Conservatives on social media engaged in their favorite June activity: losing their minds over a “Sesame Street” Pride Month post that celebrated the LGBTQ+ community. However, many users were quick to rebuke the hateful rhetoric plastered all over X.
“Happy #PrideMonth from Sesame Street! Join us in celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQIA+ members of our community,” the official “Sesame Street” X account posted on Monday:
It didn’t take long for MAGA-adjacent and conservative figures to sound off in the comments of the PBS show’s post, accusing the program of grooming and sexualizing children.
These kinds of accusations are nothing new; in fact, they have been used to demonize members of the LGBTQ+ community for decades. A 2022 report from the Human Rights Campaign found that the anti-LGBTQ+ grooming narrative had soared across all social media platforms following the passage of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“The report — Digital Hate: Social Media’s Role in Amplifying Dangerous Lies About LGBTQ+ People — reveals that the average number of tweets per day using slurs such as ‘groomer’ and ‘pedophile’ in relation to LGBTQ+ people surged by 406% in the month after the Florida bill was passed, resulting in a sharp spike in online homophobia and transphobia that social media platforms not only failed to crack down on, but also profited from,” a press release at the time read.
These critics were clearly ignorant of the fact that there are millions of LGBTQ+ children, and there was nothing inherently sexual about making them feel seen in a world that’s becoming increasingly hostile towards them.
That said, many users rebuked the hateful posts, with some pointing out that conservatives had zero issue with religious institutions pushing their views on children. Others noted that conservatives never seemed to speak up when moderately sexual themes in children’s media featured heterosexual couples:
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