A Gen Z Gay Man Taught Me About @GaysAgainstGroomers

In the spring of 2024, I was actively researching and writing a piece that would be published in Slate under the title I Put ‘No Republicans’ in my Grindr Profile. Men Started to Lose Their Minds (I pitched it as “What I Learned by Putting ‘No Republicans’ in my Grindr Profile,” but for those unaware, you rarely get to pick your title when publishing through another outlet).

Despite being enmeshed in the world of gay conservatives (or, men don’t identify as gay, but spend copious time on Grindr), at the time, I was blessedly unaware of a little Instagram account called @gaysagainstgroomers.

For those of you still blessedly unaware, @gaysagainstgroomers isn’t just an Instagram account, but a full, far-right anti-LGBTQ+ organization which first popped up and gained notoriety when Florida — and subsequently, many other states — was pushing it’s “don’t say gay” legislation, and the far right (and then, “normal” right) started really amping up their “groomer” narrative.

Originally framed as a group of LGBTQ+ people speaking out about abuses they’d experienced, it has since evolved into a broader anti-LGBTQ+ organization focused on opposing Pride events, LGBTQ+ representation, and trans rights. It’s also heavily funded by organizations, that are, at their core, blatantly homophobic. While I think gay people supporting this account is complicated — a real mix of internalized homophobia, pick-me syndrome, sometimes survival, and often prioritizing your bigotry over autonomy — no matter the reason, I think these folks are getting played bad.

Most of the men I encountered researching my Republican piece were gentlemen of a certain age. Despite my frustrations with many of them, I often had empathy — they grew up in a far less accepting world than I did. So I guess I would’ve expected to be introduced to @gaysagainstgroomers by a closeted Baptist grandfather on Grindr…not a certified Gen Zer I met a the gym.

We’ll call this young man Jared, and he was an acquaintance’s workout partner. Oftentimes, when I’d see said acquaintance at the gym, Jared was with him. Jared needed to be reintroduced to me every time we met, which kind of gives you enough of a story.

I’d never encountered Jared in any outside environs until one day, he messaged me on Grindr (from a blank profile, natch). “I think we go to the same gym,” he said, with a smiley-face emoji and a picture of his face.

I decided not to mention that we’d had conversations and been introduced multiple times, and just said “Yes.” He mentioned going through my attached Instagram account and thought it was cool I was a writer, because he liked to talk about “deep things,” which in my experience, is often the precursor to being an “independent thinker,” and “doing your own research,” and generally getting — and blindly accepting — all your thoughts and opinions from Joe Rogan and/or the darker corners of Reddit.

He then asked me what I was working on. I told him.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’m not political.”

“I am,” I told him.

“But,” this non-political, Gen-Z, NOT POLITICAL gay man said, “I agree with a lot of Republican stuff. I think gay men are pushing a very dangerous agenda.” I asked him how.

He fed all the classics: we’re sexualizing children, forcing toddlers to transition, and so sex-obsessed that we shouldn’t be teachers. Not him, of course. He wasn’t like the other girls.

We went back and forth on his bullshit for a while — my personal mental illness is the inability to not engage — but after exhausting the standard talking points, he escalated to something considerably more ambitious: gay men have genes that make us more likely to be pedophiles if we’re not careful.

I told him this was patently untrue, and that’s when he whipped out @gaysagainstgroomers and told me it was true because he read it on an Instagram account.

I took a break from Grindr arguing and pulled it up. I was obviously disgusted by the self-hatred of it all, but also amused by which ones of my Instagram follows were following them (i.e., two men whose sexualities — fair or not — I’d speculated on before). I also did some light Googling and was able to quickly learn how well-funded they were by not just gays against grooming, but conservatives against gays.

I told Jared that. He went for the jugular. He accused me of being too old to understand how the modern world works (am I younger than his gym partner? YES) and that he’s heard how better than everyone I think I am because I’m a typical over-educated liberal elitist. He also “heard” that I’m a huge slut and just as sex obsessed as the pervert gays.

I told him he was making himself sound really stupid, and he blocked me. I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s now something of a content creator on OnlyFans, which, like, no judgment, but that also does feel like a sex-obsessed pervert gay gig, ya know?

In my Slate piece, I wrote, “When I first started to explore my sexuality, I somehow thought that being gay meant being, well, a bit more socially progressive, open, and empathetic. But gay men are still men, and many men are entitled, closed-minded, racist, misogynistic, classist, toxically insecure, and cruel. Many men also view the world differently than I do and govern their lives with different values. “

Similarly, I often assume that younger people were more progressive and open-minded than I am, but that’s certainly not the case. Just as older people aren’t automatically conservative, younger people aren’t automatically accepting. Every generation inherits its own myths, insecurities, and blind spots. Sometimes the kids aren’t alright. Sometimes they’ve been groomed in their own ways.

#SundayStory is a weekly recurring series I started this past spring on my Instagram account. It started as a challenge for me to share a story a week, and as a small attempt to interject into the feed with something other than self-promotion or marketing disguised as content. I’ve also decided to start sharing it here, on Medium.