By Corrine Murdock with The Real Daily Wire
Arizona Department of Education (ADE) opened up “Q Chat Space” and “Gender Spectrum” which allows “LGBTQ+ minors to discuss sex and gender with adult moderators present–without their parents necessarily knowing.” This ability to hide activity from parents is through their advertised “quick escape feature… Q Chat Space also allows minors to receive a ‘discreet’ text notification about each upcoming chat.”
“Both organizations rely on adult volunteers or staff to facilitate their chat rooms, and they don’t verify the age of those joining the chats beyond asking applicants for a birth date. The Daily Wire reached out to ADE about the two chat rooms. As of press time, no one from the department has responded to our inquiry.”
“One of the ADE-approved chat room organizations, Q Chat Space, is a collaboration of Planned Parenthood, the LGBTQ+ support network organization PFLAG, and LGBTQ+ community center organization CenterLink. Q Chat Space recruits chat facilitators from different organizations across the country: the LGBTQ Centers of Orange County and Long Beach, Center on Halsted, Smyal, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, Jasmyn, Time Out Youth, Youth Outlook, and Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation. Their chats are open to minors ages 13 to 19.”
“Q Chat Space’s upcoming chat room topics range from sex and gender — ‘Gender-Affirming Hairstyles & Clothes,’ ‘Coming Out,’ and ‘For Trans/Non-Binary Youth: Hormones! What Do They Do, What Don’t They Do?’ — to children’s traditional hobbies and interests, like ‘Beasts of the Wild: Favorite Animal Open Discussion” and “Cryptids and Creepy Pasta.’”
“By comparison, Gender Spectrum offered chat rooms to a wider range of ages starting as young as 10 and up to adults, such as parents and family members of LGBTQ+ youth. The group named the education materials giant Pearson as its ‘champion,’ or top, partner; it also identified the Biden Foundation as a key partner in a recent national campaign advocating for family and community acceptance of transgender youth. Senior Director Joel Baum was also a contributor to Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice initiative.”
“In June 2020, CNN featured Gender Spectrum in an analytical piece about children defying gender norms during the remote learning of the pandemic. Gender Spectrum’s director of online programming, Jenna Redmond, told CNN that the group’s chat rooms allowed children to focus on their gender identity and childhood without the additional social pressures of school.”
“‘Taking away these layers of anxiety and trauma that many youth experience in their school settings is allowing a spaciousness,’ stated Redmond. ‘They finally have some room to just exist and be a kid.’”
“It appears that these chat rooms are a small part of ADE Superintendent Kathy Hoffman’s campaign promises. Hoffman advocated for progressive LGBTQ+ youth initiatives since she first campaigned to become superintendent. At one point, she pledged to implement support groups and activities for LGBTQ+ students.”
Hoffman’s heavily advocating for minor indoctrination is what she ran, and ultimately won, her campaign on; however, she also extends her influence as superintendent to sway unknowing parents to oppose Arizona legislation to prohibit “gender reassignment procedures for minors and barring biological males from competing in women’s sports.”
Hoffman’s influence within children’s lives both in and out of the classroom is one of BEST’s primary goals in tackling our education system: content. The ages in which Q Space Chat and Gender Spectrum are targeting are extremely fragile with regard to how severely certain information will affect them. Opening up these chats will not only harm the developing brains of children not able to fully understand the complexity of the LGBTQ+ organizations, but also take away the right of parents to raise their children in the way they feel is BEST.
