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Why Jon Caldara Is Wrong to Defend Gays Against Groomers

Caldara and GAG demonize transgender people.

"It is generally Independence Institute policy not to weigh in on social issues," states the Institute. Except, when it comes to demonizing transgender people, the Institute under Jon Caldara's leadership engages in social issues all over the place. I can see how this strategy panders to Team MAGA—Caldara also endorsed Trump, despite calling Trump's actions regarding the January 6 violent assault on the U.S. Capitol "unforgivable"—but I cannot see how it furthers the stated goals of the Institute. In this respect, Caldara has shown that he would rather advance bigotry than liberty.

I am writing this article, in part, because I write a contracted paid weekly column for Complete Colorado, a publication of the Institute. Indirectly and in some sense, Caldara is my boss. When the Institute publishes content that I believe manifests and furthers bigotry, I believe that I have a responsibility to publicly denounce that bigotry, lest I be taken to endorse it by my silence.

What Is Gays Against Groomers?

Caldara recently wrote about Gays Against Groomers, so I'll start by reviewing that group's positions. Gays Against Groomers is an organization against what it ambiguously calls "gender ideology." In practice, that means that the organization often demonizes transgender people. Bigotry is built into the very name of the organization; it likens anyone who discusses transgender issues with children in a trans-accepting way to sexual predators.

On its web site, Gays Against Groomers says it is "fighting back from inside the community against the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children happening under the guise of 'LGBTQIA+.'" The organization says it opposes "the sterilization and mutilation of minors, drag and pride events involving children, propagandizing youth with LGBTQ+ media," and "queer theory and gender ideology being taught in the classroom."

On its "about" page, Gays Against Groomers brags that it "has shut down 'family-friendly' drag shows aimed at children" and "lobbied for bills preventing child abuse and mutilation," meaning any sort of gender-affirming care for minors. The organization refers to "gender ideology" as "biotechnological warfare in drag."

Gays Against Groomers is not formally "trans-exclusionary," in that it admits some space for transgender people. On its FAQ page, the organization states:

We believe biology matters. The two terms [gender and sex] have been used interchangeably to refer to biological sex until recent years. Gender ideology is not universally accepted, and the majority of the world sees two genders, with a neutral space frequently provided for trans individuals. Sex is not assigned, but observed and recorded by doctors who understand the differences between male and female. Separating the two and introducing advanced concepts to children at a young age while they're still learning to navigate the world is both overwhelming and confusing.

I'll get more into what's wrong with Gays Against Groomers's framing of these issues in a bit. For now I want to point out that two organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, have deemed the organization a hate group. I'm initially skeptical of claims made by the SPLC, and both organizations have at times played fast and loose with claims or insinuations that various individuals and organizations are hateful. Still, in this case, both organizations review relevant details.

Here is part of what SPLC says:

Gays Against Groomers is a chapter-based organization that amplifies dehumanizing anti-trans rhetoric, perpetuates anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes by falsely claiming that LGBTQ+ supporters of trans rights are dangerous to society—including equating gender-affirming health care with pedophilia and calling trans people a "bloodthirsty terrorist cult." It directs online harassment and intimidation campaigns targeting LGBTQ+ people and events including drag shows, hospitals and libraries. The group's members have associations with other extremist groups, trade in racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric, and advocate gender-affirming care bans and banning LGBTQ+ books and ideas from public schools.

Here is part of what ADL says:

GAG peddles dangerous and misleading narratives about the LGBTQ+ community, focusing on false allegations of "grooming" by drag performers, "indoctrination" by LGBTQ+ educators and "child mutilation" by gender-affirming care providers. GAG members Jordan Toste and Anthony Raimondi helped organize a December 2022 rally in Ft. Lauderdale, which centered around these false narratives and was attended by the Proud Boys, a known, violent extremist organization. GAG coordinated the rally with Moms for Liberty and Florida Fathers for Freedom—an example of an emerging coalition of far-right parents' groups. These organizations seek to mobilize parents and other adults at the grassroots level to engage in anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy and other conservative causes, including anti-critical race theory (CRT) initiatives, often operating under the false pretense of "protecting" children from unfounded claims of "sexualization" and "indoctrination in schools." GAG has capitalized upon this same messaging, even profiting off "ok groomer," "protect children" and "protect kids from transitioning" merchandise.

What's Wrong with Gays Against Groomers's Rhetoric

Gays Against Groomers wrongly holds that discussing with children the existence of transgender people is inherently "sexualizing," that drag events for children are inherently sexualized and therefore rightly banned, that supporting a transgender child is the equivalent of pushing the child to receive gender-affirming medical care, and that all such medical care should be banned.

Although Gays Against Groomers is not consistently trans-exclusionary, in practice, it treats any discussion with children of the existence of transgender people as problematic. It further treats any claim by a child to be transgender as inherently inauthentic, as a sign that the child has been manipulated by predatory adults to falsely claim to be transgender. Hence, Gays Against Groomers is trans-exclusionary to a substantial degree.

It is just false that discussing with children the existence of transgender people is inherently sexualizing or predatory. Being transgender doesn't inherently have anything to do with one's sexual orientation or with a person having sex. I have had many discussions about transgender people with my own son, all without bringing up sexual acts. Recently my family watched the wonderful film about Will Ferrell and his transgender friend, Harper Steele. When Gays Against Groomers characterizes any trans-inclusionary discussion with children as sexualized, predatory, or grooming, it trafficks in bigotry. So it is totally appropriate to refer to Gays Against Groomers as a hate group, in that it fosters hatred of transgender people.

The irony here is that Gays Against Groomers purports to be an organization largely of gay people complaining about the sexualization of "gender ideology." But, again, there's nothing about being transgender that entails sexual orientation. Being gay, by contrast, inherently is about sexual orientation. So, if it were the case that discussing with children the existence of transgender people were inherently sexualizing, then discussing with children the existence of gay people would be all the more so. But the entire premise is bullshit.

It is entirely possible, and indeed normal, to discuss transgender issues without bringing up sexual relations. And the same is true of gay issues, even though being gay inherently involves sexual orientation (something I've written about). Basically, one can discuss with children, without ever bringing sexual relations into the picture, that transgender people are people who identify and live as the gender that does not match their biological sex, and that gay people want to date and perhaps marry people of the same biological sex.

Here biological sex refers to body parts with which all children are familiar from a young age, not to sexual intercourse. If you want to equivocate between sexual intercourse and sex-related body parts, you are just being willfully stupid. Every child from a young age can see with their own eyes, for example, that they themselves have either a penis or a vagina, that adult women typically have larger breasts, that adult men typically have more body hair, and so on. Children can see that often (with exceptions) children have a mom and a dad (and sometimes two dads or whatever). Children normally develop ideas of sex in the sense of biological differences between men and women many years before they learn about sexual intercourse. Again, if you try to say that discussing transgender or LGBTQ issues with children is inherently "sexualized" because it involves discussions of typical differences between men and women, then you are just equivocating and being intellectually dishonest.

Have some transgender activists in some cases been overzealous in trying to persuade a particular child that the child is transgender? I'm sure that's happened. Likewise, I suspect that some instances of children proclaiming themselves to be transgender are the result of social influences. But let's not pretend that we can't tell the difference between an organization that worries about some children saying they are transgender when really they are not and an organization that demonizes transgender people and presumes that there is no such thing as an authentically transgender child.

Regarding drag shows, obviously drag shows for adults often are substantially sexualized. But drag reading programs for children are not. Yes, you can find exceptions that prove the rule. People don't generally have trouble keeping in mind the relevant context elsewhere, as by recognizing that the same actor might film a sex scene in an R-rated movie and at another time take a role in a kid-friendly movie. Again I will point to the flagrant hypocrisy of some conservatives bleating "parents' rights" while at the same time attempting to forcibly forbid parents to take their willing children to drag reading events.

Gender-affirming care is a complex and difficult subject, obviously. As a parent, I doubt I would authorize the use of gender-affirming hormones or surgeries for my own minor. But I'm not in the position of having to seriously grapple with such matters in a personal way. I do not believe that such medical care should be absolutely banned, as Gays Against Groomers advocates. If an older child wants to take hormones, or a 17-year-old transgender boy wants to get "top" surgery, and the parents agree, and the child's doctors agree, who am I to forcibly intervene? That said, if a group wanted to say, "We're totally accepting of transgender youth, but we're worried about the long-term impacts of gender-affirming hormones and surgeries for minors," I think that would be a perspective worth taking seriously. But that is not the position that Gays Against Groomers takes.

Gays Against Groomers wrongly equates acceptance of transgender youth with advocacy of medical interventions for transgender youth. In fact, only a small minority of transgender youth seek medical interventions. A new Harvard study finds (per a summary), "Gender-affirming surgeries [are] rarely performed on transgender youth." A 2022 Reuters study found that, in 2021, 42,167 youth were diagnosed with gender dysphoria. That same year, 1,390 minors took puberty blockers, 4,231 took hormone therapy, and 282 got top surgery. These numbers are rough, but they indicate that fewer than one percent of transgender kids are getting gender-affirming surgeries, while fewer than 15 percent are getting any sort of gender-affirming care. So the attempt by Gays Against Groomers to equate being a transgender child to getting gender-affirming medical care is ridiculous. Being transgender is not fundamentally about medically altering one's body; it is fundamentally about identifying and living as the gender that does not match one's biological sex.

Interestingly, the Harvard study also finds (again per the summary) that "cisgender [gender matches biological sex] minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their TGD [transgender and gender-diverse] counterparts." Specifically, "the study found that cisgender males accounted for the vast majority of breast reductions, with 80% of surgeries among adults performed on cisgender men and 97% of surgeries among minors performed on cisgender male teens." So is Gays Against Groomers against all gender-affirming surgeries for minors, or only the tiny fraction of such surgeries involving transgender people?

The Colorado Flag Incident

Christopher Wiggins has an informative article for Advocate. See also a 9News article and the Colorado Politics article. The state sells flags flown at the state capitol. The governor also issues standardized documents to accompany such flags. As a stunt, Gays Against Groomers signed up for one of these flags. In return, it got a document, signed by Governor Jared Polis, saying, "The people of Colorado present this flag to Gays Against Groomers with thanks and recognition for all their work to protect children." Wow, free publicity. Obviously Polis was not actually endorsing Gays Against Groomers. The state temporarily took down the site selling flags, and the governor no longer issues automatic endorsement documents with flags.

Enter Caldara, whose column on the matter appeared on October 16 at Complete Colorado (and on October 13 in the Gazette). Caldara says that Gays Against Groomers consists of people who "don't believe small children should be indoctrinated into thinking they were born to the wrong gender." He says the state "canceled" the organization, which clearly is ridiculous. Yes, if the state sells flags to one it must sell flags to all. But the governor is not required to endorse any particular organization, just because he endorses some organizations. The governor, too, has the right to freedom of speech. The governor refraining from endorsing an organization, or openly criticizing the organization, is not "canceling" the organization. That's just ridiculous. A real example of "cancelling" would be attempting to shut down a drag reading event.

We all know that, if Hitler Youth of Colorado or the Stalin Society (made-up names) or Denver Communists (a real organization) had pulled the same stunt, Caldara would not have written a column complaining about Polis "canceling" those organizations. Indeed, we all know that conservatives (maybe not Caldara in particular) would have then castigated Polis for seeming to endorse the groups in question.

Caldara, like Gays Against Groomers, characterizes any trans-supportive discussion with children as "indoctrination" and any sort of gender-affirming medical care as "mutilation." (Does Caldara wish to issue a statement regarding the much more common gender-affirming surgeries for cisgender boys?) He also refers to the trans movement as "fascist." Next week perhaps Caldara can write a column reporting his fun waterskiing with the sharks.

Again I ask, how does Caldara demonizing transgender people in any way advance the aims of the Independence Institute?

Caldara's Discussion with Rich Guggenheim

In an August 22 video Caldara interviews Rich Guggenheim of the Colorado branch of Gays Against Groomers. I'll review aspects of that conversation for additional context.

Caldara comes out of the gate asking, "Should men compete with women in women's sports?" So he starts out calling transgender women "men," which is trans-exclusionary language. (I've written about whether transgender women should compete against other women.) Then Caldara worries about "trans indoctrination" and "sexualizing our kids" (topics I address above). He also worries about "telling [kids] they're transgendered, when most likely they're not." At least he seems to leave some room here for a child possibly being actually transgender.

Guggenheim says, "What we're doing to children is wrong. And it's a form of woke homophobia and woke misogyny." Having heard such claims elsewhere, here's what I take Guggenheim to partly mean. Many children who claim to be transgender actually are gay, goes this line, and if adults would stop confusing them by telling them they're transgender, they'd grow up to be gay people. The claim about misogyny asserts that transgender women somehow inherently invade the spaces of, or violate the rights of, women.

Guggenheim says (2:30 minute mark):

This whole gender ideology . . . confuses our children. We're telling them that, in order to accept yourself, you have to change your body. You have to mutilate it, you have to sterilize. And this really is a harmful process because it is not reversible, it causes a lifetime of medical intervention, and it leads to an increase in suicidal rates and severe depressive disorders.

As I've pointed out above, most transgender youth do not, in fact, get gender-affirming medical treatments. Guggenheim's claims about psychological consequences of gender-affirming care are probably false. Daniel Jackson, to take an example from the top of an internet search, looked at 23 studies and found "the majority indicated a reduction in suicidality following gender-affirming treatment," although he found inadequacies in the underlying data. Sure, there's a contrary report from the obviously biased Heritage Foundation, but that report appears to be bullshit.

Guggenheim wrongly likens gender-affirming medical care to "conversion therapy." Caldara, to his credit, condemns "conversion therapy" in the sense of trying to force gay kids to be straight.

Caldara asks Guggenheim (6:45) why someone can't authentically be transgender at (say) age 16 or 17, the way that someone can authentically be gay at that age. Guggenheim says that most "confused" kids eventually "reconcile with their natal sex" and that "a third, within five years, express post-transition regret." I don't know where Guggenheim is getting that figure, but if we take the stat at face value and do the math, doesn't that imply that two-thirds of people who come out as transgender do not regret it? Caldara raises this point. Notice that "transitioning" does not necessarily entail medical intervention; usually it does not. One review study specifically of gender-affirming surgeries found very low instances of regret.

Guggenheim then doubts the two-thirds implication by saying that many people who regret coming out as transgender won't admit to that because of the immense social pressure to stay trans. Guggenheim is playing an obvious game of "heads I win tails you lose" with the stats. From what I can tell, there's literally nothing that could convince Guggenheim that someone is authentically transgender.

Guggenheim then says (11:35) that, because of his work with Gays Against Groomers, he has received death threats, been banned from a bar, and endured pressure with his employer to fire him. Obviously death threats are wrong. The other tactics, while compatible with freedom of speech, are heavy-handed and reasonably seen as an aspect of "cancel culture." At the same time, people who demonize an entire class of people, as Guggenheim does, should expect some push-back. Again, the very name of Guggenheim's organization, "Gays Against Groomers," is bigoted.

Guggenheim, to his credit, says (13:06) that adults properly may decide whether to receive gender-affirming medical care. That is, of course, different from saying that a person is authentically transgender.

Guggenheim clarifies (18:42) that by "woke homophobia" he means that gay people who criticize transgender people catch criticism. That's just silly. People do not have a problem with Guggenheim because he's gay; they have a problem with him because he works with an overtly bigoted organization.

In his discussion of sports, Guggenheim certainly seems to be trans-exclusionary, when he refers to "a man who feels like a woman" (26:50). But I do think he has a point about transgender women competing with biological women, which is why I've endorsed competition categories not based on gender.

Then Guggenheim says something truly ridiculous (27:42):

This is stripping women's ability to give consent, it's taking that away. . . . If a woman is no longer allowed to say no to a man in a bathroom, or say no to a man in the locker room, what's to stop us from saying a woman can no longer say no to a man in the bedroom?

Yes, a transgender woman using a woman's bathroom is exactly like a man raping a woman, you might claim if you have zero intellectual integrity. Guggenheim's statement is comparable to "slippery slope" arguments along the lines that if we let gay people get married, what's to stop someone from marrying a horse? This is not the sort of claim that a serious person makes.

That said, I very much like the trend of establishments providing gender-neutral and "family" restrooms. Some women understandably do not want to, say, change clothes or take showers with transgender women (who usually still have a penis). So this is a reasonable concern to which there are reasonable accommodations. Regarding bathrooms, a transgender woman is much more likely to be assaulted when using a men's bathroom than to assault a woman while using a women's restroom. A study from a few years ago found letting transgender people use their gender-aligned restroom doesn't increase assaults.

Guggenheim also complains that "we are putting men [transgender women] in female prisons," and in some cases that has led to rape. I agree that's a problem. Generally, prisons are horrible places where rape is far too common a problem. Government has a moral and legal responsibility to ensure the safety of every inmate. My view is that, if prisons were properly run, there would be no reason not to gender-integrate them. Obviously that would not entail letting every inmate with a penis share spaces with women. Some inmates are especially dangerous and require extra security.

Late in the discussion, Caldara emphasizes that he is trans-exclusionary after all (28:32):

Is being a woman what your genitals look like, or is it your chromosomes? I believe it's your chromosomes. And I understand there are rare cases of abnormalities; there's a small gray area. But, overwhelmingly, there are people with XX chromosomes and people with XY chromosomes. It is binary. At the same time . . . when you say something as simple as that, you are immediately transphobic. . . . No. I'm happy if an adult wants to identify as a porcupine, go for it, it's your right to identify any way you like. You don't have the right to my speech. You don't have the right to tell me how to refer to people.

Here Caldara recognizes (adult) people's rights to self-identify as transgender, and that's good. But he likens identifying as transgender to identifying as a porcupine, indicating that he believes there is no such thing as an authentically transgender person. According to such a view, people who identify as transgender are deluded.

Yes, Caldara has the right to misgender transgender people, just like he has the right to call Black people the N-word. Caldara is attacking a straw man. No serious person in the U.S. is saying Caldara does not have such a right. Granted, this has become a problem elsewhere. But the point that Caldara ignores is that misgendering transgender people is bigoted, similarly to how calling Black people the N-word is bigoted. Employers properly bar such bigotry on the job. Government probably rightly intervenes to prevent hostile work environments (although this is a complex issue).

Guggenheim too comes out as trans-exclusionary: "If you are a man, I will call you a man. . . . I don't really care how you identify. . . . I don't believe it's kind and compassionate to affirm delusions." Later (35:37) he adds, "If we can get society to believe that a person with XY chromosomes is a woman, or female, there's nothing that we can't get them to believe." He also says (36:36) that he regards a transgender man soliciting a gay may for sex "a form of sexual harassment." So as not to leave any doubt, he also adds (38:16), "You can wear a dress, you can wear lipstick and oversized high-heals all you want, but that doesn't make you a woman." The grain of truth here is that it's perfectly fine for gay men to date other gay men, not counting transgender men. But who says otherwise?

The two go on in this vein for several more minutes, all the while completely ignoring the fact that gender is not the same as, nor reducible to, biological sex.

The upshot is that Caldara, Guggenheim, and Gays Against Groomers start with some reasonable concerns, blow those concerns wildly out of proportion, and build upon them an edifice of bigotry toward transgender people.

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