Boebert Made Anti-LGBTQ Posts Before Colorado Springs Gay Bar Shooting

Boebert’s “grooming” comments stem from a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that has coalesced into a right-wing moral panic. Conservatives have repeatedly smeared LGBTQ people and their allies as pedophiles and child predators — baseless claims that have roots in age-old anti-gay tropes and conspiracy theories like QAnon.

From those fringe beginnings, the term has made its way into the mainstream, appearing on Fox News and in talking points of high-ranking conservative lawmakers like Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has called Democrats “the party of pedophiles.” Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans teachers from speaking in class about sexual orientation and gender identity, was nicknamed the “Anti-Grooming Bill” by one of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s top staffers.

Repeatedly, this rhetoric has led to threats and intimidation against LGBTQ people. Across the US in June, numerous Pride events had to be canceled or had increased security because of threats, often from white supremacists. Many “drag queen story hours” at libraries have been interrupted with hate speech and, in at least one case, a man carrying a gun. In September, a woman was arrested for allegedly making a bomb hoax against Boston Children’s Hospital, which the right-wing Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” had targeted over the gender-affirming care it provides to children.