A rural Texas school district in Charlotte, Texas, is being called out for promoting LGBTQ chat rooms on its website.

Charlotte Independent School District’s counseling department featured a separate web page dedicated to mental health resources that promoted LGBTQ ideology and contained links to LGBTQ chat rooms. These chat rooms encouraged students to seek advice from strangers about their gender identity and other issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.

Among the linked chat rooms was Q Chat Space, where teenagers from 13 to 19 years olds can chat with other peers. The conversations are facilitated by staff who work in LGBTQ centers around the United States. According to the site, Q Chat Space is partnered with Planned Parenthood.

Another site promoted was LGBTQ Youth Chatrooms, whose target audience is children who are 19 and younger. According to the website, the company has trained adult moderators to keep things safe and will remove people who are “hateful” from the chat rooms.

Both websites have a quick escape button, which would shut the page down instantly so parents would not see their children engaging with strangers.

Another resource offered was Validation Station, which was created during the COVID-19 lockdowns to provide support to LGBTQ people living with “unsupportive families.” Validation Station is a free texting service— supported by the cloud communications company Vonage—that sends daily gender-affirming text messages to trans and nonbinary youth.

Lastly, Genderspectrum.org was promoted on the web page. The organization describes itself as “committed to the health and well-being of gender-diverse children and teens through education and support for families, and training and guidance for educators, medical and mental health providers, and other professionals.”

After Libs of TikTok published an article about the LGBTQ chat rooms and other resources, Charlotte ISD issued a statement on Facebook:

Parents/Guardians,

 

An article is circulating stating that Charlotte ISD is promoting access to LGBTQ chat rooms and other resources.

 

It has been discovered that a previous employee, who is no longer with Charlotte ISD, posted a link on the Charlotte ISD counselor page to a resource page pertaining to LGBTQ topics and literature. That page is managed and owned by the previous staff member and created that link without notification or authorization.

The links were removed from the counselor website, and CISD is in the process of reviewing and removing all linked pages and resources associated with the previous employee.

Emily Medeiros

Emily graduated from the University of Oklahoma majoring in Journalism. She is excited to use her research and writing skills to report on important issues around Texas.

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