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We reached out to First Selectman Fred Camillo last week after reading a rather troubling article about The Trevor Project and the corporate donors who fund it.
The article reminded us that the Greenwich Suicide Postvention Response Team promotes the resources of The Trevor Project to at-risk LGBTQIA youth, and even includes a link to the website on its online brochure.
The website offers young people access to a free online chatroom service called "TrevorSpace". The chatrooms allow adults to communicate directly with minors about sex, gender and pretty much anything you can imagine. No topic is off limits.
TrevorSpace even advertises that it connects adults "up to age 24" with children "as young as 13" to help explore their "identity" and to get advice, find support groups and make friends with these adults.
The National Review spent time cruising the TrevorSpace chatrooms last year and reported shocking discussions:
"In some cases, users under 18 spoke with adult users about sexual preferences, including BDSM and polyamory. In chats reviewed by NR, minors and adults discussed sexual fetishes, including “gokkun” — the act of drinking multiple male ejaculations from a container, “bukkake” — the fetish of being covered with ejaculate, “scat play” — deriving sexual gratification from fantasies involving feces, and “forniphilia” — a form of bondage in which a person’s body is incorporated into furniture for sexual acts."
We confirmed this by going onto the website ourselves.
We were able to register for free with a fake name, a fake email and a birthday that made us appear to be 13 years old.
It took 2 minutes before we were in chatrooms where people were discussing intimate details of transgenderism, the finer points of being a "furry" and so much more. It’s hard to comprehend how a 13-year-old could process this kind of information, especially a 13-year-old that is already in crisis, and presumably on the website because they are seeking help.
Children claiming to be 13-years-old were making posts in the chatrooms like "I am so lonely. I just need someone to talk to in real life. Please private message me" and "let's meet up in person."
This appears to be a perfect set-up for predators — an online chatroom full of confused, lonely children who are desperate to meet up with anyone who will validate them and help them feel loved and accepted.
Over 1,500 users were logged into TrevorSpace at the same time as us, and that was at 9am on a Wednesday morning.
Why is the Town of Greenwich referring at-risk children to a website where they can very easily get preyed upon and taken advantage of by unscrupulous people in chatrooms?
Isn't there a safer, more appropriate resource the town could recommend that doesn't involve BDSM and kink chatrooms or potentially expose LGBTQIA youth in crisis to predators?
We haven’t heard back from First Selectman Camillo, but have been told he tends to view our complaints as a “nuisance”.
Of course, there are real life predators out there who lurk online; this is not a mere “nuisance” complaint.
In fact the Wall Street Journal just published a disturbing article on Saturday about a young teenage social media influencer… whose family discovered "the grim reality for young influencers on Instagram: the followers include large numbers of men who take sexual interest in children…”
So let’s hope Camillo takes our complaint seriously.
The protection of children should be important to everyone, including the First Selectman.
P.S. Greenwich is not the only town in Connecticut that recommends youth to The Trevor Project... many other towns, organizations and schools across the state refer youth to this organization, too. Heck, the Obama White House even awarded the Trevor Project as a "Champion of Change" and advertised TrevorSpace to youth back in 2011.
