Former Liberal party candidate Katherine Deves has commented on Courney Act’s New Year’s Eve concert appearance on the ABC asking, “What part of “grooming” does @ABCaustralia not understand?”

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The failed Liberal candidate turned Sky News contributor took to Twitter sharing an article from The Daily Mail that was critical of the broadcaster’s 9pm NYE concert performances.

Drag star Courtney Act, the alter-ego of Shane Jenek, performed several songs in the concert including Olivia Newton-John’s Xanadu, ACDC’s You Shook Me All Night Long and the classic Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 

But it was the inclusion of the Divinyl’s song I Touch Myself that upset some viewers who argued that the song which is clearly about masturbation was not a suitable choice for the 9pm timeslot. Some viewers also took to social media to express their thoughts that Courtney Act’s flesh-coloured costume was too revealing.

While the performance has had its critics, Courtney Act has also received a lot of praise too.

Liberal senator Alex Antic accused the ABC and Courtney Act of participating in child grooming during senate estimates hearings in early November. His accusation was criticised by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who said his comments were offensive to genuine survivors of sexual assault.

Senator Antic made his accusation under parliamentary privilege, he later declined to repeat his accusation when appearing on Sky News.

Courtney Act later spoke about the experience of being accused of being a child groomer on Channel Ten’s The Project. 

“Grooming is really serious. Grooming is the act of an abuser manipulating a child so they can sexually abuse them. It’s a serious term. To use terms of abuse where no abuse is happening takes away from the occasions when it is happening.”

“It was quite a shocking thing to be accused of,” Courtney Act said.

While Katherine Deeves is accusing the ABC of grooming children, complaining about the funding of Victoria’s Pride Centre in St Kilda, and has labeled the gay rights movement a Godless Neo-religion, she has also dismissed suggestions that she is homophobic or transphobic.

In an opinion piece published on the Sky News website Deves appeared draped in the Pride flag and listed her links to the LGB (but not T) communities. Deves argues that many gay and lesbian people do not believe in including transgender, queer and asexual and other identities within their communities.

Employing a gay childcare worker, officiating friends same-sex weddings, having a gay sibling, attending Mardi Gras, and previously living in San Francisco’s Castro district are among the examples Deves lists of her being supportive of homosexual people.

In her piece Deves questions if there is a transgender community, alongside outlining her opposition to gender affirming healthcare being available to younger people, and her stance against self-ID laws.

The growth of grooming accusations against the LGBTIQA+ community

Describing supporters of LGBTIQA+ rights as “groomers” has been increasing over the past 12 months. In the USA Fox News host Laura Ingram said that public schools have become “grooming centers” where “sexual brainwashing” takes place.

Ingram said laws brought in by Florida Govenor Ron De Santis were keeping “sexual brainwashing” out of public schools. The law which has been dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill prohibits any mention of sexuality to students in kindergarten and grades one to three.

Over the last year Republican politicians in the USA have regularly referred to people from the LGBTIQA+ communities, or those which support LGBTIQA+ rights, as “groomers”.

Earlier this week Chaya Raichik, the woman who runs the popular far-right Libs of TikTok account on Twitter gave her first television interview where she accused the LGBT community of being “evil” and on a mission to groom children.

“They’re just evil, they are bad people, they’re just evil and they want to groom kids. They’re recruiting.” Raichik said during an interview on Fox News. Clips from her account are regularly highlighted on Sky News in Australia.

The trend can be traced back to the late 1970s when anti-gay campaigner Anita Bryant, founder of the Save Our Children organsiation, declared that gay people were on a mission to recruit children. “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit … the youth of America”, Bryant said.

In 2020 the meme “Ok Groomer” appeared in the UK, a variation on the “Ok Boomer” saying that mocked older people of the Boomer generation. The phrase was used prominently anti-transgender activist writer Graham Linehan and the pressure group Transgender Trend.

In the USA the use of the term grew dramatically from 2021 onwards. The phrase was used regularly by Raichik’s Libs of TikTok channel who falsely accused suicide prevention organisation The Trevor Project of being a “grooming organisation” as well as falsely accusing Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, of being a “child groomer.”

In April 2022, the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters published a study stating that within a three-week period spanning from March 17 to April 6, they found that Fox News ran 170 segments on trans people, throughout which the network “repeatedly invoked the long-debunked myth that trans people pose a threat to minors and seek to groom them”.

As Fox News broadcasters continued to use the phrase the USA has seen a rise in threatening and violent protests against events such as Drag Queen Storytime and local libraries who include books with positive depictions of transgender youth.

In mid-December the US based Human Rights Campaign released a report highlighting how anti-equality, online extremists are leading a proactive and coordinated campaign of hate against hospitals and medical providers who offer gender-affirming care for transgender, non-binary and questioning youth. They highlighted the increasing use of references to child grooming against the LGBTIQA+ people.

Graeme Watson 

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