The right's next 'don't say gay' target is children's programs
Their smears are inflaming homophobia to demonize vulnerable people and build power.
If you're reading this, you are likely at least four years old. If you are indeed older than a toddler — and you don't have a toddler in your life — you may not be familiar with the cultural phenomenon that is Ms. Rachel.
Ms. Rachel, aka Rachel Accurso, produces educational videos for toddlers that rack up hundreds of millions of views. Her channel has some 6 billion (that’s not a typo) views overall. The toddler in my life is a huge fan; he loves Ms. Rachel and considers her an authority on all things alphabet, colors and numbers.
Her videos are sweet and inclusive. They feature a nonbinary character who regularly appears. For Pride Month this year, Ms. Rachel offered a soft-spoken online greeting to viewers, telling them, “I'm so glad you're exactly who you are.”
And the far right promptly went ballistic.
Conservative activist Matt Walsh, who does this a lot, demanded a boycott of Ms. Rachel. Trolls came out of the woodwork to blast her for her message.
It was alarming to see such vicious attacks on a woman whose mission is to enrich the lives of little kids. But it was hard to be too surprised. We know how toxic the discourse around people and their differences has become, and we know why.
When Donald Trump arrived on the national scene and shattered norms for public speech and behavior, some people reacted as if he were the substitute teacher who swears in the first five minutes of class. They took it as permission to be as rude and harsh as possible.
Sadly, one target is the LGBTQ community, because the far right is gripped by an engineered panic over a myth that the LGBTQ community is focused on recruiting children. The reaction was as if just hearing about Pride was enough to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Of course, that’s not how any of this works.
Among those who insist that the LGBTQ community is recruiting kids, maybe half are just misinformed. But the others have a nefarious purpose. Their smears are inflaming homophobia to demonize vulnerable people and build power. It’s an old strategy that has been given vicious new energy in the MAGA era.
And if they get their way, things could get worse.
Far-right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wants the court to revisit decisions affirming same-sex marriage and relationships.
I’ve written before about Project 2025, the plan being prepared in case Donald Trump wins in November. It pledges to remake America to align with a Christian nationalist, “biblical” worldview.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Project 2025 would codify deep animus toward LGBTQ Americans at all levels of society. The New Republic put proponents’ goals this way: “Equate legal personhood with heterosexuality, gender conformity and compulsory motherhood by removing mention of any alternative from all laws, all government agencies, all grants and contracts and any other official regulations.”
In practice, that’s likely to include eliminating legal prohibitions against LGBTQ discrimination, reinstating a transgender military ban and rescinding health care protections for transgender people, among other things.
From there it could be a short hop to widespread intimidation. We have a history of it: This country in the mid-20th century endured a government-sponsored “Lavender Scare” dedicated to outing people in the federal workforce and ruining their lives.
I know and work with people in the LGBTQ community whose joy in recent years at finding acceptance, and marriage to someone they loved, now feels tenuous.
My colleague Peter Montgomery has written on Facebook about coming out in the late 1980s, when “AIDS was ravaging the gay community, gay people were criminalized in many states and the notion that I might one day marry a man I loved — with my parents, in-laws, and our families taking part — was virtually unimaginable.”
Now, he writes, “The political, religious and legal movements that resent our visibility and oppose our equality have become more aggressive.”
He’s right. We have to continue to combat efforts to harm the LGBTQ community.
And as we celebrate Pride month let’s look to a more hopeful future. I for one firmly believe homophobia and bigotry face ultimate rejection from generations growing up in a more diverse, inclusive world. I hope it happens sooner rather than later; we’re already experiencing the rise of Gen Z, nearly 30 percent of whom identify as LGBTQ.
And one day the reins will pass to the next generation — the Ms. Rachel generation. I’m so grateful to her for what she’s doing to build a cohort of young people who embrace individual differences, and I want her to keep it up.
Six billion views and counting.
Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.