Gays Against Groomers takes its place at the Palmdale Celebrate Your Identify: DEI Festival.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are the new buzzwords for spaces designed to promote harmony within communities. In reality, DEI can promote isolation from inclusivity and this is exactly why Gays Against Groomers must be in attendance.
After discovering online attempts to remove our booth from the event and receiving calls from the city attempting to renege on our participation, the team at Gays Against Groomers and supporters pushed back with calls of endorsement and appreciation for our inclusion in the festival. Amid public pressure and potential outcry from any group’s exclusion, the city decided to allow all groups who applied for a booth at the festival to participate.
Inquisitive parents wanting to know what “groomer” means became alarmed when told and shown the realities of gender affirming curriculum being taught and proposed in schools across the country. Gays Against Groomers reassured these newly concerned parents that our mission aligns with their desire to protect their children. Mario Presents, Kitty Demure, and half of the team from Dykes on the Right spent the afternoon bonding with the community along with local supporters who also aided the team by telling their experiences as well to passersby.
Pansexual, bisexual, and gender-non conforming teens soon approached the booth leaving with stickers, flyers, and an accurate and honest understanding of our mission. One teenager was urged by her parent to have a conversation with the GAG team after she parroted a talking point picked up from another booth spreading misinformation that Gays Against Groomers is a transphobic organization. Both parent and child soon opened up to one another about listening to hearsay and doing comprehensive research, an outcome that the team at Gay Against Groomers is hoping to spark around the world.
Gays Against Groomers received plenty of appreciation and accolades at the Palmdale DEI festival, and also received two separate invitations from local child protection groups to participate in their future events. Preservation of childhood equity resonates with every demographic and rumors, misinformation, and false phobias can almost always be dispelled with a polite, calm, honest and open conversation.
