If you aren’t a university but you want to pretend to be one, YouTube is certainly a place to make it happen. That has been the standard for PragerU, the fictional creation of right-wing crank Dennis Prager.
On the eve of the #TransDayOfVisibility, the fake entity took to YouTube to offer a monetized piece of material that attacked trans youth and urged parents to reject their own children. YouTube, which claims to be socially responsible, has so far not responded to efforts to take down the video. The monetized effort continues to bring the funds into PragerU as a “nonprofit” effort.
Media Matters breaks a lot of this down:
The video features anti-trans author Abigail Shrier suggesting that young trans people are not actually trans and that parents should reject their trans kids’ gender identities. Shrier is a major player in the crusade against the rights of trans youth and wrote a book misinforming about trans youth called Irreversible Damage. She also recently testified before the Senate against the Equality Act and has made multiple appearances on Fox News to lie about trans people.
The new video with Shrier uses the YouTube Giving program and has earned more than 285,000 views in one day and — alongside other videos in PragerU’s fundraising campaign on the platform — has raised more than $51,000.
The anti-trans tact isn’t new for Republicans, who are using this in statehouse after statehouse at the moment. All of this goes into a broader movement designed to use individuals as political talking points in hopes of encouraging the public to vote out of fear against someone rather than vote for their own interest.
PragerU knows it, and so do Republicans. YouTube, however—a Google-owned company—once had the motto, “Don’t be evil.” Allowing a fundraiser to continue out of hatred on their website? That’s a dance with the devil.
Link to video should you wish to report it is here, but not clicking it denies them revenue. So if you want to report the video without having to see the nonsense, you can ask Google Help and report video ID: F7bMJd_QAXs.