I've had some time to think on this, plus the recent developments in Florida to expand on my thoughts of Killing Butterflies in the wake of the push of school officials to “help” children transgender, let me offer this:
“Grooming” is one of those words where you need to apply context in order to determine if the act has positive or negative aspects. You can be groomed for a political office, groomed to be promoted in your job, or groomed to be abused. Grooming is more than training or teaching. I can train you how to do something, say some kind of management position. Or I can groom you for that position, which means extra work for me to make sure the person being groomed knows exactly what to do (and not to do), along with specific knowledge or skills.
Now let’s put it to the test. Remember when you were 6 years old. You had no experience, no moral compass, and every day you learned something new. You were a sponge, absorbing everything the authority figures in your life (parents, family, teachers, etc.) told you. You absorbed it without too much cogent consideration (remember, you’re still six years away from your pre-frontal cortex really beginning to develop) and took it at face value. “An adult said it, it must be true.”
Every day held new challenges. As you grew, you always felt unbalanced, too small or too big, constantly unsure about everything in your life, especially who you are.
I do oversimplify, and there are always exceptions to the rule here. That being said, trusting good adults is how children grow up and mature into adults who do good things.
Now let me introduce our groomer. The groomer has an agenda, or a personal belief held so deeply no amount of facts will shake their belief.
When a person decides to go on a quest to “help transgender children,” that quest will never end. They will look until they find one (or more) and sometimes what appears to be a borderline case is “close enough.” The appropriateness of this quest will never be questioned, for (as C.S. Lewis put it) "[F]or they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Children and young adults as part of their nature question and try almost everything. Why else would a two-year-olds’ third word (after momma and da-da) is “NO!”? Because they try everything without any concept of it will hurt them or not. We, as the adults have to guide them properly.
When a groomer exploits a child’s questioning about themselves, the unsureness they have about who they are, this is when the groomer swoops in to steer the child to what the groomer wants.
I remember an episode of Diff’rent Strokes (Season 5, “The Bicycle Man” in two parts) where they showed exactly how a child molester works.
The methods for a child molester and a “transgender advocate” are exactly the same. Get the kid interested in something, get them to trust you. Then slowly push the kid further and further in the direction you want them to go until they get there.
When I put it like that, the concept is terrifying, is it not?