B4 EZ BD THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022
it goes to a full trial this summer, and that the
family would suffer “imminent” and “irrepara-
ble injury” unless the investigation was im-
mediately blocked. The Texas Court of Appeals
issued an order upholding the injunction, and
that order is now on appeal before the Texas
Supreme Court.
As the Does’ complaint shows, the families of
transgender children in Texas have every rea-
son to be terrified. In a particularly painful
irony, Jane Doe herself works as a child abuse
investigator for DFPS. After Abbott’s order was
released, Doe asked her boss to clarify how the
order would affect her work. Within hours, the
agency placed her on leave, and on the following
day, she was told that her family was being
investigated for child abuse because she and her
husband had followed mainstream medical
advice about how best to care for their daughter.
Paxton’s vow to continue investigating fami-
lies with transgender children has frightening
implications not just for those families but for
all families, and even for the rule of law itself.
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly af-
firmed that parents have constitutionally pro-
tected interests in the care, custody and control
of their children. Almost 100 years ago, the
court struck down a Nebraska law that banned
teaching school children a language other than
English, in part because the law infringed on
the right of parents to control the upbringing of
their children as they saw fit. According to the
Supreme Court, in a 2000 opinion, parentalRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was
more direct about Romney and the other two
Republican senators who voted for Jackson —
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of
Maine: “Any Senator voting to confirm #KJB is
pro-pedophile just like she is,” Greene tweeted.
QAnon signaling extends beyond the Jack-
son nomination, of course. The most vivid
importation of the QAnon worldview is hap-
pening in education, the policy domain where
conservatives can best prey upon parental
fears. Chris Rufo, the conservative activist who
orchestrated the movement against critical
race theory, is constructing a new moral panic
using QAnon messaging. Rufo’s main strategy
is “winning the language war,” which effective-
ly means using the McCarthyite tactic of at-
taching a negative label (“communist!”) to
those who hold different beliefs and relentless-
ly repeating that label regardless of its accura-
cy. Rufo has urged followers to use language
such as “grooming” or “predators” — words
intended to trigger images of child sexual
abuse. It works. The “groomers” framing
played a prominent role in the passage of
Florida’s law prohibiting discussion of sexual
identity among young children in schools.
When it became known among critics as the
“don’t say gay” bill, a spokeswoman for Gov.
Ron DeSantis (R) reframed it as an “Anti-
Grooming” bill. If you oppose the bill, “you are
probably a groomer,” she wrote on Twitter.
This was another moment when conserva-
tives could have paused and asked themselves:
“Is this really who we are?” They didn’t. DeSan-
tis stood by his appointee. Other prominent
conservatives didn’t just come to her defense
but doubled down. As the chyron “Liberals are
sexually grooming elementary students” ap-
peared on the screen, Laura Ingraham asked
her Fox News viewers: “When did our publicallegations.
QAnon counts at the ballot box, but saying
the Q part out loud can still come with costs. “I
know nothing about it,” Trump said shortly
before the 2020 election. “I do know that they
are very much against pedophilia. They fight it
very hard, but I know nothing about it.”
Signaling with plausible deniability, however,
is sufficient to cater to this constituency, and
QAnon showed up in force both at the polls
and at the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s a big constituency. Polls vary but show a
shockingly high level of support for these
claims, concentrated among Republicans. A
recent Economist-YouGov poll found that 16
percent of Republicans have a “very” or “some-
what” favorable view of QAnon, and 49 percent
of Republicans said it was “definitely” or
“probably” true that top Democrats were in-
volved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.
The signaling, increasingly bold, found a
prime platform at the Jackson hearings. The
QAnon world was listening. While they had
previously paid little attention to Jackson,
supporters grew angry at the prospect of her
nomination, with some calling for violence.
Conservatives in the political and media are-
nas ran with the message: “Democrats really
doing their best to secure the pedophile vote
for future elections this week,” Donald Trump
Jr. tweeted.
When Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) an-
nounced Monday that he would vote for Jack-
son’s confirmation when the matter went be-
fore the full Senate on Thursday, Mollie Hem-
ingway, editor of the conservative magazine
the Federalist, tweeted that the only new
information Romney had secured since voting
against Jackson’s confirmation to a lower
court was “increased awareness of her ‘soft-on-
pedos’ approach.”R
epublican senators questioning Judge
Ketanji Brown Jackson at her Supreme
Court nomination hearing didn’t explic-
itly mention QAnon or its putative oracle, Q.
They didn’t mention the child sex trafficking
ring run by a global cabal of Democratic
politicians; financial, media and Hollywood
elites; medical establishment professionals;
and the satanic pedophile Hillary Clinton.
They didn’t mention the Storm, the day these
cabalists will be rounded up and executed.
And they didn’t mention QAnon’s North Star,
former president Donald Trump, who is se-
cretly dismantling the pedophile ring.
They didn’t have to. QAnon, a sprawling set
of baseless conspiracy claims, is built on nods
and winks, which has allowed it to move from
the fringes to the center of American politics
without toppling the mainstream conserva-
tive politicians who are courting its adherents.
All Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had to do to set
the stage for the hearing was allege in tweets
beforehand that Jackson’s record on sex of-
fender policies “endangers our children.”
Never mind that Hawley’s attacks have been
fact-checked and found wanting, or that they
were never raised in previous nomination
hearings for Jackson or for Trump judicial
nominees with similar records. The allega-
tions were not about the facts. The goal was to
portray Jackson, and by extension Democrats,
as players in the QAnon narrative that public
institutions are overrun with child predators.
The attacks also represented a test of what
conservatives would accept. Would the con-
servative establishment recoil? With few ex-
ceptions, the answer was no. Republican sena-
tors including Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Tom
Cotton (Ark.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) jumped on
the child predator bandwagon and were re-
warded with slots on Fox News to repeat theirSen. Josh Hawley
(R-Mo.) speaks
April 4 as the
Senate Judiciary
Committee debates
Ketanji Brown
Jackson’s
nomination to the
Supreme Court.
Before the hearing,
Hawley tweeted
that Jackson’s
record “endangers
our children.”schools, any schools, become what are essen-
tially grooming centers for gender identity
radicals? As a mom, I think it’s appalling, it’s
frightening, it’s disgusting, it’s despicable.”
Remember that “grooming” in this context
appears to mean acknowledging that LBGTQ
people exist, or allowing young people to have
contact with an openly LBGTQ person.
This is the deliberate abuse of language that
Rufo advocates. He uses “grooming” to de-
scribe children being exposed to ideas he
dislikes rather than actual sexual abuse. In
other words, the sharing of certain political
beliefs — usually centered on recognizing the
status of marginalized groups — is treated as
interchangeable with child abuse, its perpetra-
tors akin to child abusers. Such language is
especially likely to be deployed if openly LG-
BTQ adults interact with children.
No target is too big. “Disney Goes Groomer”
is the headline on a new article by Rod Dreher
in the American Conservative. Disney ran
afoul of conservatives by publicly supporting
LGBTQ rights and opposing Florida’s new law.
Two conservative activists who helped
frame the DeSantis law in QAnon terms stand
out. Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec were
present at the creation of this tactic. Before
there was a QAnon, the pair spread the Pizza-
gate theory, which falsely claimed that leaders
in the Democratic Party ran a child sex-traf-
ficking ring out of a neighborhood pizzeria in
D.C. As Pizzagate morphed into QAnon, Poso-
biec and Cernovich kept going, labeling politi-
cians, celebrities and members of the media as
pedophiles. Those who questioned them got
the same treatment. This was another test that
conservatism failed. Rather than being
shunned, the pair became influencers in con-
servative media. The lesson was that smears
work.
The QAnonification of our political dis-
course has real consequences. It instills fear
and can ruin lives and reputations. It serves to
erode trust in our public institutions. Educa-
tors already reeling from book bans and cen-
sorship now face accusations of “grooming”
the children we trust them to teach. It can also
encourage violence. A former candidate for
Mississippi governor called for “a firing squad”
for “those that want to groom our school aged
children and pretend men are women.” In the
case of Pizzagate, a gunman turned up at the
D.C. pizzeria looking for evidence of the base-
less claim he had become obsessed with. In a
quirk of fate, his sentencing judge was Ketanji
Brown Jackson, who told the gunman, “I hope
you understand and see how much people
have suffered because of what you did,” and: “I
am truly sorry you find yourself in the position
you are in, because you do seem like a nice
person who on your own mind was trying to do
the right thing. But that does not excuse
reckless conduct and the real damage that it
caused.”
The damage of the QAnon conspiracy
claims will spread in the body politic until
conservatives find the courage to push back. It
can’t happen too soon. Three dozen candidates
running for Congress, including two incum-
bents, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co-
lo.), have espoused QAnon beliefs. Ron Wat-
kins, who has long been suspected of playing a
major role in writing QAnon posts that ap-
peared on 8chan, the online message board
network he administered, is running for Con-
gress in Arizona. Watkins has labeled Jackson
and any senator who votes for her “a pedo-
phile-enabler.” Is this truly the future of Re-
publican politics? The answer may depend on
whether enough conservatives will finally de-
mand “Have you no sense of decency?” to these
heirs of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Twitter: @donmoynDonald Moynihan is a professor at the McCourt
School of Public Policy at Georgetown University
and author of the substack “Can We Still Govern?”Anne M. Coughlin is a law professor at the University
of Virginia. Naomi Cahn is a law professor and co-
director of the Family Law Center at U.Va.J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESSThe QAnon
catchphrases
that took over
the Jackson
hearings
Mainstream
Republicans
don’t have to
name the
conspiracy
theory. They
just signal it
with their talk
of pedophiles
and ‘groomers,’
says Donald
Moynihan.interests are “perhaps the oldest of the funda-
mental liberty interests” enshrined in constitu-
tional law. Likewise, the Texas Supreme Court
has emphasized that parental liberty interests
are of enduring constitutional magnitude, call-
ing them “essential” and “far more precious
than property rights.” Parental interests are
explicitly enshrined in the Texas Family Code.
Again, the irony is glaring and painful. Some
of the politicians who want to ban schools from
teaching about sexual orientation or critical
race theory allege — without offering any evi-
dence — that these measures are necessary to
protect “parents’ rights.” Meanwhile, Texas pol-
iticians want to investigate and punish parents
who simply are following their doctors’ recom-
mendations on the best care for their children.
Usually, the Texas courts jealously protect
families from unreasonable or arbitrary state
action, requiring the state to shoulder a “seri-
ous burden of justification” before it tries to
intervene in parental decision-making. But the
justification for Abbott’s intervention is not
serious. There is no evidence to support the
governor’s claim that gender-affirming care
poses a danger to children’s health and wellbe-
ing. To the contrary, such care has been shown
to reduce the risk of depression and suicide for
transgender youth. Banning it creates an ex-
cruciating conflict for parents, as the steps they
take to preserve their children’s lives may lead
the state to investigate and punish them.
Transgender advocates have hailed the Tex-
as courts’ decision to halt the child abuse
investigations. As the Does and their transgen-
der child must know all too well, however, the
reprieve is temporary. Texas is likely to appeal
any ruling invalidating Abbott’s order, and
Texas politicians, like their counterparts in
other states, may look for new ways to intimi-
date the parents who seek gender-affirming
care for their children and the professionals
who supply it. To shut down these hateful
political efforts once and for all, allies must step
up and denounce them whenever and wher-
ever they occur. And courts throughout the
country must act speedily to reaffirm the con-
stitutional protections that families enjoy, and
apply those protections equally to families with
transgender children.their doctors — must be investigated, pros-
ecuted and punished. Abbott’s order even en-
courages community surveillance of families
with transgender children by explicitly re-
minding members of the public that they, no
less than health-care professionals, have a duty
to report suspected cases of child abuse.
Abbott’s executive action is all the more
disturbing because it is entirely outside the
democratic process. In fact, the Texas legisla-
ture previously failed to pass a statute outlaw-
ing gender-affirming care for minors. To sup-
port his unilateral decision to bar parents from
following their pediatricians’ well-considered
advice, Abbott relied on an opinion issued by
Paxton’s office that said some “sex change”
treatments, if “performed on children, can
legally constitute child abuse.” (After a court
blocked the order from taking effect, Paxton
announced on Twitter that he had appealed
and that he would “win this fight to protect
Texas children.”) As numerous commentators
have remarked, Paxton’s opinion is empirically
unsound and misleading. In addition to the
American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Medical Association and the American Psycho-
logical Association also recommend that gen-
der-affirming treatment be given to children
and adolescents with gender dysphoria.
The practical effects of Abbott’s order were
swift and devastating for parents, children and
their health-care providers. Texas Children’s
Hospital in Houston, the largest children’s hos-
pital in the country, stopped providing gender-
affirming care. DFPS opened child abuse inves-
tigations of a number of parents with transgen-
der children. One DFPS employee testified that
investigators were told to prioritize the trans-
gender cases and were denied the freedom —
which they exercise in all other cases — to find
that reports involving trans children probably
did not involve child abuse at all.
Texas courts have temporarily blocked the
investigations by granting an injunction in a
lawsuit filed by Jane and John Doe, pseud-
onyms for the parents of a transgender daugh-
ter who was receiving gender-affirming health
care after extensive consultations with her
doctors. The Does’ complaint claims that Ab-
bott’s order violates their constitutional rights
as well as Texas law. A Texas district judge
stopped the investigation of the Does on the
ground that there is a “substantial likelihood”
that their case will succeed on the merits whenI
n recent months, politicians in many states
have introduced measures that aim to dis-
rupt the everyday lives of transgender
Americans. But an executive directive issued by
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in late February is far
more intrusive than the rest. The order directs
the Texas Department of Family and Protective
Services (DFPS) to conduct child abuse investi-
gations of parents who give medically neces-
sary gender-affirming care to their transgen-
der children. Even after a Texas judge tempo-
rarily stayed such investigations, Texas Attor-
ney General Ken Paxton insisted that they were
legal and would continue.
The mere prospect of these probes terrifies
families with transgender children. But Ab-
bott’s order should also worry everyone who
lives in Texas — and in other states that may try
copycat efforts. If the child abuse investiga-
tions are allowed to proceed, they will signal a
radical expansion of the power of the state to
interfere with parents’ constitutionally pro-
tected right to make decisions about how best
to raise and nurture their children.
Many anti-transgender initiatives target the
well-being of trans children, imposing painful
and unnecessary burdens on these young peo-
ple and their families. Some bills bar transgen-
der youth from playing competitive school
sports with their same-gender peers. Others
ban health professionals from providing
youngsters with gender-affirming care. On
Thursday, the Alabama legislature passed a law
that makes it a felony, punishable by up to 10
years in prison, for doctors to give such care to
transgender youth. Other measures, including
the Florida law criticized as the “Don’t Say Gay”
bill and similar legislation introduced in Ala-
bama, Louisiana and Ohio, forbid teachers in
the early grades to discuss LGBTQ issues in
their classrooms, while still others say schools
can’t require teachers to use the pronouns
consistent with students’ gender identities.
Abbott’s order is far more invasive than any
of these. The Texas investigations do not merely
intrude on the operations of school officials or
the practices of health-care professionals: They
repudiate the authority of parents to nurture
their children. According to the order, parents
who follow the advice of the American Acad-
emy of Pediatrics to provide gender-affirming
care that is “developmentally appropriate, non-
judgmental, supportive” and clinically safe are
committing child abuse, for which they — andTexas is trampling parents’ rights in its investigations of trans kids
Gov. Greg
Abbott’s order
isn’t just cruel
— it also runs
counter to basic
legal principles,
say law
professors
Anne M.
Coughlin and
Naomi CahnJOEL MARTINEZ/MCALLEN MONITOR/ASSOCIATED PRESSUnder a directive
issued by Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott (R) in
February, the
families of
transgender
children face state
child abuse
investigations if
they give their kids
certain types of
care.