The online video-sharing website YouTube can be a cruel place for young people, especially for teenagers who dare to criticize homosexuality.
WND reported in 2009 the story of 12-year-old ChristianU2uber, whose video arguing same-sex marriage is morally wrong resulted in a stream of responses that called him a “fag in denial” and suggested he “kill Christianity, and then kill yourself.”
The response was so vicious, WND reported, that Internet crime specialists in Texas tracked down the boy and his family and persuaded ChristianU2uber to remove the videos and receive counseling.
Now, another teenager, this time a 14-year-old from Ventura County, Calif., named Taylor (last name withheld), has been forced off the site by the cruelty she faced for protesting the admission of transgender boys into the Girl Scouts.
As WND reported, Taylor joined with parents and Scout alumni to call for a boycott of the widely popular Girl Scout cookies after learning the Girl Scouts USA, or GSUSA, has been admitting transgender boys who claim to be girls into scout troops.
Taylor cited in the video GSUSA materials that outline the importance of the Scouts’ all-girl format and expressed concern about 12th-grade boys passing themselves off as girls.
“The real question is, why is GSUSA willing to break their own safety rules and go against its own research institute findings to accommodate transgender boys?” Taylor asks. “Unfortunately, I think it is because GSUSA cares more about promoting the desires of a small handful of people than it does for my safety and the safety of my friends and sister Girl Scouts, and they are doing it with money we earned for them from Girl Scout cookies.”
The video sparked an immediate firestorm of controversy, anger and vicious statements in YouTube’s comments section.
Taylor’s video has since been set to “private” – meaning the video and its comments section are no longer visible to the public – but that hasn’t stopped the backlash.
Taylor promoted an organization of parents and Girl Scout alumni called HonestGirlScouts.com in the video, and the nastiness has followed Taylor’s video to HonestGirlScouts.com’s YouTube channel page:
- “As probably about the zillionth person to say this,” commented a YouTube user with the screenname jimbajim, “but you’re a radicalist, transphobic b—-.”
- A poster named bortgang added, “Educate yourself and open your eyes. Before you decide to be a hate mongerer [sic], at least understand what you preach. Religion is ruining this world we live in.”
- “The person who made the video is just an ignorant, pathetic individual,” wrote bostnic, “who is just repeating the crap she learned from her parents.”
After the video went private, some of Taylor’s detractors celebrated the triumph of their venom: “Very proud actually,” posted ryguy818. “If she made it private, that’s one less place that someone can see it.”
Others grieved: “D—, now I gotta go find another piece of s— to show people why the world is becoming a s—tier place,” lamented NekkidMuddy.
Several of the comments missed out on the irony of calling Taylor a “hatemonger” or “bigot,” including a poster named joycloud, who wrote, “I hope in your life you never have to deal with prejudice and hate like you are encouraging.”