Review of: The Projectionist's Playbook: The Modern Political War on Transgender People
An analysis of the "groomer" panic, the psychology of scapegoating, and the staggering hypocrisy of those leading the charge.
Author’s note: This article is summarizes my research paper: The Projectionists’ Playbook: How the Right’s War on Trans Women Reveals Its Own Sins. All references can be found in the original article.
The Projectionist’s Playbook: A Summary
Have you ever noticed that the people who shout the loudest about a specific “sin” are often the ones most guilty of it? This is a classic psychological defense mechanism called projection. It’s the unconscious act of taking your own unacceptable feelings, flaws, or “sins” and attributing them to someone else.
My research argues that the entire modern political war on transgender people — specifically the obsessive, hateful accusation that trans people are “groomers” — is a massive, coordinated act of psychological projection.
This campaign isn’t a random grassroots movement. It’s a cold, calculated playbook. And by examining it, we don’t learn anything about trans people, but we learn everything about the accusers.
The Anatomy of a Modern Witch Hunt
The anti-trans moral panic is the new centerpiece of the right-wing political machine. After suffering a decisive cultural and legal loss on same-sex marriage, the movement needed a new “folk devil” to keep its base energized and afraid. Transgender people — a smaller, less understood minority — became the perfect target.
The central weapon in this new war is the “groomer” libel. This is the baseless, malicious conspiracy theory that equates being transgender (or even being an LGBTQ+ ally) with being a child predator.
Let’s be clear: This is a demonstrable lie. Every credible study on the subject shows that LGBTQ+ people are no more likely to be predators than anyone else. In fact, they are far more likely to be the victims of sexual violence.
So, if it’s not true, why is it so effective? Because it’s a moral panic. It’s an engineered, widespread fear designed to mobilize a political base and justify a sweeping legislative assault on a vulnerable group.
The Projectionists’ Playbook: How the Right’s War on Trans Women Reveals Its Own Sins report argues that this is more than just cynical politics. It is a distorted mirror. The relentless focus on trans women as “perverts” and “dangers to children” is a direct projection of the accusers’ own anxieties, transgressions, and predatory impulses.
The “Groomer” Lie Is a Recycled Product
This accusation isn’t new. It’s one of the oldest, ugliest weapons used to attack queer people. In 1977, Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign was built on the lie that since gay people can’t reproduce, they must “recruit” children. This same trope was used in Nazi Germany and during the “Lavender Scare” in 1950s America.
The modern “groomer” slur is just a rebranded version of this old hate, “laundered” for the digital age. Here’s how the disinformation pipeline worked:
It Started as a Troll: The term “OK groomer” began as a smear campaign on the toxic imageboard 4chan.
It was “Laundered” by Influencers: Right-wing commentators like Matt Walsh and viral outrage accounts like Libs of TikTok picked up this fringe slur and blasted it to millions, framing it as a legitimate concern.
It was “Weaponized” by Politicians: The final step was to make it “official.” During the debate over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Governor Ron DeSantis’s press secretary publicly reframed the law as an “Anti-Grooming Bill” and stated that anyone who opposed it was “probably a groomer.”
With that, a baseless slur born on 4chan became a legitimate justification for state-level policy, all designed to erase trans people from public life under the guise of “protecting children.”
The Psychology of the Accuser
Why do so many people fall for this? The answer lies in the psychology of authoritarianism.
My research draws on the concept of the “authoritarian personality,” a psychological profile characterized by prejudice. These individuals have a deep-seated need for the world to be simple, rigid, and orderly. They think in black-and-white.
Transgender people, by their very existence, challenge this rigid worldview. They prove that gender isn’t a simple binary, which creates a deep, terrifying “gender panic” in the authoritarian mind. It feels like the entire social order is collapsing.
Their response is not to adapt their worldview but to eliminate the source of their anxiety: the trans person.
This is where projection kicks in. To cope with their own internal “unacceptable” thoughts or fears — especially around sex and deviancy — they project those feelings outward. The internal, anxiety-producing thought, “I have these dangerous impulses,” is transformed into the external, blame-attributing accusation, “THEY are the ones who are dangerous.”
They are not just attacking trans people; they are attacking the very ambiguity that trans people represent, an ambiguity that their minds cannot tolerate.
The Accusation in the Mirror: A Catalog of Hypocrisy
The most damning evidence for this theory of projection is the staggering, almost unbelievable hypocrisy of the accusers themselves. The very figures and groups shouting the loudest about “groomers” are consistently found to be embroiled in the exact sins they project onto others.
Case Study 1: Donald Trump. As the leader of this movement, Trump constantly attacks “transgender insanity” to “protect” women and children. This is the same man who has been accused of sexual misconduct by over two dozen women, was found liable in a court of law for sexual abuse (which a judge clarified was, in fact, rape), and was famously caught on tape bragging about his own predatory philosophy: “Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
Case Study 2: Moms for Liberty. This “parental rights” group built its entire brand on fighting the “grooming” of children by banning LGBTQ+ books and topics. The group’s co-founder, Bridget Ziegler — a key champion of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — was then publicly exposed in a sex scandal where her husband (the GOP state chairman) was accused of raping a woman. Ziegler admitted to police that she and her husband had previously been in a consensual three-way sexual relationship with that same accuser.
Case Study 3: The Two Matt Walshes. This is perhaps the most perfect metaphor of all. Commentator Matt Walsh has built his entire career on the accusation that gender-affirming care is “rape,” “child abuse,” and “grooming.” In a case of profound irony, at the very same time, a different man from Maryland, also named Matthew K. Walsh, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the actual grooming and sexual exploitation of over 40 minor boys online.
One Matt Walsh screams about a hypothetical, imaginary “groomer” threat from the trans community. Another man with his exact name was a real-life groomer, committing the very crimes the commentator projects.
This isn’t just a series of coincidences. This is the playbook. Shouting “Groomer!” is a smokescreen. It’s a defensive strategy to deflect scrutiny from their own camp’s behavior by projecting its specific sins onto an external target before they can be exposed.
The Projection Matrix by Grace Ann Hansen
The Human Cost of This Lie
This is not a victimless political game. This rhetoric has a direct, measurable, and devastating human cost.
It Creates Hateful Laws: In 2025 alone, over 1,000 anti-trans bills were introduced in 49 states, all based on this “child protection” lie. These bills ban life-saving medical care, block access to bathrooms, and attempt to legislate trans people out of existence.
It Fuels a Mental Health Crisis: The hateful debate is directly responsible for a catastrophic decline in mental health. The Trevor Project found that nearly 50% of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered suicide in the past year. The same data also proves that acceptance is life-saving: trans youth whose pronouns are respected at home see their suicide attempt rates drop significantly.
It Incites Real-World Violence: When online accounts like Libs of TikTok target a children’s hospital for providing gender-affirming care, that hospital is flooded with bomb threats. When they target a local Pride event, armed extremist groups like the Proud Boys show up to intimidate families. This rhetoric directly contributes to the epidemic of violence against trans people, especially Black and Latina trans women.
The harm is not an unfortunate side effect. It is the direct, foreseeable, and arguably intended outcome of this strategy.
Beyond Hypocrisy
The war on trans people is a masterclass in political cruelty, built on a foundation of profound hypocrisy. It is a playbook that uses a recycled lie, the “groomer” libel, to activate the psychological fears of an authoritarian base.
This campaign is, at its core, a massive act of projection. The accusers are holding up a distorted mirror, railing against a fantasy enemy that is, in truth, a reflection of their own “sins.”
Recognizing this playbook is the first step to dismantling it. This isn’t just a fight for transgender rights. It’s a fight against a political model that needs a scapegoat to survive, a fight for a society that chooses empathy over fear, and a fight for the fundamental truth that a person’s humanity should never be the cost of someone else’s political ambition.
To read the full paper with citations and sources, click here.