TheQuartering [9/21/2022]
Two major payment processing companies have banned the group Gays Against Groomers from using their systems to receive funds from purchases on the hate group’s website.
For months, along with right-wing troll Chaya Raichik, who runs Libs of TikTok, a Twitter account that calls itself Gays Against Groomers has been engaging in what advocates have said are strategies that amount to a stochastic terror campaign, specifically against transgender people.
Gays Against Groomers founder Jaimee Michell, who identifies as gay, is a political operative with, according to LinkedIn, employment ties to a Florida-based right-wing political outfit called X Strategies.
The company’s cofounder is proud “MAGA Republican” Alex Bruesewitz, who recently spoke at a Trump rally.
At 2:47 a.m. Eastern Tuesday, the Twitter account for the group tweeted, “We have just been BANNED from @Venmo and @PayPal (within minutes of each other) for ‘violating’ their user agreements. We are an organization that consists entirely of gay people whose only mission is to safeguard children from abuse. Woke homophobia is real, folks.”
A spokesperson for PayPal confirmed that the account no longer has access to its services in a statement to The Advocate.
“PayPal’s policy is not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence, or discriminatory intolerance,” the spokesperson wrote. “We base our reviews of accounts on these parameters, taking action when we deem that individuals or organizations have violated this policy.”
PayPal owns Venmo.
In early September, Gays Against Groomers used the name of clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and trans activist Alejandra Caraballo to sell anti-trans merchandise, some of which insinuated that LGBTQ+ people are pedophiles with caches of child pornography.
Caraballo shared a screen shot of the hate account’s tweet and directed an appeal to Twitter’s safety team.
“Despite being permanently suspended 3x and reinstated without explanation,” she began, “Gays Against Groomers is now engaged in harassment against me by using my name as a discount code for tees insinuating illicit material on a computer [because] I’m trans. What are you doing @TwitterSafety?”