‘Homosexuals Are Overrepresented …’

On June 13 2023 — amid a hugely weaponized disinformation narrative about queer and trans people timed to correspond with Pride Month — an iFunny commenter responded to a Pride flag-related post with a claim: “Despite being 2 percent of the population 40 percent of child [predators] are lgbt.”

The Claim, Variations, and Super Spreaders

A corresponding search of Twitter indicated that a handful of fairly new accounts were repeatedly posting claims that “homosexuals are overrepresented” in child abuse statistics. Tweets making the claim typically asserted that “two percent” of the total population was LGBTQ+, and that population made up between 33 and 40 percent of child abuse offenses:

“‘Homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses… A study in the Journal of Sex Research found that although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses.'”

“It says homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex abuse. So your proof disproves your proof…”

“A study in the Journal of Sex Research found that although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses[.]”

One particular tweet articulated the primary version of the claim in a marginally coherent fashion:

So, you’re okay with the LBGQT groomers shaking their junk at kids and warping minds? Homosexuals comprise just 2 percent of the population, yet are responsible for 33% of all child sexual abuse. They offend against children at 16 times the rate of the normal population.

In an effort to identify a “source” for the claim, we used DuckDuckGo for a date-restricted search. Searching “homosexuals are overrepresented” (inside quotes) for the one-month period prior to June 13 2023 returned a total of nine results — seven of the nine results involving the same two Twitter users repeating the claim.

One was “????Salt Shaker????/@salt_shaker19,” an account created in December 2022. Many of their tweets appeared as replies in other users’ threads:

“That’s odd, the stats I’ve seen show that despite being only 2% of the population, homosexuals commit 33% of child rape… Also, don’t ask about the sexuality of those pastors…”

“You just posted that 2% of the population commits 21% of sexual assaults on children… I said 2% commits 33%… either way, you do understand that that is a gross overrepresentation of homosexuals in sexual assault cases of children, correct? Do you know what per capita is?”

“Well, we’ve proven that homosexuals are overrepresented in sexual abuse against boys …”

“Straight people are pedophiles too, but homosexuals are grossly overrepresented in sexual assault against boys… ????”

“And I couldn’t find the data on percent of homosexuals who [assault] girls… if it’s anything more than 2% (very likely) then they are overrepresented in that, too, meaning homos are more likely to be pedos.”

Another user repeating the claim created their account — “Regulate Porn/@quietstation27” — in April 2023. On June 7 2024, that account routinely retweeted posts suggesting that the “Regulate Porn” focus was secondary to antipathy toward the LGBTQ+ community and extreme racism toward non-white people:

One of the tweets linked above was not embeddable. It celebrated the killing of Jordan Neely:

Twitter user “Regulate Porn”/@quietstation27 deployed the claim in a sub-thread below a tweet by fellow disinformation purveyor Tim Pool:

“Statistically, homosexuals are overrepresented in pedophilia. This has been consistent for decades … What is per capita?”

“‘There’s no statistical data’ … This has been studied since as early as the 80s lol You are even dodging the fact that the vast majority of children abused by the church are young boys by closeted gay men.”

“Yeah, it’s hilarious. The origin of “Pedophiles have no sexual orientation” was after studies showed homosexuals overrepresented in child molestation cases. So they needed to push cover up propaganda to deflect from it.”

“‘This fact is particularly disturbing. Homosexuals comprise just two percent of the population, yet are responsible for 33% of all child sexual abuse. They offend against children at 16 times the rate of the normal population[.]'”

“Dude, the quote I am giving you from the site gives it’s source lol … I even explained to you: Mental gymnastics happened once studies kept showing homosexuals have a higher rate of pedophilia. That’s a fact.”

Iterations of the claim (“homosexuals are overrepresented …”) very frequently appeared alongside white supremacist content on Twitter. Although the percentage in the second part varied, claims that “homosexuals” (presumably including gay men, lesbians, bisexual people, and all transgender people) accounted for “two percent” of the population prefaced nearly all of the versions we found.

‘Homosexuals Comprise Just 2 Percent of the Population’

Unlike the second part of the claim, the portion asserting LGBTQ+ people were “two percent of the population” was rarely examined or challenged.

Repeatedly in material quoted above, Twitter users stated LGBTQ+ people were “just 2 percent of the population,” with “just” emphasizing the purported “two percent” figure. Demographic polling made determining the veracity of the claim fairly straightforward.

One of the more recent resources we were able to track down for estimations about what portion of the population identified as LGBTQ+ was an “evangelical” blog citing a Gallup poll. It was published on March 15 2023, and it also framed contemporaneous polling data in minimizing terms:

Rise in LGBTQ+ Population Slows

According to the latest Gallup survey, the rise in the percentage of Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ leveled out in 2022 … While the percentage is more than double Gallup’s first measurement in 2012 (3.5%), 2022 levels remained statistically even with the previous year (7.1%). Most of those identifying as something other than straight or heterosexual say they are bisexual (4.2%). Fewer say they are gay (1.4%), lesbian (1%), or transgender (0.6%). Approximately 0.1% claim some other sexuality label.

That particular website linked to the Gallup findings referenced in the excerpt. On February 22 2023, polling outfit Gallup published “U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%,” reporting:

After showing perceptible increases in 2020 and 2021, U.S. adults’ identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual held steady in 2022, at 7.2% … In addition to the 7% identifying as LGBT, 86% of U.S. adults say they are straight or heterosexual, while 7% chose not to answer the question.

As is typically the case, the greatest share of LBGT adults — more than half, or 4.2% of all U.S. adults — identify as bisexual. About one in five LGBT adults identify as gay, about one in seven say they are lesbian, and slightly fewer than one in 10 identify as transgender.

Five percent of LGBT adults identify as something other than lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender …

Gallup’s presentation of their polling data also indicated that the organization “for the first time recorded the preferred identity of those who indicated they were something other than heterosexual besides the traditional lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identities” in 2022. In other words, Gallup’s previous polling did not include specific identities “other than heterosexual,” likely narrowing the pool of affirmative responses.

In February 2022, Gallup published a similar report entitled “LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%.” In that polling, Gallup added context about the evolution of responses across generations:

Since Gallup began measuring LGBT identification in 2012, the percentage of traditionalists, baby boomers, and Generation X adults who identify as LGBT has held relatively steady. At the same time, there has been a modest uptick among millennials, from 5.8% in 2012 (when some members of the generation had not yet turned 18) to 7.8% in 2017 and 10.5% currently.

The percentage of Gen Z who are LGBT has nearly doubled since 2017, when only the leading edge of that generation — those born between 1997 and 1999 — had reached adulthood. At that time, 10.5% of the small slice of the generation who were adults identified as LGBT.

A breakdown by specific identity was included:

More than half of LGBT Americans, 57%, indicate they are bisexual. That percentage translates to 4.0% of all U.S. adults. Meanwhile, 21% of LGBT Americans say they are gay, 14% lesbian, 10% transgender and 4% something else. Each of these accounts for less than 2% of U.S. adults.

Pew Research, another credible pollster, published “The Experiences, Challenges and Hopes of Transgender and Nonbinary U.S. Adults” in June 2022, finding:

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 1.6% of U.S. adults are transgender or nonbinary – that is, their gender is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. This includes people who describe themselves as a man, a woman or nonbinary, or who use terms such as gender fluid or agender to describe their gender. While relatively few U.S. adults are transgender, a growing share say they know someone who is (44% today vs. 37% in 2017). One-in-five say they know someone who doesn’t identify as a man or woman.

In December 2021, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a report based on analysis of census data. It was prefaced:

According to an analysis of data in the Census Bureau’s recent Household Pulse Survey, 8% of respondents identified themselves as LGBTQ+, suggesting previous surveys undercounted the population.

In the report, HRC indicated the seven to eight percent figure could be “an undercount”:

While many attempts have been made to document the size and demographics of the LGBTQ+ community in America, they have faced significant challenges. Sampling is difficult and bias also plays a role in respondents’ answers. In the most comprehensive and often-cited study of the LGBTQ+ community prior to today’s report, the Public Religious Research Institute’s (PRRI’s) American Values Atlas suggested that 4.4% of Americans identified as LGBTQ+. Today’s estimates nearly double that number – and may still be an undercount.

A 2021 report by research firm Ipsos [PDF] provided global figures for LGBTQ demographics, alongside details about answers collected in countries less tolerant of LGTBQ+ people:

On average, globally, 80% identify as heterosexual, 3% as gay, lesbian or homosexual, 4% as bisexual, 1% as pansexual or omnisexual, 1% as asexual, 1% as “other”, and 11% don’t know or won’t say.

• Several countries show large proportions of adults unable or unwilling to define their sexual orientation: 39% in Malaysia, 33% in Turkey, 24% in India, 19% in Russia and 15% in Mexico.
• Identification as lesbian/gay/homosexual ranges from 5% in Brazil, Spain, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands to 1% in Hungary, Peru, Italy, Poland, Japan, China, South Korea, and less than 1% in Russia.

Several charts appeared in the report; one on page 9 indicated that the total number of people identifying as strictly heterosexual peaked at 93 percent in one country (China):

Wikipedia maintained an entry titled “LGBT demographics of the United States,” with estimates through the year 2016. That entry’s “Talk” page demonstrated politically motivated efforts to skew the data on the table:

Ur having troubles finding numbers because this is a new fad. So there used to be so few ppl really didn’t track the numbers. Now there has been a huge spike as we see since they started keeping track. But they are also now pumping those numbers up. But still a big spike. Oddly this fad also seems to be regional. So yes this is such a new fad u won’t find a lot of numbers. In some places Democrats have not been able to push their ideologies onto them yet. Like in Uganda,Kenya and Tanzania! Or the fad has yet to hit that area. These may be the reasons u are having trouble finding info!

174.45.75.94 (talk) 23:04, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

As of June 2023, the most recent polling data indicated that 7.2 percent of Americans identified as LGBTQ+. Previous polling by the HRC estimated that percentage was likely an undercount.

‘Homosexuals are Overrepresented …’ and the Washington Post‘s Paywall

Clearly, the first portion of the claim was false, as more than two percent of the population (by any measure) identified as LGBTQ+.

Tweets repeating the entire claim almost always used the unique and awkward phrase “homosexuals are overrepresented …” We conducted a search for that phrase, and immediately spotted a result that matched the tweets (and a link commonly to them):

A Google preview in the above screenshot read:

[Washington Post] Pedophilia and Homosexuality

Jun 29, 2002 — Homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses: Individuals from the 1 percent to 3 percent of the population that is sexually …

Results from the Washington Post ranked higher and appeared credible, but links on the site rarely appeared without a paywall. Consequently, readers without a subscription were either blocked from viewing content on the site more than a few times a month, or inhibited from “wasting views” by clicking through to read the content in its context.

Commenters on social media commonly lamented the placement of credible news behind paywalls, in contrast with widely available but poorly vetted information:

In June 2023, the link was almost exactly 21 years old. Despite the site’s paywall, the page in question rendered without a paywall — instead, large advertisements bookended what appeared to be a headline, “Pedophilia and Homosexuality”:

Although the page’s content was indistinguishable from a news article, it lacked a date and byline. Text underneath the “headline” appeared tonally different, and phrasing like “your reporter” hinted the page was not, in fact, an article.

As for the claim that “Homosexuals make up less than 3 percent of the population,” it appeared on the second of two halves of the page. The second half was prefaced only with an asterisk, and it read in its totality:

A June 24 [2021] Metro article relates the fears of homosexuals who feel they are being unfairly linked to the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church.

In fact, the real scandal is that the press has failed to adequately investigate the link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. The Family Research Council has just released a comprehensive report on the subject, which connects the dots. The report, titled “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse,” brings to light some significant findings:

* Pedophiles are invariably males: A report by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children states: “In both clinical and non-clinical samples, the vast majority of offenders are male.” The book “Sexual Offending Against Children” reports that only 12 of 3,000 incarcerated pedophiles in England were women.

* Significant numbers of victims are males: A study of 457 male sex offenders against children in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that “approximately one-third of these sexual offenders directed their sexual activity against males.”

* Homosexuals make up less than 3 percent of the population, not “8 to 10 percent” as your article reported. A recent study in Demography estimates the number of exclusive male homosexuals in the general population at 2.5 percent and the number of exclusive lesbians at 1.4 percent.

* Homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses: Individuals from the 1 percent to 3 percent of the population that is sexually attracted to the same sex are committing up to one-third of the sex crimes against children. A study in the Journal of Sex Research found that although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses.

The evidence shows a direct correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. Your story should have included such evidence, because it affects not just the Catholic Church but all those concerned with shielding children from sexual abuse.

Directly thereafter, text read:

— Timothy J. Dailey

The writer is a senior fellow for culture studies at the Family Research Council.

Those lines were the very last words on the page (other than advertisements and links to other pages). Nothing on WashingtonPost.com made clear that the section was “letters to the editor,” and the published letter mentioned a “report” issued by the “Family Research Council” — in a letter authored by someone who was then affiliated with the Family Research Council.

What is the Family Research Council? According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)’s database of extremist and hate groups, it was a “SPLC Designated Hate Group”:

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but the group’s real specialty is defaming LGBTQ people.

FRC often makes false claims about the LGBTQ community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to dehumanize LGBTQ people as the organization battles against LGBTQ rights. In the past, this included stances against same-sex marriage, hate-crime laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. FRC continues this work but has also revived long-debunked pedophilia and grooming myths in its work against transgender rights, opposition to drag performances, and support for conversion therapy. The latter is in response to state-level and international bans on conversion therapy for minors. FRC has amplified and even co-opted some queer rhetoric and social science about the mutability of identity to imply LGBTQ people can and should change to become straight and cisgender despite research showing such practices cause harm to LGBTQ children.

To make the case that the LGBTQ community is a threat to American society, the FRC employs several “policy experts” who have allowed the FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors to “transform the culture.” In advancing the cause of “religious freedom,” which they understand as the freedom to discriminate against anyone they find morally inferior, FRC has also established itself as a “network of churches,” which limits public scrutiny of its political activity.

SPLC’s “In Their Own Words” section included quotes attributed to the Family Resource Council and its operatives. The group consistently described “homosexual conduct” as “harmful,” and repeatedly asserted that “LGBT activists’ … real intentions” amounted to “recruiting kids”:

“Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed. It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.” – Family Research Council website, 2016

“The position of social conservatives regarding homosexuality is based on the conviction that homosexual conduct is objectively harmful.”
– FRC senior fellow Peter Sprigg, “How to Respond to the LGBT Movement,” pamphlet published February 2018

“For years, LGBT activists wanted to keep the goal of luring children into sexual confusion under wraps. Now that they’ve hoodwinked a lot of the country on their agenda, these extremists no longer have to hide. In fact, they are increasingly bold–even boastful–about their real intentions of recruiting kids.”
– Tony Perkins, “‘I Have a Girl Brain but a Boy Body’: Virginia Kindergartners Are Read Transgender Story,” posted at The Daily Signal, March 6, 2019

“It’s no longer conservatives suggesting a connection. Leftists are openly avowing pedophilia as the next “sexual minority” (aka sexual perversion) to achieve legitimacy. Once our society takes the small remaining step, how can our government protect anyone from abuse? Without a clear and coherent moral framework for sex – as Christianity has long provided – there is no bottom to our society’s slippery slope of immorality.”
– Joshua Arnold, staff writer for FRC’s Washington Stand, Dec. 15, 2022

Dailey, author of the letter printed by the Washington Post, was mentioned repeatedly by the SPLC. Part of the entry focused on Dailey’s persistent and erroneous claims — almost an obsession — about “homosexuality and pedophilia”:

Dailey is the author of the book Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle as well as several similarly themed policy papers. In Dark Obsession, he describes the tragic life of one young man who died of AIDS. [Dailey] also includes claims about homosexuality and pedophilia, the instability of LGBTQ relationships, and links homosexuality to a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. In some of his other papers like “Homosexuality and Child Abuse,” Dailey links homosexuality to pedophilia, and claims that “a tiny percentage of the population (gay men) commit one-third or more of the cases of child sexual molestation.”

In another paper titled “Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk,” Dailey quotes from a study that claims, “A disproportionate percentage – 29 percent – of the adult children of homosexual parents had been specifically subjected to sexual molestation by that homosexual parent. … Having a homosexual parent(s) appears to increase the risk of incest with a parent by a factor of about 50.” Dailey took that data from Paul Cameron, whose work has been repeatedly denounced by the scientific community as shoddy and biased.

The Southern Poverty Law Center continued:

Since then, FRC has put into practice an advocacy strategy that relies on the same debunked and dangerous myths about LGBTQ people that FRC senior fellow Meg Kilgannon described in 2017 as “divide and conquer.” At the 2022 Pray, Vote, Stand event (previously Values Voter Summit), panelists indicated their intent to frame their anti-LGBTQ activism as a method of protecting children. The implication is obvious: FRC will attempt to activate anti-LGBTQ prejudice and demonizing LGBTQ people by falsely portraying them as pedophiles and “groomers,” i.e., recruiters of children. One panelist at the event noted: “For 50 years we did very well defending our children in the womb. It’s time to defend our children outside of the womb, and our families.” By focusing on transgender people and falsely equating transgender rights with harm to children, FRC intends to roll back LGBTQ rights.

The bulk of the 2023 claims on social media appeared to rest on the fact the Washington Post published an article headlined “Pedophilia and Homosexuality” in June 2002. In actuality, the paper printed and poorly handled a letter to the editor, authored by FRC operative Timothy Dailey.

The SPLC also addressed the long-running falsehood in an article, “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked,” identifying the source of the claim:

MYTH # 1
Gay men molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.

THE ARGUMENT
Depicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality — and for winning elections and referenda, as Anita Bryant found out during her successful 1977 campaign to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance barring discrimination against gay people. Discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, the most ubiquitous purveyor of anti-gay junk science, has been a major promoter of this myth. Despite having been debunked repeatedly and very publicly, Cameron’s work is still widely relied upon by anti-gay organizations, although many no longer quote him by name. Others have cited a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council did in November 2010, that “the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a [molestation] danger to children.” A related myth is that same-sex parents will molest their children.

THE FACTS
According to the American Psychological Association, children are not more likely to be molested by LGBT parents or their LGBT friends or acquaintances. Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men.

Several words or phrases linked out to citations, some of which no longer existed due to the ever-growing problem of link rot; “debunked repeatedly and very publicly” linked to a moved or deleted University of California-hosted page cataloging Cameron’s efforts to malign LGBTQ+ people, as well as his repeated ejections from professional societies:

… In the mid-1980s, the gay press labeled Paul Cameron “the most dangerous antigay voice in the United States today.” Here are some important facts about him.

• On December 2, 1983, the American Psychological Association sent Paul Cameron a letter informing him that he had been dropped from membership. Early in 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association received official written notice that “Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists” by the APA Board of Directors. Cameron has posted an elaborate argument about his expulsion from APA on his website, claiming that he resigned from APA before he was dropped from membership. Like most organizations, however, APA does not allow a member to resign when they are being investigated. And even if Cameron’s claims were accepted as true, it would be remarkable that the largest professional organization of psychologists in the United States (and other professional associations, as noted below) went to such lengths to disassociate itself from one individual.
• At its membership meeting on October 19, 1984, the Nebraska Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that it “formally disassociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality.”
• In 1985, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution which asserted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism” and noted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research.” The resolution formally charged an ASA committee with the task of “critically evaluating and publicly responding to the work of Dr. Paul Cameron.”

[…]

In August, 1996, the Canadian Psychological Association adopted the following policy statement:

• The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality.

SPLC’s “The Facts” section included another broken link (from the text “not more likely”) to a statement published by the American Psychological Association (APA) in July 2004. “Sexual Orientation, Parents, & Children” began:

Many lesbians and gay men are parents. In the 2000 U. S. Census, 33% of female same-sex couple households and 22% of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under the age of 18 living in the home. Despite the significant presence of at least 163,879 households headed by lesbian or gay parents in U.S. society, three major concerns about lesbian and gay parents are commonly voiced [citation]. These include concerns that lesbians and gay men are mentally ill, that lesbians are less maternal than heterosexual women, and that lesbians’ and gay men’s relationships with their sexual partners leave little time for their relationships with their children. In general, research has failed to provide a basis for any of these concerns [citation].

First, homosexuality is not a psychological disorder [citation]. Although exposure to prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation may cause acute distress [citation], there is no reliable evidence that homosexual orientation per se impairs psychological functioning. Second, beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation [citation]. Lesbian and heterosexual women have not been found to differ markedly in their approaches to child rearing [citation]. Members of gay and lesbian couples with children have been found to divide the work involved in childcare evenly, and to be satisfied with their relationships with their partners [citation]. The results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers’ and gay fathers’ parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual parents. There is no scientific basis for concluding that lesbian mothers or gay fathers are unfit parents on the basis of their sexual orientation [citation]. On the contrary, results of research suggest that lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children.

Another section of the APA page referenced myriad credible studies into LGBTQ+ parenting. That section affirmed that LGBTQ+ were not likelier to abuse children, accurately noting that such claims have received “no scientific support”:

For example, some observers have expressed concern that children living with lesbian mothers or gay fathers will be stigmatized, teased, or otherwise victimized by peers. Another common fear is that children living with gay or lesbian parents will be more likely to be sexually abused by the parent or by the parent’s friends or acquaintances.

Results of social science research have failed to confirm any of these concerns about children of lesbian and gay parents [citation]. Research suggests that sexual identities (including gender identity, gender-role behavior, and sexual orientation) develop in much the same ways among children of lesbian mothers as they do among children of heterosexual parents [citation]. Studies of other aspects of personal development (including personality, self-concept, and conduct) similarly reveal few differences between children of lesbian mothers and children of heterosexual parents [citation]. However, few data regarding these concerns are available for children of gay fathers [citation]. Evidence also suggests that children of lesbian and gay parents have normal social relationships with peers and adults [citation]. The picture that emerges from research is one of general engagement in social life with peers, parents, family members, and friends. Fears about children of lesbian or gay parents being sexually abused by adults, ostracized by peers, or isolated in single-sex lesbian or gay communities have received no scientific support. Overall, results of research suggest that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents.

SPLC also linked to an August 2011 statement by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, “Children with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Parents.” We retrieved an archived copy of the page, which stated:

What effect does having LGBT parents have on children?

Sometimes people are concerned that children being raised by a gay parent will need extra emotional support or face unique social stressors. Current research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents do not differ from children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or in their relationships with peers and adults. It is important for parents to understand that it is the the quality of the parent/child relationship and not the parent’s sexual orientation that has an effect on a child’s development. Research has shown that in contrast to common beliefs, children of lesbian, gay, or transgender parents:

• Are not more likely to be gay than children with heterosexual parents.
• Are not more likely to be sexually abused.
• Do not show differences in whether they think of themselves as male or female (gender identity).
• Do not show differences in their male and female behaviors (gender role behavior).

Several of SPLC’s links involved analysis of more than one study or data set, but individual studies have long examined the absence of a link between LGBTQ+ people and child abuse. July 1994 research in the prominent medical journal Pediatrics (“Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals?”) relied on the records of “352 children (276 girls and 76 boys).”

Its abstract explained in part:

Objective: To determine if recognizably homosexual adults are frequently accused of the sexual molestation of children.

Design: Chart review of medical records of children evaluated for sexual abuse.

[…]

Results: Abuse was ruled out in 35 cases. Seventy-four children were allegedly abused by other children and teenagers less than 18 years old. In 9 cases, an offender could not be identified. In the remaining 269 cases, two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian. In 82% of cases (222/269), the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child. Using the data from our study, the 95% confidence limits, of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexual adults as the potential abuser, are from 0% to 3.1%. These limits are within current estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality in the general community.

Conclusions: The children in the group studied were unlikely to have been molested by identifiably gay or lesbian people.

Finally, Dailey’s letter to the editor included a claim that a “study of 457 male sex offenders against children in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that ‘approximately one-third of these sexual offenders directed their sexual activity against males.'” Dailey provided no additional information about the purported study, but we searched for the quoted text: “approximately one-third …”

It appeared Dailey was quoting a Fall 1984 article in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, “Pedophilia and heterosexuality vs. homosexuality.” No copies of that article beyond the abstract were available, likely because the research was nearly 40 years old.

We were unable to locate any evidence to support the claim or validate its basis in a decades-old article. Research (“Adolescents of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: sexual orientation, sexual behavior, and sexual risk exposure”) published in 2011 focused on late adolescents raised with same-sex parents, and found the opposite of the claim was true:

This study assessed Kinsey self-ratings and lifetime sexual experiences of 17-year-olds whose lesbian mothers enrolled before these offspring were born in the longest-running, prospective study of same-sex parented families, with a 93% retention rate to date. Data for the current report were gathered through online questionnaires completed by 78 adolescent offspring (39 girls and 39 boys). The adolescents were asked if they had ever been abused and, if so, to specify by whom and the type of abuse (verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual). They were also asked to specify their sexual identity on the Kinsey scale, between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual. Lifetime sexual behavior was assessed through questions about heterosexual and same-sex contact, age of first sexual experience, contraception use, and pregnancy. The results revealed that there were no reports of physical or sexual victimization by a parent or other caregiver. Regarding sexual orientation, 18.9% of the adolescent girls and 2.7% of the adolescent boys self-rated in the bisexual spectrum, and 0% of girls and 5.4% of boys self-rated as predominantly-to-exclusively homosexual. When compared with age- and gender-matched adolescents of the National Survey of Family Growth, the study offspring were significantly older at the time of their first heterosexual contact, and the daughters of lesbian mothers were significantly more likely to have had same-sex contact. These findings suggest that adolescents reared in lesbian families are less likely than their peers to be victimized by a parent or other caregiver, and that daughters of lesbian mothers are more likely to engage in same-sex behavior and to identify as bisexual.

Research published in 2020 contrasted heterosexual and homosexual parenting, finding:

The attachment security of children in 30 gay father families, 29 lesbian mother families and 38 heterosexual parent families was investigated using the Friends and Family Interview (FFI) at the second phase of a longitudinal study. Children in gay father families showed significantly higher levels of secure-autonomous attachment than children in heterosexual parent families, significantly lower levels of preoccupied attachment than children in either lesbian mother or heterosexual parent families, and significantly lower levels of disorganised attachment than children in heterosexual parent families … The results indicate that adopted children in gay father families are at least as likely to be securely attached as children in lesbian mother or heterosexual parent families.

Research conducted in years leading up to 2023 largely determined that LGBTQ+ children were at greater risk of abuse. A 2019 study in Pediatrics found:

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Transgender adolescents (TGAs) exhibit disproportionate levels of mental health problems compared with cisgender adolescents (CGAs), but psychosocial processes underlying mental health disparities among TGAs remain understudied. We examined self-reported childhood abuse among TGAs compared with CGAs and risk for abuse within subgroups of TGAs in a nationwide sample of US adolescents.

METHODS
Adolescents aged 14 to 18 completed a cross-sectional online survey (n = 1836, including 1055 TGAs, 340 heterosexual CGAs, and 433 sexual minority CGAs). Participants reported gender assigned at birth and current gender identity (categorized as the following: cisgender males, cisgender females, transgender males, transgender females, nonbinary adolescents assigned female at birth, nonbinary adolescents assigned male at birth, and questioning gender identity). Lifetime reports of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse were measured.

RESULTS
Seventy-three percent of TGAs reported psychological abuse, 39% reported physical abuse, and 19% reported sexual abuse. Compared with heterosexual CGAs, TGAs had higher odds of psychological abuse (odds ratio [OR] = 1.84), physical abuse (OR = 1.61), and sexual abuse (OR = 2.04). Within separate subgroup analyses, transgender males and nonbinary adolescents assigned female at birth had higher odds of reporting psychological abuse than CGAs.

CONCLUSIONS
In a nationwide online sample of US adolescents, TGAs had elevated rates of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse compared with heterosexual CGAs. Risk for psychological abuse was highest among TGAs assigned female at birth. In the future, researchers should examine how more frequent experiences of abuse during childhood could contribute to disproportionate mental health problems observed within this population.

Finally, 4Chan’s /pol/ maintained an annual tradition of “false flagging” anti-LGBTQ+ content during Pride month (June). A 2020 campaign (“Pridefall“) included instructions for using “sock puppet” accounts to seed the idea that LGBTQ+ people were “groomers.”

The post’s submitter said in a comment:

“no [intelligence community operatives] here anon, there’s no possible way to be doxxed if you make burner twitters like i suggest

“once again, Keep it simple. Lose focus of the objective of this thing and it falls apart. Do that yourself if you want but for now, the only goal is to post gay pedo degeneracy, enough exists already we dont need to falseflag more”

In the post’s instructions, the same user offered eye-opening details about their weaponized disinformation campaign:

What is Operation Pridefall?
It’s quite simple. every June, hundreds of massive corporations band together to smother social media with posts in favor of “Pride Month”, a code word for the degeneracy that is LGBT activism. Many of these accounts are rather small and get very little engagement, yet they continue to post without backlash.

Beginning on JUNE 1ST, The goal of Operation Pridefall is get on twitter, Instagram, etc. and drop a shitton of disturbing redpills on homosexuality on the comments of the lesser known pages.

The bigger pages are ok targets, but posts tend to get unnoticed in the sea of other comments. Commenting on smaller pages (~100 likes or so) means anyone who views it will see the posts, and companies will reconsider their posts afterwards

>How do I do this?
1. Get a phone number: There are a million apps that give out a phone number, pick one.
2. Get an email: Making a burner email with Gmail is simple and quick.
3. Sign up for twitter using steps 1 and 2 to verify.
4. Post away!

There many different companies to target each year, we will use these threads to coordinate and post salt afterwards.
See below for a .zip of all my images saved so far + the OP images and the pastebin

>Have you ever done this
A trial run last summer [2019] was run with decent success but we can do much better.

Any specific guides?
Keep it normie palatable/friendly. This means no Nazi/Hitler shit, the goal is to make them question whether what they are supporting is really the right thing. Just like IOTBW [“it’s okay to be white”], THERE IS NO PHASE 2!!!

A section providing “Resources” linked out to Pastebin and content published on May 10 2020. No archives of the page existed, and its only text read:

This paste has been deemed potentially harmful. Pastebin took the necessary steps to prevent access on May 11, 2020, 4:49 am CDT. If you feel this is an incorrect assessment, please contact us within 14 days to avoid any permanent loss of content.

Summary

In June 2023, Twitter replies claiming “homosexuals are overrepresented” among child abusers began emerging in concert with 4Chan /pol/’s annual anti-Pride campaign — instructions for which urged participants to link homosexuality with pedophilia. Twitter propagandists linked to a page irresponsibly maintained by the Washington Post, a June 2002 letter to the editor. Credible research contained in debunkings were often no longer available online, further complicating the issue. The letter in question was not an article, its claims were not credible, and its author was an anti-LGBTQ+ propagandist writing on behalf of the Family Research Council (FRC), a Designated Hate Group per the SPLC decades before 2023’s campaign began. No evidence (credible or not) supports Dailey’s claim, and neither did the Washington Post intend to suggest otherwise. Sustained traffic to the page likely provided incentive for the news organization to not amend, correct, or properly label the page, further contributing to an ongoing problem.