What Cajon Valley Board Member Anthony Carnevale Won’t Say

For two years, Anthony Carnevale, a board member at Cajon Valley Elementary School District has railed against what he calls the “groomer cartel.” The supposed cartel is made up, in part, of nonprofit organizations like the YMCA of San Diego County, San Diego Youth Services and GLSEN, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ youth. Representatives of the organizations have denied the claims. 

But even while condemning the organizations, Carnevale has been much less clear about what he thinks they are grooming kids into.  

The subtext of his “groomer cartel,” allegations seem clear in a political environment where conservatives have spun up a moral panic accusing LGBTQ+ advocates of grooming: these organizations are grooming kids into being gay or transgender. That’s what I wrote in a piece Voice of San Diego published last week.  

The next day, however, Carnevale contacted me asking I remove what he called “mind reading,” from the piece. So, I pushed him to tell me exactly what he thought these organizations were grooming kids into and whether he disagreed with what I’d written. After a back and forth, he responded “I do not think what you wrote that I think.” 

OK. Carnevale, unlike much of the conservative movement that’s adopted the term “groomer,” doesn’t believe these organizations are grooming kids into being gay or transgender. So, what does he mean when he levies these serious allegations?  

Over text messages, he shared a portion of Merriam-Webster’s definition of grooming, which reads “to build a trusting relationship with (a minor) in order to exploit them.” Carnevale claims the behavior of the organizations he condemns and their gathering of what he defines as “deeply personal information,” about kids is textbook grooming behavior. Still, he did not make clear the ways in which he believes the organizations means to exploit kids.  

Here’s what he said when I asked: 

“Soliciting donations & private information, calls to action, gathering data on minors through their public schools (like [San Diego Youth Service] universal screening forms and referral cards after showing kids a film they wouldn’t show our board) without informing their parent/guardian, and without going through the lawful curriculum adoption process. Using the data they improperly gather to advocate in various ways for their organization to receive more public & private resources (grants, donations). Using public schools to advertise their services & brick & mortar locations to minors,” Carnevale wrote in a text. 

This response lines up with Carnevale’s laser focus on the parent to child relationship. But it doesn’t really explain what he thinks kids are being groomed into. It also doesn’t jibe with how some of Carnevale’s own supporters have interpreted his “groomer cartel,” talk. For example, in the comments of one of the “coffee chats,” Carnevale hosts with his wife, Ashley Carnevale, one person replied, “Luring children into homosexuality is the name of the game, and always has been.” 

Carnevale has also written things that seem to line up with that thinking. In a Facebook post, Carnevale condemned a bowling event put on by the nonprofit Human Rights Campaign that was attended by two drag queens.  

“The blatant targeting and recruitment efforts of minors into their movement [through] the classroom is disturbing,” Carnevale wrote.  

In one of the coffee chats, Ashley Carnevale floated her own theory about the alleged grooming. During one video, the Carnevale‘s talked about the GLSEN webpage’s “quick exit,” function, which allows people to leave the site by clicking the escape button three times and that the organization was instructing visitors how to delete their browser history. These functions are common features of websites that deal with sensitive topics users may want to keep private, whether young people who may not feel comfortable speaking to parents about their sexuality or individuals dealing with domestic violence. 

“The fact that these adults are teaching kids how to delete search history and delete conversations, that is terrifying to me, and it makes me think they’re grooming them for a sexual trafficking type situation,” Ashley Carnevale said in the video.