Gov. Glenn Youngkin, he who thinks he has a shot at the Republican presidential nomination, but doesn’t, is now playing politics with the well-being of LGBTQ+ youths as he tries, and flails, at his quixotic quest.
A report in the Washington Post tells us that the Youngkin administration removed online resources for LGBTQ+ youths from the Virginia Department of Health website on May 31.
The reason: well, it just so happens that the Youngkin team had gotten a question on May 31 about the online resources page from a reporter at The Daily Wire, a conservative website.
“This is part of a pattern with this administration, where it’s more important to appeal to an anti-LGBTQ+ political base rather than serve LGBTQ+ Virginians in any capacity,” Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, said in a statement to the Post.
The page – the archive is still live here – featured links to Q Chat Space, a digital LGBTQ+ center where teens join live-chat, professionally facilitated, online support groups, and Queer Kid Stuff, an LGBTQ+ and social justice website for kids and families.
Other links on the page directed people to Virginia Pride, which provides scholarship opportunities for post-high school education expenses in the LGBTQ+ community, The TREVOR Project, an LGBTQ community network and suicide prevention advocacy program, and the Virginia Antiviolence Project, whose services include a hotline, safety planning, emotional support, help filling out forms, licensed therapy, accompaniment, emergency housing.
The page also highlighted the services of healthcare and mental health providers who specialize in care for the LGBTQ+ community.
You know, typical subversive stuff.
A spokesperson for the governor, Macaulay Porter, offered a statement to the Post that basically confirmed the political motivations.
“In Virginia, the governor will always reaffirm a parent’s role in their child’s life. Children belong to their parents, not the state,” Porter said in the statement, framing the move to remove the resources for LGBTQ+ youths against the backdrop of Youngkin’s parents rights push from his 2021 gubernatorial campaign.
“The governor supports providing resources that are age appropriate however the government should not facilitate anonymous conversations between adults and children without a parent’s approval. Sexualizing children against a parent’s wishes doesn’t belong on a taxpayer supported website,” Porter said in the statement.
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Chris Graham
