Matt Bush, FISM News
At least seven school districts in Wisconsin encourage their students to check out a social media site called “TrevorSpace,” a site that, according to the Wisconsin Daily Star “allows children and adults (strangers) to communicate directly while encouraging discussions of human sexuality, sexual attraction, and sexual fetishes.”
A link for the LGBTQ website is included on several LGBTQ resource pages for districts across the state. The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) website reads that the school district is committed to “creating inclusive and welcoming learning communities to ensure that all students are able to graduate college, career, and community ready. We take seriously our responsibility to provide safe and nondiscriminatory environments for all students.”
In name of inclusion, however, MMSD, along with other school districts in the state, are placing their children directly in harm’s way. The MMSD website’s resources page connects students and teachers directly to a website for the “Trevor Project,” posting a link to their “Coming Out Handbook.”
Other school districts such as Sun Prairie School District and Pepin School District also direct students to the site, with Sun Prarie informing children that the website is a place to “start meeting LGBTQ friends today!”
One of the primary links on the Trevor Project homepage reads “Meet Friends” and connects you directly to TrevorSpace, where the homepage reads, “TrevorSpace is an affirming, online community for LGBTQ young people between the ages of 13-24 years old. With over 400,000 members across the globe, you can explore your identity, get advice, find support, and make friends in a moderated community intentionally designed for you.” There appears to be no age verification on the site and there are no guardrails to prevent young teenagers from chatting with individuals in their 20s.
While the site is promoted by schools as a place where children can get counseling, it is more likely a place where young, confused children are in danger of being preyed upon by adults.
For this reason, the website “Gays Against Grooming” is where TrevorSpace garnered the nickname “Pedophile’s Paradise.” The website’s conclusions are:
TrevorSpace markets itself as a safe space for LGBTQ+ young people to talk about their experiences with identity and peer/familial rejection, which sounds like a great idea. But browsing the website for merely a few minutes makes it abundantly clear what it actually is: an online dating service for children and people aged 13-24. No website or chat room of this nature should cater to minors, especially one that encourages them to talk to adults. Adults in their 20s regularly talk to teenagers about sexuality and gender transition on Trevorspace. Profiles specify whether the user is over or under 18, but there is no procedure to verify whether the user is answering truthfully. Not only is the website specifically for children and adults, but someone of any age can say that they are a minor and have inappropriate conversations with kids.
“Schools’ top priority should be to keep our kids safe. It is outrageous that public school officials would encourage students to engage online with adults to discuss human sexuality,” Cory Brewer, Associate Counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), stated in regard to the revelation.
Brewer’s organization, WILL, has a downloadable letter template online that parents can print and send to their local school boards to share their concerns about TrevorSpace.
The letter states the bottom line of the issue at hand:
Students discussing sexuality with adults, often seeking to eliminate parents entirely from the conversation, raises significant concerns about student safety. This is particularly true because any user, regardless of age, may participate in the chat rooms. Adults can respond directly to children and, in many cases, discuss physical locations and details on how to engage in further private communications.
As a general rule, there is no reason for a school district to advertise for any social media platform, but that is especially true for one, like TrevorSpace, which exists specifically to allow children and adults to “connect.”