on Boston Children’s Hospital, which has faced a harassment campaign from Libs of TikTok for providing gender-affirming care to trans youth. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
“Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik pledged to redouble her attacks on hospitals providing trans people with health care, she wrote in a rant on her Substack in which she called gender-affirming care “mutilating the body.”
Raichik’s recent efforts against Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s National Hospital in D.C., and others have led to violent threats against health care providers and at least one request for help from law enforcement. Libs of TikTok has fallen silent on Twitter for the first time in weeks as a result of a suspension for violation of the platform’s rules against hateful conduct.
The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz reported on Sunday that Libs of Tik Tok had earned a seven-day suspension. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the suspension in a statement to Media Matters, saying that “we took enforcement action against the account … for violating our hateful conduct policy. The account was placed in read-only mode for seven days.”
This post shows some of the right wing talking points and then refutes them with the facts. It shows how one anti-trans activest makes stuff up that when they are checked out it shows he totally lied. But his lies are used by the right whing hate media to further the misinformation and rile up anger at the LGBTQ+. These people don’t care what they are spewing is lies and misinformation, they hate / don’t under the trans people and think anything done to stop people from transitioning is a good thing. Hugs
And, of course, for her it all comes down to transgender people.
President Joe Biden/Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Shutterstock/Screenshot
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is continuing to use extreme transphobia to attack President Joe Biden, this time sharing misinformation claiming that “children’s hospitals across the country” are performing gender affirming genital surgeries on minors as well as an image of what appears to be a severed hand.
Biden tweeted over the weekend about what Democrats are going to do if they win in the midterm elections.
“We’ll codify Roe v. Wade, protecting a woman’s right to choose,” he wrote. “We’ll ban assault weapons, saving countless lives. We’ll protect voting rights.”
Biden’s invocation of women’s rights set Greene off.
“Joe says get an abortion instead of be a mother,” she responded. “Joe wants to take away guns so women can’t protect themselves.”
Elston’s message claimed that “children’s hospitals across the country” are performing genital surgeries on trans minors, which is not true. Gender affirming surgery is not performed on minors.
He also wrote that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “now recommends” genital surgeries “for 17-year-old girls.” The WPATH standards of care actually say, “Genital surgery should not be carried out until patients reach the legal age of majority to give consent for medical procedures in a given country” and suggests a 12-month waiting period.
Elston shared images of what appears to be a cadaver’s arm and claimed that they showed “tissue harvesting for construction of a phallus.” Tissue used in phalloplasty comes from the living tissue of the person who the procedure is performed on, not corpses.
“And Mr. 81M votes lies about voting rights & wants girls under 18 to be able to do this with your tax dollars,” Greene wrote, even though that is not Biden’s position on the issue. Biden has never called for the standards of care for gender affirming care to be changed and has defended gender affirming care as a decision to be made by patients, their families, and their doctors.
“Joe hates women,” she concluded.
The idea that children’s hospitals are performing gender affirming surgeries on young children has gained traction on the far-right this past month, leading to harassment and death threats against pediatricians working at children’s hospitals.
But Greene apparently believes that this is happening so she introduced a bill that would ban gender affirming care for minors that included a long list of surgeries, even though they are not performed on minors. Her bill would go far beyond banning surgery and would ban puberty blockers, reversible medications that give trans youth more time to figure out their identities before the permanent effects of puberty appear. Puberty blockers have been shown to significantly reduce lifelong suicide risk.
Her law would also ban certain health care plans from covering gender affirming care for adults and ban medical schools from teaching about gender affirming care for transgender people.
Right before she introduced her bill, Greene was on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show claiming that her bill would stop “horrific ‘sex change’ genital surgeries” on minors.
This is the second time this week that Greene has attacked Biden over his supposed support for gender affirming genital surgeries for minors. Yesterday, Greene claimed that Biden “supports castrating boys with so called ‘gender affirming care’ before they are even old enough to vote,” which is not true.
“Yes there is an awakening coming,” she wrote. “We will STOP your sick & perverse child abuse.”
Joe says get an abortion instead of be a mother.
Joe wants to take away guns so women can’t protect themselves.
And Mr. 81M votes lies about voting rights & wants girls under 18 to be able to do this with your tax dollars.
That hateful woman running the Libs of TikTok, Chaya Raichik, is out to get LGBTQ+ kids killed. What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with these trolls, who are clogging up a suicide help line? What is noble or good about stopping kids from getting help not to end their lives? I think it is time that law authorities step in and do something about this stuff. But in the areas that these people do their hate work law enforcement seems more than happy with the harassment and violence against the LGBTQ+. Hugs
They flooded the non-profit’s crisis hotline with fake requests for help.
Anti-LGBTQ users on 4chan targeted the Trevor Projects suicide prevention services on Tuesday in an effort to prevent LGBTQ youth from getting help.
In a post on the notorious platform’s “Politically Incorrect” imageboard, an anonymous user posted a plan to bog down the nonprofit organization’s crisis hotline and online chats with fake requests for help. The goal was to “f**k up the queue so sodomites and f*gs commit suicide,” to “demoralize the therapists,” and “waste as much of their resources as possible.”
According to The Daily Dot, the original thread appears to have been deleted, but it’s unclear whether it was removed by 4chan or the original poster. A second thread has been archived and was still visible on the site as of Tuesday evening.
Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at progressive media watchdog org Media Matters for America, posted screenshots of the original post and responses from trolls sharing screenshots of their chats with Trevor Project councilors.
Users on far-right message board 4chan "/pol/" tried to clog up The Trevor Project's hotline for LGBTQ+ youth considering self-harm with fake cases to prevent people from accessing the hotline. Users posted images of their conversations & claimed were able to clog up the hotline. pic.twitter.com/ayiJavw8vA
One 4chan user posted a screenshot from the Trevor Project’s online crisis chat saying that “wait times to reach a counselor are higher than usual.”
“The act of attacking a crisis services line intended to prevent suicide among young people is egregious,” the Trevor Project said in a statement. “Our crisis counselors work around the clock to be there for LGBTQ youth who feel like they have nowhere to turn, and it’s harrowing that anybody would attempt to compromise our lifeline or encourage suicide.”
“LGBTQ youth are at significantly increased risk for suicide—not because of anything inherent about their identities, but because of the stigma, bullying, violence, and discrimination that they face,” the Trevor Project said. “The incident of users on 4chan who maliciously planned to overtake our crisis lines today is exactly the kind of mistreatment and abuse that contributes to heightened suicide risk. Alarmingly, our research has found that every 45 seconds, an LGBTQ young person attempts suicide. Every second counts when you work in suicide prevention, and we strongly condemn this intent to obstruct our lines and create even more barriers for LGBTQ people who rely on our help. We are working diligently in the face of this disruption to protect our counselors and those youth who need us.”
The Trevor Project became a target of far-right trolls earlier this year when Chaya Raichik, who runs the influential anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” called the non-profit “a grooming organization” in a tweet that was later deleted. Other anti-LGBTQ organizations and pundits like Moms for Liberty and Lauren Chen followed suit, equating the Trevor Project’s outreach to LGBTQ teens in crisis with giving abusers access to children.
Scottie's Playtime 