In Pennsylvania, extremists from Moms for Liberty protested outside a youth community center and were met with overwhelming support for the LGBTQ+ community.
Over 200 people rallied to support Doylestown’s LGBTQ+ youth center after about a dozen protestors demonstrated against it, PhillyBurbs.com reports.
The Rainbow Room was the target of a protest on Monday organized by Canadian anti-LGBTQ+ activist “Billboard Chris” Elston.
“I’m going to Planned Parenthood’s Rainbow Room youth indoctrination event in Doylestown, PA on Wednesday evening,” Elston wrote on Twitter. “Some lovely @Moms4Liberty will be joining me, along with a journalist or two. Come join our party outside!”
As a prominent face of the far-right anti-trans movement, Elston wears sandwich boards emblazoned with slogans like “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
In an address to Moms For Liberty’s national meeting earlier this month in Philadelphia, Elston referred to gender-affirming medical care as “the greatest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history.”
Moms for Liberty was recently designated an anti-government extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“There is no such thing as a transgender child. They’re called girls and boys, and they’re beautiful just as they are,” Elston told the conference audience.
Rainbow Room has been recognized nationally as a resource and safe space for LGBTQ+ teens and allies.
A national culture war over LGBTQ+ rights has recently engulfed Bucks County where the center is, leading to the youth center being targeted in public meetings and on social media. Parents who support conservative policies in Central Bucks Schools have taken issue with the Rainbow Room. There is a false claim that kids who go there are subjected to “grooming.”
Throughout the last few years, Republicans and far-right extremists have falsely accused LGBTQ+ people of harming children.
Elston perpetuated the groomer rhetoric earlier this week.
“The Rainbow Room brings together 14-year-olds with 21-year-olds to teach all sorts of queer inclusive sex,” wrote Elston. “Groomer central.”
None of what he asserted is true.
Having at least one adult in the life of LGBTQ+ youth who supports and affirms them dramatically reduces their risk of suicidal ideation.